Project Profile

As the pace of innovation accelerates, the need for technology-rich experiences and pathways to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communications technology (ICT) careers has become increasingly essential. Thus, a critical challenge faced by educators is to develop strategies that provide youth access to high quality STEM and ICT programs, and that motivate them to persist in STEM trajectories. Alarmingly, data suggest that positive STEM attitudes, especially among females and members of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, tend to decline as youth transition from elementary to middle school and again from middle school to high school. Promisingly, informal STEM learning programs are thought to be important vehicles for addressing issues of underrepresentation, declining interest, and for facilitating sustained participation in STEM and ICT trajectories. However, it is largely unknown how and to what extent informal learning programs impact participants’ awareness, interest, and engagement in STEM and ICT majors and careers. To address this knowledge gap, this synthesis project will investigate the impact of informal STEM and ICT programs on the cognitive and social emotional outcomes of youth participants. Importantly, this synthesis study differs from many other quantitative analyses and qualitative syntheses because one of the major goals of this project is to extract program design principles, technology-based innovations, theoretical underpinnings, and best practices from studies that exhibit exemplary evidence of rigorous research design and impact. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in STEM and ICT careers. The goal of this synthesis study is to perform a quantitative meta-analysis and qualitative synthesis of research on youth participants of informal STEM and ICT programs. The project addresses two major research questions: (1) How and to what extent do informal, out-of-school time STEM and ICT learning experiences impact participants’ awareness, interest and engagement in STEM majors and careers? (2) What are the program design principles, technology-based innovations, theoretical underpinnings, and best practices of rigorously designed informal, out-of-school time STEM and ICT programs that exhibit exemplary evidence of impact that can be adopted by STEM practitioners to maximize impact and broaden participation of underrepresented groups? To address the two main research questions, first, the project team will perform a systematic literature review and a quantitative meta-analysis to assess how and to what extent informal STEM and ICT learning experiences impact participants’ awareness, interest, and engagement in STEM majors and careers. Second, the project team will use two validated rubrics to identify studies that exhibit exemplary evidence of research design quality and impact. From these studies, the team will conduct qualitative analyses to identify program design principles, technology-based innovations, theoretical underpinnings, and best practices for adoption by STEM practitioners to maximize impact and broaden participation of underrepresented groups. By focusing on programs with exemplary evidence of impact that specifically target females, underserved populations, and members of historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups, the findings can be used by practitioners to inform program design and practice, and to maximize the impact of underrepresented students. The deliverables of this project will include peer-reviewed publications, webinars, and conference presentations to ensure that the results of this study are disseminated to the science education community. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.