Determining the Efficacy of a K-12 and Higher Education Partnership (Evaluation)

Abstract

Engineering students and professionals in the United States do not reflect the country's demographics. Women and minority students remain largely underrepresented. To help diversify the STEM pipeline, it is essential students are exposed to and engaged in STEM active learning experiences in K-12. This is especially effective when post-secondary institutions partner with K-12 schools. Establishing the partnership can be challenging as the institutions must have congruous objectives, determine who is responsible for what, and define success similarly. To address this set of issues, a program partnership rubric was designed. The rubric was then used to plan and evaluate four piloted STEM program collaborations between the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) and the Advanced Math and Science Academy (AMSA) charter school.The four programs included an AMSA-exclusive STEM open house at UML, as well as three engineering summer camps, one for middle school students, and two for high school students. UML's overarching objective was to increase the number of underrepresented students from AMSA who showed interest in and applied to STEM fields at UML. AMSA wanted to provide access to hands-on STEM activities and/or representative role models for AMSA students from traditionally underrepresented populations. The programs succeeded in varying degrees at meeting stated objectives. The open house led to the most scalable model that UML has now adopted with several school districts. The other programs will continue if grant funds continue to be sourced. The success of these programs in meeting their objectives demonstrates how vital it is to jointly consider three factors: Results (learner outcomes), Reproducibility (adequacy of resources), and Representation (diverse and inclusive staffing and student participation). The program partnership rubric was developed to help partnerships plan and evaluate their programs based on these three factors. How the rubric was used to plan these pilot programs and determine how and/or whether to run them again is explained.