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Session 1692

The Use of Quantitative and Qualitative Measures to Evaluate a Summer Camp for Elementary School Girls Joan A. Burtner Mercer University

Abstract

In June 2000, Mercer University hosted Mercer MESSAGE, a summer camp for elementary school girls. Mercer MESSAGE is part of the Central South Summer Camp Program. The program consists of four essential elements: 1) Mercer MESSAGE, an all-girl summer math and science day camp, 2) Mercer TECH, a co-ed summer engineering day camp, 3) Central South Summer Camp reunions during the school year, and 4) continued communication with campers through e-mail or phone. The program targets 5th, 6th and 7th grade girls and features a tiered-mentoring process that is designed to match campers with high school students, college students, and college faculty who excel in science, mathematics and/or engineering. The mentors work in both camps and continue their mentoring activities throughout the following school year. The Central South Summer Camp evaluation plan, which includes qualitative and quantitative measures, will be used to assess program effectiveness and to help determine if girls who participate in this program have developed a sustained interest in math, science or engineering.

Introduction

It is commonly accepted that we need to attract more women and minorities to the fields of math, science, and engineering. Although women and minorities are increasing their presence in some areas of science and math, their overall representation is inadequate. The problem is especially evident in the field of engineering. In spite of the fact that women make up approximately half of the workforce, less than 10% of practicing engineers are women.1,2 Clearly, we need to attract, and retain, more women in the scientific workforce. There is some reason to believe that part of the problem can be traced to our school system. Even in the early school years, many teachers believe that boys are better at math and science than girls, even though the girls earn better grades in these subjects. 3 In fact, girls outperform boys on national tests in nearly every subject at the elementary school level. However, in middle school and high school years, the test scores of girls decline dramatically relative to test scores of boys, especially in math and science. 3,4 Targeting girls before the middle school decline may be an effective way to prevent this trend. 5 A number of authors suggest that mentoring can help retain women in math, science and engineering. Successful mentoring has been demonstrated at the high school or college level. 6,7,8 Others have found mentoring to be an important factor in keeping women in the workforce.9,10 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering Education

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Burtner, J. A. (2001, June), The Use Of Quantitative And Qualitative Measures To Evaluate A Summer Camp For Elementary School Girls Paper presented at 2001 Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 10.18260/1-2--9950