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Authors:
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Paige Smith, University of Maryland, College Park
Sean Gehrke, University of Maryland, College Park
Janet Schmidt, University of Maryland, College Park
Linda Schmidt, University of Maryland, College Park
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Abstract:
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A unique first year summer experience (FYSE) orientation program (for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM) has been operating at the University of Maryland since the summer of 2002. Under the auspices of Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE), students majoring in STEM fields participated in this ten-day residential orientation program.
RISE was initially funded with a three year grant from the National Science Foundation (DUE No. 0120786). The FYSE was designed with the theoretical underpinnings from the prevalent literature on the barriers women face in STEM fields [1,2,3]. As such, the focus was to provide participants with experiences designed to increase self-confidence, interact with role models, thus maximizing the chances that students would be successful during the initial year.
Building on the RISE program, in 2005, NSF provided a one year extension to conduct a research study to determine the incorporating a career clarification into the FYSE. Specifically, the goal was to investigate factors that impact choice of academic major in first year female students not yet committed to STEM and compare these results with first year female students enrolled in STEM majors. The ultimate goal of the project was to determine if the pipeline of STEM majors could be increased through the career clarification component of the FYSE program. To determine the impact of the intervention, standardized and readily available measures of self-efficacy and interests (for example, Self Confidence Inventory and Strong Interest Inventory) as well as satisfaction and intended academic major were used. This poster will summarize the results from the study.
References
[1] Smith, P. E., Schmidt, J., & Schmidt, L. (2002). Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE), in Proceedings of 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, Montreal, Canada. [2] Smith, P. E., Schmidt, L., & Schmidt, J. (2002). Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE), in Proceedings of the Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network 2002 Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico. [3] Schmidt, J., Smith, P. E., Schmidt, L., & Vogt, K. E. (2003). Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE): Lessons from the first year, in Proceedings of the Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network 2003 Conference, Chicago, IL.
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