It has been shown that out-of-classroom experiences build engineering students’ professional skills and engineering identities. Many other universities host engineering summer camps for middle and high school students and employ engineering undergraduate students as camp counselors. These camps are designed for students with minimal previous exposure to engineering. In this research study, we explore the impact of working as a counselor in these camps on counselors’ Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) assets and self-defined characteristics of an engineer. Five summer camp counselors in one institution’s 2023 summer camp programs participated in post-camp semi-structured interviews about their experiences as counselors. Two counselors identified as Black/ African American and three as Hispanic/ Latino/a/é; two identified as women and three as men. Collectively, counselors discussed all six types of capital in the CCW framework. Most commonly, they reported that they are actively improving skills they believe engineers to have (aspirational capital), that being a camp counselor improved their communication skills (linguistic capital), and built them a close network of friends that many consider to be like family (familial capital). Those who were in affinity-based student orgs, such as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), encouraged non-members to join, building their social capital on campus. One participant mentioned that because being a camp counselor was her first job, she gained valuable life skills such as completing tax forms and managing a personal budget (navigational capital). Some counselors also talked about what it meant to them to be role models for campers of their same racial/ ethnic backgrounds, since they didn’t know such engineers growing up (resistant capital).
While out-of-classroom engineering experiences and their effects are well-studied, they are often limited to experiences such as extracurricular engineering activities or service learning projects. Despite the prevalence of engineering summer camp programs, the effects of working as a camp counselor are understudied. We hope that the results of this study will compel those running engineering summer camps to think not only about what the campers, but also the camp counselors themselves, are gaining from participating in these programs.
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Evaluation of Summer Camp Recruitment Methods and Campers’ Perceptions of Engineering (Evaluation, Diversity)
Program leaders put a tremendous amount of thought into how they recruit students for engineering summer camps. Recruitment methods can include information sessions, established partnerships with school districts, and teacher or school counselor nominations of students. This study seeks to assess if the methods used to recruit students broaden participation or have any impact on students’ perceptions of engineering. Two identical week-long summer camps were hosted by the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) in the summer of 2022. Camps were entirely free for all campers. A specific goal of the camp was to promote engineering as a career pathway for students from groups that have been historically excluded from STEM majors. Campers were rising 8th and 9th grade students in two cities near UT Austin; this age was intentionally identified as students who have sufficient STEM backgrounds to engage in meaningful engineering design challenges, and who are also at a critical inflection point with respect to decisions that put them on a trajectory to study engineering in college. Summer camp topics ranged from additive manufacturing to the chemical properties of water proofing, and students did activities such as constructing a prosthetic limb from recovered materials or designing an electronic dance game pad.
In one camp session, students primarily found out about the camp by being nominated by counselors at their schools, with an intentional focus on recruiting students who might not otherwise be exposed to engineering. In the other camp session, parents signed up campers after hearing about the camp via information sent through the schools. All students who applied were accepted to the camps. Identical pre- and post-camp surveys asked campers questions about their knowledge of what engineers do, their interest in math and science, and what factors are important to them when choosing a career. Survey analysis showed that there were statistically significant differences in answers to questions between the groups in the pre-camp surveys, but post-camp surveys show that these differences disappeared after participating in the summer camp. Students whose parents directly enrolled them in the camp had higher pre-camp interest in science and technology; thus, counselor nominations may be a method to recruit students who might not have been interested in engineering had they not attended the camp. Additionally, prior to participating, campers recruited via counselor nominations had a narrower view of what engineers do than the parent-enrolled campers, but after camp the two groups had similar perceptions of what engineers do. The results of this study confirm literature findings regarding the importance of exposing young learners to engineering as a profession and broaden their views of opportunities in this field. The recruitment methods used for these camps show that nomination-based recruitment methods have the potential for greater impact on changing students’ engineering trajectories.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2217741
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10440466
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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