School fieldtrip to engineering workshop: pre-, post-, and delayed-post effects on student perceptions by age, gender, and ethnicity

ABSTRACT

This article presents a large-scale evaluation study of over 3000 9–14-year-old students who participated in an engineering workshop during their school fieldtrips. Student perceptions right before and after, as well as two weeks after the workshop were captured and examined. Before the workshop, younger students and boys, generally exhibited higher interest, higher self-efficacy, and less negative stereotypes for engineering than their counterparts. Also, Caucasian students had higher self-efficacy and lower negative stereotypes than Hispanic students. Students’ interest, self-efficacy, negative stereotype, and utility perceptions of engineering were significantly improved right after the workshop, and improved perceptions were maintained at the delayed-post (follow-up) survey. The results indicate that fieldtrips can significantly improve students’ perceptions towards engineering and improved perceptions are not limited to the workshop day, but persist afterwards. The gender and ethnic differences in engineering perceptions in the youngest age group indicate that outreach interventions should begin in elementary school.

KEYWORDS:

• Delayed-post survey
• engineering workshop
• interest
• negative stereotypes
• pre-college students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gamze Ozogul received the Ph.D. degree in Educational Technology from Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, in 2006. Afterwards she completed her postdoctoral work in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at ASU. Later she was the Associate Director of Measurement and Evaluation in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, ASU. Since 2013 she is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University.

Cindy Faith Miller is an Assistant Research Professor in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. She received her Ph.D. in School Psychology from New York University. Her research focuses on the development and consequences associated with social (e.g. gender stereotypes) and academic (e.g. growth mindset) cognitions.

Martin Reisslein is a Professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University, Tempe. He received his Ph.D. in systems engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1998.

ORCID

Gamze Ozogul http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8044-9021

Martin Reisslein http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1606-233X

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering [Grant Number 1716121]; Directorate for Education and Human Resources [Grant Number 1561424].