Staying in Science Research Study Articles and Presentations

Preliminary Findings Report: Supports and Challenges during Educational Crisis: Examining the Impact of the Pandemic on Youth Pathways

We have published our mid-project report on preliminary findings on our NSF-funded Rapid grant, a study designed to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our college student participants, all graduates of the New York City Science Research Mentoring Consortium, a consortium of 23 programs that provides science research mentoring to high school youth who are both high potential and historically underrepresented in STEM. Highlights of these findings include that nearly 50% of the students in the study report that their academic trajectory has been greatly or moderately affected by the pandemic, with concerns around “remote learning” were mentioned most frequently among students who reported the greatest amount of impact from COVID-19. In this report, we detail preliminary findings related to the challenges students are facing and the critical supports and resources they are drawing on to help counteract the repercussions of the pandemic upon their trajectories. Implications for students, faculty, families, out-of-school-time program designers, and mentors are discussed.

Social Networks as Critical Features for Sustained Science Engagement of Youth

Social network analysis revealed that youth develop a wide array of social networks consisting of a variety of STEM role models and cultural brokers from different spheres of youths’ lives during their time in the program. Preliminary findings suggest that some youth possess dense networks of support made up of highly connected individuals that provide opportunities for mutual reinforcement of support of science as a pursuit, while other youth report highly fragmented networks, consisting of individuals that rarely interact with each other, suggesting that opportunities for mutual support of experiences in and pursuit of science are less reinforced by the youths’ network. All networks reported did consist of at least one parent as a social support. For youth who have transitioned to college, we saw strong relationships of social support develop in that setting, though not necessarily as a replacement to ties developed prior to attending post-secondary education. These findings serve as baseline for these participants for the longitudinal study and each year of the study, we will collect data from these participants to see how their network maps evolve as they move along their pathways.

Citation:
Podkul, T., Gupta, P., and Hammerness, K., Chaffee, R., (June 15, 2018). Social Networks as Critical Features for Sustained Science Engagement of Youth. International School and Conference on Network Science. Paris, France.

Staying in science: An examination of youth pathways using social network theory and analysis

This presentation conceptualized the potential affordances and limitations of using both community of practice and social network theory to deepen our understanding of students’ relationships with their science research mentors and the individuals they identify as influencing their pathways in STEM.

Citation:
Podkul, T., Gupta, P., Chaffee, R., and Hammerness, K. (March 12, 2018). Staying in science: An examination of youth pathways using social network theory and analysis. National Association of Research in Science Teaching Annual Conference. Atlanta, GA.

Staying in science: An examination of pathways of youth who participate in immersive science research activities

This analysis drew on a data from student and alumni surveys administered to students who participated in mentored science research in order to construct a baseline understanding of the unique features of the student participant pool.

Citation:
Gupta, P., Hammerness, K., Podkul, T., and Chaffee, R. (April 24, 2017). Staying in science: An examination of pathways of youth who participate in immersive science research activities. National Association of Research in Science Teaching Annual Conference. San Antonio, TX.

Innovations in Examining Pathways of Youth Who Stay in Science

This presentation provides an overview the the Staying in Science longitudinal study examining the science pathways of NYC underrepresented youth. Drawing on longitudinal social network and survey data with analysis of matched student data from the New York City Public Schools records, this study draws on a ecosystems approach to examine how youths’ social networks develop through their participation in mentored research and the potential impact of these mentored research experiences on their college and career pathways.

Citation:
Hammerness, K., Podkul, T., Gupta, P. and Chaffee, R. (April 29, 2017). Innovations in Examining Pathways of Youth Who Stay in Science. American Education Research Association Annual Conference. San Antonio, TX.