The Effect of Summer Engineering Camps on Parents’ Perceptions About STEM (Work in Progress)

Abstract The Effect of Summer Engineering Camps on Parents' Perceptions about STEM (Work In Progress) The perceptions of parents regarding Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) before and after their child attended a summer STEM camp will be analyzed in this paper. Starting in July 2016 through July 2019, groups of students attended weeklong STEM camps. These camps were designed to spark students' interest in STEM while preparing them academically for higher education. Funding for the camps was provided by a seven year grant from the Department of Education as a part of the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEARUP) program. Because the first year of this camp was a pilot year, only results from the last three years of the camp will be used. Another camp was scheduled in 2020, but was cancelled due to the pandemic. Each of the STEM camps lasted five days, during which time, students participated in a multitude of STEM related activities that varied from year to year. During the hands-on and thought-provoking STEM activities, students collaborated with science teachers, as well as faculty and graduate students at the land grant university. Throughout each camp, parents were kept informed through a blog that was updated daily with the activities their children were involved in. The blog posts included pictures/videos of the activities, brief descriptions of the activities they were doing, as well as quotes from the journals students completed at the end of each day. Prior to and following the STEM camps, surveys pertaining to STEM were given to all the students and their parents. The parents' surveys contained questions about their perception of STEM, their feelings about their child choosing a STEM field, and some basic questions about income, educational background and occupation. The focus of this paper will be to examine parents' perceptions of STEM, as well as their thoughts about STEM careers and STEM camps. Analysis of the data is ongoing and will consist of examining both the qualitative and quantitative data in a mixed methods analysis. By analyzing the data presented in the surveys, the researchers will have a better understanding of parents' influential role in their child's future career plans and interests.