Assessing the Impact of Engineering Outreach Frequency on Middle-school Students' Interest in Engineering

Abstract

Studies have shown that science experience outside of school plays a significant role in influencing students' interest in studying science in the future. Similarly, engineering outreach has been shown to be an effective way to positively affect students' interest in the study of engineering. Additionally, it has been reported that students in middle schools are allowed to make limited choices in their course selection. Thus, the middleschool years appear to be a crucial time in which to engage, expose, and broaden their engineering experience. Therefore, each year for the past nine years, the Engineering Division of the college has hosted National Engineers Week activities for middle school students. During their one and one-half hour visit, the middle school students participate in six engineering demonstrations. The goal of the college in conducting National Engineers Week outreach activities is to expose middle school students to engineering through engineering demonstrations so as to increase their interest in studying engineering in the future. A year ago the authors decided to conduct a study to determine both the immediate and the long-term impact of the Engineers Week activities on the participating students' interest in future engineering study. The results of this study show that the short-term impact of the Engineers Week event demonstrated a significantly higher student interest in considering studying engineering immediately after the event as compared to the pre-event interest. The results also indicated that one year and two years after their participation, students' interest in studying engineering in the future had dropped back down to a level that was significantly lower than the immediate post-visit level but still significantly higher than their pre-visit level. However, these long-term results appear to have been influenced somewhat by the additional exposure to engineering that some students had experienced during the one or two year interval after their initial exposure during the National Engineers Week activities. These initial long-term results indicate that maintaining a high interest in engineering study by middle-school students may be affected by the frequency of exposure to engineering during the middle school period. In this paper, the authors discuss the results of this initial study and their plans for future studies to determine the effect of exposure frequency on the long-term student perception of engineering as a course of study in the future.

Impact of Materials Science and Engineering Clubs on Student’s perceptions and aspirations towards STEM

“…The Engineering perception questionnaire has been a useful tool to track student perceptions and goals throughout the academic year and identify trends amongst gender and school level groups. Although data indicate that students bear a positive perception about Engineering and themselves, in agreement with Blandino and Michael [4] and Dika et al [2], we uncovered significant differences in self-perceived levels of STEM knowledge and interest based on gender. Even after the aforementioned sustained effort through the MSE Club intervention that showed significant differences in MSE and Nanotechnology knowledge between pre-and post-measures, findings continue to show male students with higher self-reported interest in Technology and Engineering fields than females [2,3].…”

“…Accordingly, diverse outreach methods have been used to increase interest in STEM areas for pre-college students, underrepresented communities as well as to assess the impact of such activities with respect to perceptions and attitudes towards engineering [3]. The literature reports high-impact one-time activities, such as the celebration of an Engineering Week, with hands-on activities for middle schoolers [4] and although there are some limitations in the process, long term partnerships between universities and K-12 schools has been used [5]. Within such framework, the National Academy of Engineering [3] reported detectable gender differences in teenagers' perceptions with respect to preconception and knowledge about the Engineering profession.…”

“…Within such framework, the National Academy of Engineering [3] reported detectable gender differences in teenagers' perceptions with respect to preconception and knowledge about the Engineering profession. In particular, researchers identified the need to continuously expose middle school students to Engineering-related activities to prevent the decrease in interest and, in particular, among middle school girls before the outreach activities began [4]. Also, the development of didactic material has been a resource created as part of the partnerships between universities and K-12 schools to improve student's Engineering skills, interests and attitudes [5].…”

Future Girls of STEM Summer Camp Pilot: Teaching Girls about Engineering and Leadership Through Hands-On Activities and Mentorship

“…Providing quality community engagement and outreach programming is also vital to increasing female representation in STEM (Blandino and Hardin, 2015;Gooden et al, 2010;Hubelbank et al, 2007). For example, Anderson and Gilbride (2003) showed that girls who participated in outreach programming reported increased interest in pursuing engineering as a career.…”

“…Deckard and Quarfoot (2014) reported that a single-day exposure of young girls to engineering experiences reshaped their understanding of engineering fields. Blandino and Hardin (2015) assessed the short-term impact of an outreach program called "Engineers Week" on middle school students and reported significantly higher interest in engineering after the event. Gooden et al (2010) and McCormick et al (2014) found that follow-up involvement and repeated outreach highly increased female students' interest in engineering fields in the college.…”