Feasibility of Behavior Change Techniques to Increase Parent Involvement in STEM ?with Young Children Experiencing Poverty

Abstract

Broadening participation in early, informal STEM is important for families experiencing poverty. We explored the feasibility of the Teaching Together STEM preschool program for increasing home-based parent involvement and reducing barriers to informal STEM learning with 181 families at schools where 92% of students received free/reduced lunch. The core treatment included family engagement events and text messages; STEM events were delivered at school sites by museum-based informal science educators. We randomly assigned schools to business-as-usual or one of three additive treatment groups to evaluate adult behavior change techniques of adding materials and parent rewards to the core treatment. The primary outcome was parent involvement in STEM. There were no significant impacts of any treatment on home-based parent involvement in STEM; however, the groups that included take-home activity kits along with family education events/resources were the most promising way to get focal parents involved in doing science and math with their young child. Interestingly, the most intensive treatment group that added parent monetary rewards produced short-term improvements in parent involvement that faded at a later follow-up timepoint. We discuss the relative effects of different behavior change techniques and uptake of components, as this has implications for family engagement programs that aim to ensure equity when many parents have competing demands on their time.

Parental Involvement in STEM Education: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Positive effects are also seen in the studies under the theme of "The effect of implementing STEM activities at home" (Gann and Carpenter, 2017;Hightower et al, 2019;Marcus et al, 2021;Mei, 2017;Zucker and Yeomans-Maldonado, 2022). With family involvement technology activities at home Hightower et al (2019) noted positive results, while Burušić et al (2021) stated that they did not contribute significantly.…”

“…Homemade materials can be prepared using nature in STEM education (Mei, 2017). Activities such as home cooking, grocery shopping, outdoor games can support children's science and math knowledge (Zucker and Yeomans-Maldonado, 2022). Christenson (2017) states that ways to solve naturally occurring real-world problems of children like scientists or engineers should be sought, and gives the following example: "Let's say the toast in the toaster is stuck.…”