Improving Middle-School Girls’ Knowledge, Self-Efficacy, and Interests in ‘Sustainable Construction Engineering’ through a STEAM ACTIVATED! program

Andrea Nana Ofori-Boadu

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Conference: 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Publication Date: June 23, 2018
Start Date: June 23, 2018
End Date: July 27, 2018
Conference Session: Women in Engineering Technical Session
Tagged Division: Women in Engineering
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 21
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--30631
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/30631
Download Count: 723

Paper Authors

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Andrea Nana Ofori-Boadu North Carolina A&T State University orcid.org/0000-0001-6401-1399

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Dr. Ofori-Boadu is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Built Environment at North Carolina A & T State University. Her research interests are in bio-modified cements, sustainable development, and STEM education. Dr. Ofori-Boadu has served in various capacities on research and service projects, including Principal Investigator for two most recent grants from the Engineering Information Foundation (EIF) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Andrea has various levels of affiliations with the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), Association of Technology Management and Applied Engineering (ATMAE), the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC), the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), American Society of Professional Estimators (ASPE), and the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI). Furthermore, Dr. Ofori-Boadu serves on several departmental, college, university, and industry committees. She has also served as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (JCEM), American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), American Society of Engineering Management (ASEM), and the Association of Technology Management and Applied Engineering (ATMAE).
In 2017, Dr. Ofori-Boadu received both the College of Science and Technology (CoST) Rookie Research Excellence Award and the North Carolina A & T State University (NCAT) Rookie Research Excellence Award. She also received the Teaching Excellence Award for the Department of Built Environment. Under her mentorship, Dr. Ofori-Boadu’s students have presented 10 research posters at various NCAT Undergraduate Research Symposia resulting in her receiving a 2017 Certificate of Recognition for Undergraduate Research Mentoring. She was also selected as a 2018 National Science Foundation - NC A & T ADVANCE IT Faculty Scholar. She has received $170,000 to support her teaching, research, and outreach projects. Overall, Dr. Ofori-Boadu’s research work has resulted in 1 book publication, 12 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 5 conference proceedings, 3 manuscripts under conditional acceptance, 4 accepted abstracts, 29 presentations at national conferences, and 27 poster sessions. In 2016, her paper to the Built Environment Project and Asset Management journal was recognized as the 2016 Highly Commended Paper. In 2015, Dr. Ofori-Boadu established her STEM ACTIVATED! program for middle-school girls in Guilford county. She has also worked with the STEM of the Triad home-schooled children at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2017, Dr. Ofori-Boadu established the REAL Professional Development Network for developing the leadership, networking, and other soft skills of undergraduate students at NCAT. She is married to Victor Ofori-Boadu and they are blessed with three wonderful children.

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Abstract

Universities provide informal educational opportunities to cultivate girls’ STEM interests and identities in an effort to increase female representation in STEM careers. Incorporating ARTs into STEM, the STEAM ACTIVATED! program was implemented to increase the ‘Sustainable Construction Engineering’ knowledge, interests, and self-efficacy of 31 middle-school girls. Self-efficacy is having a ‘can-do’ attitude that increases coping behavior, identity formation, and persistence. Following the Bandura model for improving self-efficacy, the 5-day program engaged girls in: (1) Mastery experiences through hands-on ‘Construction Engineering’ projects, dance, and field trip; (2) Vicarious experiences through teamwork, peer mentoring, competitions, and oral presentations; (3) Verbal persuasion through coaching, instruction, story-telling, and peer mentoring; and (4) Physiological states through reflections, I-CAN statements, power poses, and fine and performing art. Data analysis of pre and post-tests, pre and post self-reporting 5-point Likert scale surveys, focus group sessions, and reflection sheets showed that this program had been effective. The 91% increase in Sustainable Construction Engineering knowledge, 7.41% increase in self-efficacy, and 7.35% increase in STEM attitudes were all statistically significant (p<0.01). The girls’ strongest sources of self-efficacy were from observing peers (vicarious experiences), encouragement from parents (verbal persuasion), positive attitudes from fine and performing arts (physiological states), and continuous improvement and completion of projects (mastery experiences). While 16.13% of the girls provided no responses, most of the other girls demonstrated strong Arts identities with focus on: dance (32.26%), drawing (22.58%), singing (19.35%), music (6.45%), and baking (3.23%). The girls loved the opportunity to integrate their personal and group preferred arts into their STEM projects. At the end of the program, the girls were classified into four STEAM groups based on combinations of their STEM and Arts attitudes: 1) High STEM/High Arts attitude (83.87%); 2) High STEM/Low Arts (6.45%); 3) Low STEM/High Arts (6.45%); and Low STEM/Low Arts (3.23%). Overall, 90.32% of the girls expressed positive feelings towards the Arts-infused STEM projects; while 87% demonstrated some interest in dance-infused STEM learning. During their glue stick project oral presentation, one team developed a dance and used body movements to demonstrate tension, compression, shear, bending, and torsion. A strong overall mean rating (x̅ = 4.20) was obtained for learning experiences at the Dance Studio as the girls strongly agreed that the dance movements increased their understanding of engineering concepts such as tension, bending, surface areas, center of gravity, three-dimension, and foundations. The STEAM ACTIVATED! program increased the percentage of girls interested in engineering careers from 42% to 61.29%. Formation of engineering identities (EI) was estimated by combining girls’ STEM attitude (SA) scores with engineering career interest (ECI) scores; and grouping girls into four EI groups. The following percent changes in the populations of the four EI groups before and after the program indicated positive program impacts on girls’ EI: Group 1 – Strong SA and strong ECI (+19.35%); Group 2 – Strong SA and weak ECI (-9.68%); Group 3 – Weak SA and strong ECI (0%); Group 4 – Weak SA and Weak ECI (-9.68%). Forty-eight percent (48%) of these girls have already submitted applications for the follow up STEAM ACTIVATED! program funded through a recent Engineering Information Foundation grant. Best practices, lessons learned, and outcomes of this innovative and effective program for improving STEM self-efficacy, career interests, and engineering identities are discussed. Insights will be valuable to educators and researchers committed to increasing female representation in STEM careers.

Citation
Format

Ofori-Boadu, A. N. (2018, June), Improving Middle-School Girls’ Knowledge, Self-Efficacy, and Interests in ‘Sustainable Construction Engineering’ through a STEAM ACTIVATED! program Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30631

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - 
Universities provide informal educational opportunities to cultivate girls’ STEM interests and identities in an effort to increase female representation in STEM careers. Incorporating ARTs into STEM, the STEAM ACTIVATED! program was implemented to increase the ‘Sustainable Construction Engineering’ knowledge, interests, and self-efficacy of 31 middle-school girls. Self-efficacy is having a ‘can-do’ attitude that increases coping behavior, identity formation, and persistence. Following the Bandura model for improving self-efficacy, the 5-day program engaged girls in: (1) Mastery experiences through hands-on ‘Construction Engineering’ projects, dance, and field trip; (2) Vicarious experiences through teamwork, peer mentoring, competitions, and oral presentations; (3) Verbal persuasion through coaching, instruction, story-telling, and peer mentoring; and (4) Physiological states through reflections, I-CAN statements, power poses, and fine and performing art.  
Data analysis of pre and post-tests, pre and post self-reporting 5-point Likert scale surveys, focus group sessions, and reflection sheets showed that this program had been effective. The 91% increase in Sustainable Construction Engineering knowledge, 7.41% increase in self-efficacy, and 7.35% increase in STEM attitudes were all statistically significant (p&lt;0.01). The girls’ strongest sources of self-efficacy were from observing peers (vicarious experiences), encouragement from parents (verbal persuasion), positive attitudes from fine and performing arts (physiological states), and continuous improvement and completion of projects (mastery experiences). While 16.13% of the girls provided no responses, most of the other girls demonstrated strong Arts identities with focus on: dance (32.26%), drawing (22.58%), singing (19.35%), music (6.45%), and baking (3.23%). The girls loved the opportunity to integrate their personal and group preferred arts into their STEM projects. At the end of the program, the girls were classified into four STEAM groups based on combinations of their STEM and Arts attitudes: 1) High STEM/High Arts attitude (83.87%); 2) High STEM/Low Arts (6.45%); 3) Low STEM/High Arts (6.45%); and Low STEM/Low Arts (3.23%). Overall, 90.32% of the girls expressed positive feelings towards the Arts-infused STEM projects; while 87% demonstrated some interest in dance-infused STEM learning. During their glue stick project oral presentation, one team developed a dance and used body movements to demonstrate tension, compression, shear, bending, and torsion. A strong overall mean rating (x̅ = 4.20) was obtained for learning experiences at the Dance Studio as the girls strongly agreed that the dance movements increased their understanding of engineering concepts such as tension, bending, surface areas, center of gravity, three-dimension, and foundations. 
The STEAM ACTIVATED! program increased the percentage of girls interested in engineering careers from 42% to 61.29%. Formation of engineering identities (EI) was estimated by combining girls’ STEM attitude (SA) scores with engineering career interest (ECI) scores; and grouping girls into four EI groups. The following percent changes in the populations of the four EI groups before and after the program indicated positive program impacts on girls’ EI: Group 1 – Strong SA and strong ECI (+19.35%); Group 2 – Strong SA and weak ECI (-9.68%); Group 3 – Weak SA and strong ECI (0%); Group 4 – Weak SA and Weak ECI (-9.68%). Forty-eight percent (48%) of these girls have already submitted applications for the follow up STEAM ACTIVATED! program funded through a recent Engineering Information Foundation grant. Best practices, lessons learned, and outcomes of this innovative and effective program for improving STEM self-efficacy, career interests, and engineering identities are discussed. Insights will be valuable to educators and researchers committed to increasing female representation in STEM careers.

AU  - Andrea Nana Ofori-Boadu
CY  - Salt Lake City, Utah
DA  - 2018/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Improving Middle-School Girls’ Knowledge, Self-Efficacy, and Interests in ‘Sustainable Construction Engineering’ through a STEAM ACTIVATED! program
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/30631
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--30631
ER  -