Under-Represented Populations Stand-Alone Report 3 (Progress)

Project A Academy A Evaluation

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FINDINGS (cont'd)

Future Robotics Interest and Academic/Career Projections

All the AA Academy participants except three girls, two in the all girl session and one in the mixed session, were interested in doing more robotics in the future. As a further indication of participants' enthusiasm, nine spontaneously mentioned that they either planned to ask their parents for a Mindstorm kit or other robotics related materials (n=5) or requested to participate in another session or that the current session be extended (n=4).

Early in the course of data collection, several students spontaneously made connections between the AA Academy and their future in high school. The school district of Philadelphia gives students some degree of choice in allowing them to apply to high schools. A question on high school selection was added to the interview protocol for roughly three-quarters of the academy participants. Of those who were asked (n=21), only one student had not thought about high school selection, and all but one of those who had thought about it had one or more possibilities in mind.

Students' choice of high school tended to correspond to an area of special interest, either performing arts and drama (n=7 including Program A Music Program A and University <with art program>) or more commonly academics. In a very few cases students wanted to attend the high school closest to their home.

Students whose high school choice was motivated by academics wanted to attend a "good" school, most frequently School A (n=7) as well as Schools M, N, O, P, and Q among others. "Good" schools were characterized as "preparing you for college" (8^th grade girl from School E) and as having "most of its kids going to college and doing good in college" (7^th grade boy from School B). These schools were viewed as "good educationally" (7^th grade girl from School D), "like the Ivy League" (7^th grade boy from School B), and were considered "smart...challenging" (7^th grade girl from School A with "good programs" that students can get involved with (7^th grade girl from School A). Students exhibited some degree of savvy about the competitive process of gaining entry into a good high school (most markedly one girl quoted below), as well as awareness of the long-term implications of high school attendance on future academic trajectories:

I want to go to a good high school. I want to go to a private high school and not a big public one unless the public one is good. [Interviewer: What do you mean by 'good'?] Where you have to have an application, videotape yourself...They should see your behavior before they let you in (7^th grade girl from School C)

School N or School R (why) because I'm trying to get like a higher education instead of going to School S that is like a bad school so I want to go to a good school and maybe even go to college. [Interviewer: So if you get into a better high school there's a better chance] better chance of going to college... [Interviewer: Will you put this program on the application] Yes. (8^th grade boy from School B)

All of the students had some notion of a possible future trajectory beyond high school. Allowing for multiple options for students who foresaw divergent trajectories, Table 8 shows students' plans for the future by grade level.

Nearly all the AA Academy participants were able to list one or more specific career options of interest. Allowing for multiple responses, careers of interest included:

Medicine (n= 9) including obstetrician/pediatrician (n=3) and psychologist (n=2)
Entertainment (n=7) including drama/modeling/singer (n=5) and sports (n=2)
Law (n=4)
Engineering (n=3)
Computer programming (n=2)
Hair dresser/cosmetologist (n=2)
Robotics (n=5) including work for Lego as designer (n=1)
Electronics (n=1)
Military service to earn a degree in mechanics (n=1)
Teaching (n=1)
Clothing design/buyer (n=1)
Marine biology (n=1)
Finance (n=1)

There were gender differences in students' envisioned academic and career pursuits. With regard to non-academic options, only girls were interested in drama, singing, clothing design, and cosmetology, and only boys were interested in sports and video games or Lego design. Gender differences were also apparent among students interested in academically-oriented science pursuits. Table 9 shows exclusive interest by girls in biological sciences, most commonly medicine. Boys, by contrast, were disproportionately interested in technology related fields.

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Profiles of Three Students

Data presented above provide evidence of participants' general patterns of experience and perspective. In this section three individual cases are profiled to provide a more personalized though still modest view of how the academy figures into participants' real-life interests, pursuits and hopes for the future. These particular cases were selected because the students each expressed strong interest in pursuing technology, robotics or engineering in the future, and because each typifies the kind of student Project A is most trying to support.

An intermediate level girl, referred to her as Holly, will be entering 7^th grade at a new school in the fall after attending Grover Washington previously. Holly is an African American girl who "loves robotics" and plans to ask her father for a Mindstorm kit for her birthday. She was eager to share with extended family members what she had accomplished at the Friday open house. During the week, she described what she was doing to her tech teacher, her dad, her grandmother and her friend. Holly appreciated being in the all girl session because it can be "kinda tiresome to be around boys." She wants to become an engineer, a career that her father, who himself does not do anything related to engineering, first told her about. He described it as a "good job" that she will get paid a lot doing. Holly has some idea about what engineers do, like "fixing things, building, putting things together" and she knows that if she wants to pursue engineering she will have to study science and math. Holly connects her involvement in robotics with her desire to become an engineer.

Teresa, another pseudonym, is the same age as Holly. She is a student at School D and is African American. Her friend participated in last summer's academy, which sounded fun so she asked her grandmother with whom she lives and her grandmother signed her up. Before Teresa arrived on the first day of the academy, she imagined it was going to be "like lots of robots, and scientists, and inventions" and wasn't sure it was going to be fun. But after the first day she found that it was "really, really nice." Although she had never built a robot before attending the academy, she had seen them and seen people at Institute B working with them. Teresa is reflective about her experience, saying that "this has been a very good experience for me," reiterating several times that she now wants to work with robots in the future. Teresa had been especially impressed with the people in the XX lab, and said that she would like to be like them in the future. Other than those she'd met during the academy, Teresa doesn't know anyone in her life who does robotics-related activities. The week had passed quickly for Teresa and she regretted its ending. At the end of each day when she went home she shared "exciting stories" with her grandmother who very much liked to hear these stories. Even though Teresa is now interested in pursing robotics her espoused sense of it (for instance in comparison to Holly) is elementary. Teresa never spoke of "engineering" or "technology" and saw working with robots and cosmetology as equally viable career options.

Martin, an 8^th grade African American boy who attends Middle School B had been involved in an in-school robotics program last year and found that he "really liked to build stuff and see how it works." He motivated to participate in the Academy A as a way to further pursue this interest. He spoke regularly to his mother and his aunts during the week about what he was doing at the academy and how much fun it was and these family members were eager to attend the Friday open-house. Like the majority of academy participants, Martin doesn't know anyone who does robotics or technology-related things in everyday life. Unlike many academy participants who seem to take for granted that they will attend college, Martin was less sanguine, for reasons other than his motivation. Martin hopes to pursue electronics as a career and foresaw that attending a "good" high school where he can get a "higher education" would increase his "chance of going to college."

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