Project TechAscend: Working with Physicists to Develop
Innovative Program: Implications for Social Scientists
Cheryl Bluestone
Queensborough Community College/ CUNY
Introduction and Background: There has been a decline in the number of U.S. citizens who are training to become scientists and engineers. At the same time, the number of jobs requiring science and engineering training is continuing to grow (National Science Foundation, 2004) . Specifically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) forecasts an increasing need for workers in all phases of research and development in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. STEM-related fields such as fiber optics, optics and lasers, mechanical engineering, and technology-based design drafting also offer a range of promising career opportunities at a range of entry levels. In addition, careers related to computer software engineering are projected to be one of the fastest-growing occupations (see for example: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ ). These opportunities are available to individuals with high school diplomas, an associate degree, or a BA/BS with the requisite skills.
It is important to recognize that several of the STEM-related fields we have mentioned require highly skilled workers – even at entry level positions (Bresnahan, Brynjolfsson, & Hitt, 2002). Thus, it is crucial to intervene at the high school level (or earlier!!) to make students aware of the promising career opportunities they might want to consider so they may take advantage of the kind of training that is necessary. Community colleges play a particularly important role in training entry level STEM professionals (e.g., technicians). In addition, community colleges play an essential role in preparing students for admission into STEM related fields in BA/BS level programs and beyond (Bieber, Engelberg, & Marchese, 2005).
With their expertise in lasers, fiber-optics and other related fields, physics and mechanical design drafting faculty members at Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York (QCC), were ideally situated to provide to expand the scope of their primary mission of educating college students to introduce high school students to careers in photonics and photonics-related fields. Photonics involves science related to the properties of light. It is particularly important in modern telecommunications (such as cell phone technology and high-speed internet) as well as to applications in a wide range of other fields ranging from the music industry to robotics, and high tech medical applications (e.g., surgery, vision correction, endoscopy etc.).
The main objective of TechAscend was to expand the range of knowledge about and attitudes toward these new technologies among the youth who attended the program. An additional goal was to impact students’ decisions about career choices, by providing information to enable them to consider direct entry into such jobs or into programs for further training in STEM or STEM-related fields at a level appropriate to their skills and interests.
TechAscend served approximately 200 different high school student from about 22 schools over the 3 years the project ran (from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2005). Seven different ‘groupings’ of participants attended for approximately 30 two-hour sessions.
The program began with an in-depth introduction to the wide range of career opportunities related to photonics (and other STEM-related careers), including fields that might be of particular interest to youth. In this phase, we also provided students with information to enable them to follow up on such career interests if they were so inclined.1.
Next, students began the workshop/activity portion of the program. Activity based sessions consisted of hands-on learning experiences and problems related to optics, lasers, fiber optics, computer numerically controlled machining (CNC), and computer aided design (CAD). An important element of the TechAscend project was to introduce students to several basic skills for entering technical fields (such as cleaving and connecting fiber optic cable). These fundamental skills are the building blocks for further learning in STEM fields which require higher educational degrees at the BS level and beyond. At the same time, it should be noted that a unique aspect of the program was that the students had an opportunity to work with very high tech equipment while they were supervised by physics faculty. Such equipment is typically not available in high schools or other informal after-school settings.
The program also offered students workshops related to technical applications of math as well as optional mathematics anxiety reduction workshops. A key element of the successes of the program was the fact that the program was collaboratively developed and informed by theories from social science fields such as education and psychology.
Overview of the project/Pedagogical theories and science learning: There has been a revolution (albeit not without some controversy) about the best methods to teach science in order to engage students. Many of these ideas have emerged from social science fields such as education and psychology. It is beyond the scope of the current paper to address these issues in depth. There is, however some agreement that what is important in science learning is not the rote memorization of facts, but rather the development of meaningful and flexible knowledge and skills that will enable students to transfer what they have learned in order to solve new problems. This approach is often informally referred to as the “less is more” approach to learning, where instructors cover fewer content areas in order to help students develop more expertise and depth in their understanding of each topic (Laws, 1991).
Program Examples/Applications of knowledge to different contexts: One of the major content areas covered was information about how light is reflected and refracted as well as how lenses can be used to form images. The material on optics was presented interactively2 to students. This provided them with the conceptual and experiential background that was necessary to develop a framework to organize their knowledge and make it meaningful. Yet another aspect of making knowledge meaningful is to provide learning experiences in which students are asked to apply their knowledge to problem solving in a variety of contexts (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Laws, 1991) . In the unit on optics, students first applied what they had learned by working in groups to build a telescope. They were then asked to expand their application of these principles to generate a laser beam. Later activities stretched students’ working knowledge further by engaging them in a project where they created a hologram.
Transfer of Learning: A great deal has been written about methods that promote the transfer of learning to new concepts and problems. Once again, there is a great deal we don’t know. On the other hand, we agree that students are more likely to have a richer and deeper understanding of difficult concepts when they learn with understanding. Moreover, transfer of knowledge is more likely if students learn information not in isolation, but in relation to “function.” What exactly does it mean to learn with understanding —or to learn structure in relation to function? As noted above, students need to understand what they are learning within the context of a conceptual framework. Additionally, instructors must provide activities to “facilitate application.” Concretely, this means that students are likely to gain more from struggling with how to determine the features that are useful in solving a problem, rather than from receiving direct instruction on such rules. In the process of figuring out the “rules for why,” students will deepen and more fully incorporate these rules in their understanding (Bransford et al., 2000).
Faculty at TechAscend made use of these principles in developing a series of collaborative projects which required students to use their understanding about the properties of light and lasers to align laser beams. Aligning laser beams begins as a fundamental skill that increases in complexity-- depending on the particular task. Nevertheless, it requires precise knowledge in all real-life uses of lasers. Following their introduction to the basic concepts about lenses and light as described above, students were then asked to work collaboratively to align a laser so that it would go through two sets of pinholes in two pieces of metal, each with one hole drilled in the top and one in the bottom. Students were required to align the laser only by moving mirrors – without moving the laser itself. For the first step of this task, students were asked to align the laser beam to go though one pinhole on the top of the first piece and then to direct the beam through the bottom pinhole of the second. Once they were able to solve the first problem, they were asked to figure out how to make the laser go though the bottom of one board and the top of another. In this manner, students were asked to solve this problem in all 4 possible combinations. To successfully complete the projects, students had to identify the “rules for why.”
This approach to elaborating on students’ knowledge “supported thinking about (various) alternatives…. “that would not be available to them if they had only memorized information…” about how to align a laser (e.g., see Bransford, et al., 2000 p. 9 for related examples).
Pedagogical Approaches that Encourage Engagement:
TechAscend also incorporated theoretical approaches to teaching science that have been identified as potentially encouraging females and other under-represented groups to consider entry into the sciences. For example, proponents of the “connected learning” framework propose that women and several ethnic and cultural minorities may feel disempowered by “separate learning” methods that traditionally characterize science and technology courses. Separate learning emphasizes abstract analysis, “objective” observation, and mastery of isolated facts. Connected teaching proponents argue that many students need a sense of being able to relate to the material as it applies to their own experience in some way – thus countering their feelings of disempowerment (Belenky, Tarule, Goldberger, & Clinchy, 1997; Brownlow, Jacobi, & Rogers, 2000; Leslie, McClure, & Oaxaca, 1998).
Certainly developing a rich knowledge base along with expertise are both important components of success in science and technology learning—as well as in other areas of learning (Bransford et al., 2000). At the same time, program staff attempted to develop such expertise while incorporating sensitivity to a more “connected” approach. For example, when introducing the laser skills needed for labeling chips, the project included a component where the activity was focused on teaching students to write their initials on a piece of jewelry they had constructed. The skills needed to accomplish this task are important basic skills for future photonics workers, yet they include sensitivity to more inclusive learning preferences.
Mastery and Self-Efficacy: Projects at TechAscend were not graded or evaluative in any way. Rather all projects were taught to “mastery.” Our goal of teaching to mastery emerged, at least in part, to be consistent with research that demonstrates that mastery experiences are key factors in promoting cognitive and motivational styles that encourage persistence to solve new challenges (Bransford et al., 2000).
Such mastery experiences are also important as they may impact self-efficacy beliefs. Self-efficacy can be understood as a system of beliefs in one’s ability to take actions that will effectively solve problems (Pajares, 1996). Realistic efficacy beliefs are important predictors of student achievement, as they serve to determine the degree of effort and perseverance students will devote to problem solving. Both global and specific ratings of self efficacy may be important mediators of student learning and achievement (Baldwin, Ebert-May, & Dennis, 1999). Our evaluation plan included the development and monitoring of specific self-efficacy measures as relevant to targeted content/skill areas.
To influence self-efficacy beliefs, long term interventions have generally been found to be more effective than time-limited short-term programs (e.g., see Dawes, Horan, & Hackett, 2000). Thus we proposed a full academic year program for each cohort would be most beneficial for achieving long term impact.
We also made use of modified measures of mathematics anxiety and self-efficacy because we recognize that ultimately some (relatively) sophisticated mathematics skills are essential to success in many of the technology fields. Moreover, there is a complex relationship between math self-efficacy and math anxiety, and we hoped to examine those beliefs as they might relate to further understanding of factors that promote engagement with and comfort in science learning.
Preliminary Results and Implications:
Prior to discussing the results obtained, we should note that we believe that the available statistical information does not fully convey the richness of the experience for the participants who attended Project TechAscend. First, several practical issues in running an after-school enrichment program (discussed below) meant that students were unable to attend as regularly as we had hoped. This meant that they were not always available to respond to evaluation tools. Also, since the high school students who attended were primarily under the age of 18, there were human subjects’ restrictions that applied to the evaluation of the program. These restrictions also may have influenced the data collection process. Given these factors, we should note that the results presented in this paper describe findings for a relatively small subset of the participants who attended.
We begin by presenting selected findings which may inform our understanding of developing collaborative relationships between social scientists and scientists from other disciplines to engage in curricular reform and interdisciplinary research.
Student Responses to the Program
As noted, prior research suggests that the barriers to greater involvement in STEM careers for underrepresented minority groups and women are strongly related to factors such as beliefs about their competence in these areas (Lent et al., 2005; Scott & Mallinckrodt, 2006) . Since this was an informal program, all skills were taught to mastery. Thus a key component of the evaluation focused on participants’ perceptions of how much they learned from their participation. To evaluate this we frequently administered specific forms of the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG). (See http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/salgains/instructor/ for the link that provides a sample template that can be modified as described below).
The SALG is a template type measure, developed in part with the assistance of the National Science Foundation. The template allows the evaluator to change the questions to be specific to the tasks and skills being evaluated. For the sake of brevity, we will not present total scores for each of the SALG measures. Rather, we will focus on individual items which may contribute our understanding of students’ overall responses to the project. The results reported come from a final SALG measure, administered at the end of the program year in 2005 to determine participants’ perceptions of how much they gained from the program overall.
For the final SALG3, 80% of the respondents were male and 20% were female. To indicate the diversity of participants responding, about 15% self identified as African-American, 20% as Asian-American, 20% as Hispanic, one as Native American, and the remaining 35% self identified as “other.” Scoring for responses to the SALG content units were on a Likert scale. In this case a “5” was equivalent to “not at all” and “1” was equivalent to “a great deal” with gradations in between. On the final SALG, the mean score describing how much participants felt they gained from the program overall was 1.74 (s.d. .57). Simply put, most participants felt that they gained a great deal from attending the program.
Looking briefly at participants’ responses to several specific domains of interest, we found that 90% of the participants reported learning a good deal from having the opportunity to work with high tech equipment. Similarly, 85% reported positive experiences working with holograms. Participants’ experiences operating a laser were more variable with 40% reporting they learned “a great deal,” while 32% reported that they learned only a little. Over 60% of the participants felt they benefited from working with AutoCAD, but almost 40% found this task more difficult and reported that they only learned a little from this experience. Students had only about five sessions with AutoCAD software, so these data may reflect the students’ awareness that without more extensive training, there was in fact not much they could do with the software. On the other hand, some participants reported that they already had experience with a simpler version of this software. This may explain the divide between those students who felt they learned a great deal and those who did not.
Participants’ evaluations of their CNC machining lab experience, however, were more positive. Approximately 88% of the respondents highly rated what they learned from the CNC lab experience (e.g. as a “1” or a “2”).
Finally, about sixty-eight percent of the participants responding to the final SALG reported that having a chance to attend the workshops made them aware of new career options. This is important since raising their awareness was one of our clear objectives. Moreover, those who were not made aware of new careers through attending the program stated they chose to attend because they already were aware of career opportunities in these fields and wanted to strengthen their exposure to skills that would enable them to pursue careers in these areas.
One of the problems we have briefly alluded to was that many students were unable to attend the program for the full year. While the process of administering the program provided us with anecdotal evidence as to why this was the case, the final SALG data provided some data about factors that interfered with students’ attendance. These data show that students were unable to attend for a variety of reasons that are likely typical of the realities of high school students’ lives. For example, several students reported that mid-semester changes in school schedules made attendance impossible. For several students, other school commitments such as team practices or ROTC obligations made it difficult for them to attend regularly. For still others, responses indicated that work and family obligations were a factor in any missed sessions. At the same time, it is important to note that no student indicated s/he did not attend because of a negative response (e.g., it was boring) to the program or a feeling that it lacked value4.
Self-efficacy findings: Of particular interest and importance were the self-efficacy results. Note that self-efficacy measures are most useful when they are specific to the content area being assessed. As noted, separate pre-and post -self-efficacy measures were developed by the author in consultation with the content area instructor prior to the initiation of the program. Due to the short duration of the program and small sample sizes, we did not anticipate statistically significant findings. Nevertheless, the results provided some interesting insights.
First, reliability for each of these assessment tools, (using coefficient alpha) were good. For the pre- and post-intervention fiber optics scale, coefficient alpha was .97 and .95 respectively. First, participants were introduced to fiber optics materials and test equipment. Prior to exposure to the unit, we asked the participants to rate their confidence in their ability to learn the skills. Once the unit was completed we administered post-self-efficacy measures. Scores could range from 1 (no confidence) to 100 (absolutely confident). For this unit the mean pre-intervention score for the 40 males who completed the survey was 74.34 (s.d, 19). The mean pre-intervention score for the 15 females who responded was 60.80 (s.d. 26). At post-intervention, the mean score for males was 79.47 (s.d. 12), while the females mean score was 79.67 (s.d.17). Though these data are limited by the fact that fewer participants completed post –intervention than pre-intervention measures, it is notable that females initially lacked confidence in their ability to master these skills, yet after exposure to the program, their level of confidence was very similar to that of the males. We were unable to administer pre-self-efficacy measures for the lasers and light unit, but the post intervention scores for males and females were virtually identical (79.47, s.d. 12.20 for males; 79.67, s.d. 17.00 for females) although there was more variability among the females.
Math Anxiety and Math Self- Efficacy
Reliability of the math anxiety measure was acceptable (r=.81) Again, the Math Anxiety measures were administered to the participants early in the program and again during the last weeks of the program. The math anxiety measure consisted of two separate subscales. Three questions ask participants to rate their mathematics ability compared to others. Higher total scores on these 3 Likert-style questions (to a maximum of 21) represent higher conceptions of one’s ability. Note that scores on the 20 questions that followed were scored so that lower scores represent higher mathematics anxiety. Initially, on the three-item measure the mean score was 13.46 (S.D.: 3.92); post intervention scores were 11.29 (S.D. 4.84), indicating that they rated themselves lower than other students after the math and math anxiety workshops. Participants’ scores on items 1-20 went from 85.51 (S.D, 17.12) to 61.43 (S.D.= 20.72)---also reflecting that math anxiety seemed to increase.
At the same time, mean scores on the math self-efficacy measure went up after exposure to the project. As noted earlier, self-efficacy is a system of beliefs in one’s ability to take actions that will effectively solve problems. Mathematics self-efficacy has been found to be more predictive of career and college major choices than other factors such as prior math achievement (Pajares, 2004). Scores on individual math self-efficacy items could range from 1 to 100, and all items were totaled to form a total score. Total scores went from a mean of 152.20(S.D. 30.01) to 180.44 (S.D. =12.71). Reliability for the mathematics pre- and post-intervention self-efficacy measures were .93 and .89 respectively.
While these results are at first puzzling, they can be understood in the context of realistic expectations. Many of the participants who attended TechAscend were the stronger students recruited primarily from “inner-city” high schools. Given their relative standing in their local high schools, students attending the program may not have been fully aware of the level of difficulty of the mathematics that is required for STEM-related activities. It is possible that the workshops and exposure to the training may have provided the students with more realistic assessments of their mathematical skills, while also increasing their confidence (as measured by self-efficacy beliefs) to believe they could learn the mathematics skills that are necessary for success in these fields. When viewed from this perspective, the program achieved an important objective. That is, the activities and application based mathematics workshops may have helped to make participants aware of the persistence and level of work required to succeed in many STEM fields, while providing them with the tools they believe will enable them to do so.
Results of Follow up Calls to Participants: Following completion of the project in the spring of 2005, Graduate Research Assistants began to make follow up calls to a subset of the students who had attended the program for a follow-up survey. Our goal was to keep the interview brief, but to address some key issues relative to the program goals and objectives. Thus, we limited our interview to asking the students to rate their experiences in specific content areas. We also asked them to describe any factors that influenced their ability to attend the program. The majority of students that attended the program when they were high school seniors, so when we began to make “follow-up” calls the following year we found it difficult to reach many of them as they were away at college or in the armed services.5
We were able to reach approximately 35 students, who completed all or part of the phone delivered survey. The results of these survey responses revealed that upon reflecting on their experiences, students had extremely positive responses to the program. For example, over 90% rated that they learned a good or a great deal from their work on lasers, lights and holograms. A slightly lower percentage of students provided similar ratings of their experiences attending the math and AutoCad workshops (81 and 78 percent respectively). Ninety-one percent of the participants reported that they benefited a good deal or a great deal from attending the program overall. Finally, approximately 54% of the participants we reached reported they were pursuing careers in a STEM related fields-- either in the military, or in civilian life.
The results of follow up calls also confirm our initial data about reasons for the problems we faced with student attendance. Ultimately, 97% of the students reported the reasons we cited earlier for missing sessions (e.g., changes in work obligations or school and family obligations; conflicting after-school commitments; transportation issues).
Initial Conclusions and Implications:
The process of running the program along with the results of our evaluation taught project staff many practical lessons that have implications for social scientists. Despite areas of success we will describe, there were areas of disappointment. Moreover, as noted, we lack some of the data to fully evaluate the programs strengths and limitations.
As far as lessons learned, TechAscend was developed based on prior research that suggests that relatively short interventions may not have a long term effect on science persistence (Jayaratne, Thomas, & Trautmann, 2003). Although research suggests that long term exposure is preferable to short term exposure when attempting to introduce changes in cognitive and affective beliefs about STEM fields, the realities of the lives of urban high school programs presented problems for delivery of a full year program.
Bringing high school students to the college campus was valuable and, indeed, necessary since that is where the equipment was. Based on student responses, it appears that the experiences in working with the high tech equipment were of importance to students. TechAscend was developed in conjunction with an advisory board which consisted of several department chairpersons from participating high schools. Despite this, we did not foresee the practical issues that might make attendance at a full year program problematic.
Based on our experiences, we believe it may be more realistic to offer concurrent 8-week units for each content area. While some students might only attend for one 8-week session, some could be encouraged to attend multiple content area units based on their interests and the realities of their work and scheduling conflicts. Including an “orientation” session and a final meeting for discussion and evaluation for each content area would likely improve the data collection process.
Compared to our expectations, fewer females attended the program regularly and responded to the surveys. Nevertheless, the program was successful in attracting and retaining females. The available data also suggests that the program was successful in influencing self-efficacy beliefs for females –particularly in the unit on fiber optics. Moreover, the available data suggest that participation in the TechAscend mastery-oriented activities as well as the hands-on application-based mathematics workshops may have contributed to positive and realistic changes in participants’ confidence in their ability to learn high-level mathematics.
Overall, the extant data reveals that Project TechAscend was able to reach an ethnically and culturally diverse group of students, largely from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Most students who attended the program reported positive feelings about their exposure to the high tech equipment that was an essential component of the program. Moreover, most participants who attended regularly felt they gained a good deal of knowledge about new STEM fields and career possibilities and gained skills that could enable them to work in STEM careers.
Specific Implications for the Professional Development of Social Scientists:
As social scientists, what can these data and experiences tell us about working collaboratively in the sciences? First, and foremost, many social scientists are not aware of the range of opportunities to work collaboratively with colleagues in a range of science fields to develop funding opportunities for curricular innovation and funded research projects. As social scientists, our expertise in areas such as gender and learning, new pedagogical approaches, memory and learning, and cultural diversity (to name a few areas) provides valuable resources in building programs and research projects with our colleagues in the so-called hard sciences.
We have already mentioned programmatic and design issues that may be important to be aware of in forging interdisciplinary relationships to develop similar programs. At the same time, there is another important issue that must be addressed if we are to fully examine the potential for social scientists to work collaboratively on such endeavors. This has to do with our involvement with and awareness of policies in human subjects’ protection. To illustrate, our evaluation had to be approved each year by the host college’s Institutional Research Board (IRB). Since the students attending the program were almost exclusively minors, the researchers were required to demonstrate that the benefits of the evaluation process would outweigh any possible harm. TechAscend evaluation tools required no physically invasive procedures and the items in the questionnaires focused exclusively on students’ responses to the program and their beliefs about aspects of learning. Nevertheless, because of the age of the participants, a full IRB review was required. The process of developing the evaluation tools and dealing with human subjects requirements in order to assess the strengths and weakness of the project served as a learning process for all involved in the project. Though a full discussion of these issues is well beyond the scope of this paper, they do merit some discussion as far as implications for social scientists.
It is important to remember that the guidelines for human subjects’ protections were developed as a process to face the real issue of how to protect researchparticipants6. Despite the inclusion of social science research and program evaluation within the scope of IRB purview, the process and the guidelines developed were modeled primarily on a medical research paradigm7.
All projects that contain “interactions” with individuals under the age of 18 are considered dealings with children. Children (along with pregnant women and prisoners among others) are dealt with more cautiously as they constitute a vulnerable population. IRBs must follow these guidelines in overseeing research.
While this guideline makes sense under a wide variety of contexts, it is interpreted universally for any survey research – including program evaluation8. Social scientists should also be aware that evaluations of programs are considered “research” if the intent is to “contribute to the generalizable knowledge.” Dissemination of findings is almost always a requirement for funding because whatever is learned from the funded project may be useful in developing new programs to reach a broader segment of the population.9 Thus, program evaluation tools—even those surveying relatively low risk topics such as students’ views of how much they learned from exposure to a particular pedagogic approach--- are subject to full review with few exceptions (Pritchard, 2001).
Some would argue that this interpretation, along with other policies related to current Human Subjects protections may be misguided. That is, current regulations focus too broadly on relatively low risk projects“…taking needed resources from the most risky research...” which require full oversight (The Center for Advanced Studies, 2005).
As relevant to lessons learned from the TechAscend Project, such policies may have contributed to some of the practical problems we faced in evaluating the program. Indeed, the IRB required evaluation staff to put a specific statement on the top of each measure we administered to students. The statement informed students that they did not need to fill out the measure if they did not choose to for any reason. We also were required to note that students should feel comfortable to skip any question they did not choose to answer. This is in line with the current view that we must take extra care to protect children ---who are considered, and in fact are, a more “vulnerable” population--when it comes to research. Yet this interpretation with regard to evaluating programs has implications that are of importance to social scientists. We do not have empirical data to document the extent to which this policy affected participation rates. (Indeed we would need IRB approval to collect such data!). However, there is some evidence that over cautious interpretations of OHRP policies may lead to low participation rates.(Hamburger, 2005)
As social scientists we have a responsibility to be familiar with human subject protection regulations. Moreover, we have an ethical obligation to ensure that all of our projects (whether they involve formal research or program evaluation) are in line with policies that protect our participants’ well-being. At the same time, there are arguments from a variety of fields that IRB regulations have developed a “life of its own,” and the result is what some call “mission creep” (Center for Advanced Study, 2005).
In this way, one of the implications for social scientists is related to how we-- as a body-- may want to play a role in a re-examining of current interpretations to be more relevant to the protection of human subjects in social science investigations and program evaluations. (See the Illinois White Paper as cited below, for a series of specific recommendations that may be relevant for social scientists to consider.)
Conclusions- Roles for Social Scientists
Despite the caveats noted, an examination of the process of developing, implementing, and evaluating Project TechAscend has revealed many important lessons and implications for social scientists. As a group, we have much to contribute. Social scientists are in a unique position to use their expertise regarding effective pedagogical approaches to work with colleagues in the “hard sciences” to establish funded programs and joint efforts to increase students’ engagement with and interest in science and mathematics learning. Such joint ventures may also serve to make students aware of, and interested in career opportunities in such fields. In this way, social scientists may contribute to our nation’s need for a population that is well educated about technological advances and the basic role of science in order “… to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare and …” to keep our nation secure (National Science Foundation, 2006) .
Acknowledgment
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DUE 0206101.
Disclaimer
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Science Foundation.
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- Program staff members were available for such guidance throughout the program.
- All “lessons” made use of informal educational approaches, stressing activity based learning. A special set of lab manuals was developed for the project.
- For the final year of the program.
- Surveys were not administered by program staff but by the social science evaluation team. This (we hope) added to the honesty of students’ reports.
- We worked closely with several high schools that had active ROTC programs; a large subset of our attendees had interests in developing photonics skills in conjunction with developing a military career.
- The process of developing ethical guidelines for research with human subjects began in response to particularly onerous ethical violations of basic human rights as illustrated by examples such as those undertaken by the Nazis on concentration camp victims, the Tuskegee Syphilis study and others (see http://www.stanford.edu/dept/DoR/hs/History/his01.html for one example of a brief overview of the history of ethical violations in research). At the same time, there are also examples of social and behavioral investigations which had controversial aspects that—to at least some observers—exposed participants to some risks and/or actual psychological harm (e.g., the Milgram “Obedience Studies,” or the so-called “Tearoom Sex Studies”).
- You may refer to http://www.law.uiuc.edu/conferences/whitepaper/papers/SSRN-id902995.pdf and Hamburger (2005) for a more complete discussion of these issues.
- Although completely anonymous benign “research” may exempt some program evaluations or research persons under 18 from a full review.
- Most often this requirement is part of funding from federal funding sources such as the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health (etc). The extent to which private funding sources require some dissemination of program evaluation and/or research findings does vary.
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