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This workshop brings scholars in the social sciences together for a 10-week “Interdisciplinary Research Methods Exchange.” Scholars speak to a group of social science undergraduate majors about their current and prior research, highlighting their background, education, methodological challenges, and successes. A series of short writing assignments and optional methods assignment for thesis or capstone classes asks students to reflect on their experiences with the speakers, and a pre- and post-survey helps instructors assess whether learning objectives were met. This workshop functions as an integrated part of the course schedule and aims to expose students to the diversity of research topics, approaches, and methods in the social sciences and to increase interest in and knowledge about social science research careers. 

This study aims to examine the current experiences of high school students in computer science (CS) courses and the factors that motivated them to continue their future enrollment. The participants were 603 high school students in grades 9 through 12 in Indiana, all of whom enrolled in at least one CS course during the 2020-2021 academic year. This research revealed that fun and meaningful CS pedagogy, knowledgeable CS teachers, and relevance to their lives and future careers enabled high school students to hold positive experiences in their CS classes. These experiences impacted students to take additional CS courses. In addition to these positive experiences, gender and early exposure to CS emerge as predictors to pursue CS courses. The findings will carry significance for policymakers and educators offering insights to enhance and broaden students’ participation and engagement in the CS course. 

Although it is well known that Black women are underrepresented in computing, less is known about their pre-college experiences. We hypothesize that inequities at the K-12 level result in Black women's underrepresentation in computing, because Black women have accumulated less social capital and are less embedded in courses and organizations related to computing prior to college. This paper reports the initial findings from the first round of a survey designed to gather the pre-college computing experiences of Black women and their peers. Black women in our sample were less likely to report participating in formal computer science (CS) education in school, slightly more likely to report participation in outside-of-school computing programs, about equally as likely to pursue computing experiences independently, and more likely to have had no pre-college computing experiences at all. We found that Black women were less likely to report that they were told they would be a good computer scientist, especially by friends, teachers, and guidance counselors, thus reflecting weaker social connections and lower levels of social capital. These findings suggest that organizational embeddedness or social ties from pre-college computing experiences may indeed be a factor in Black women's underrepresentation in computing and that access to these experiences outside of the formal classroom may be particularly important. The survey is one part of a study that will feature a second round of data collection in another state, analysis of state-level longitudinal data, and interviews with Black women. 

This experience report shares lessons learned when expanding demographic options on an undergraduate survey. The study is designed to better understand the relationship between pre-college computing experiences and the choice to major in computing, particularly focusing on Black women’s experiences. Expansive options for gender (5 plus an openended), race (18 non-mutually-exclusive options), and disability (8) gave respondents more opportunity for specificity. Yet we faced unexpected challenges in analysis and interpretation as we hadn’t considered the implications of being so expansive ahead of time. This paper presents our lessons learned, analysis choices and plans for future iterations of the survey. 

The Georgia Department of Education has clearly defined standards for learning about Africa in the seventh grade. However, there exists great variation in how textbooks present this material and address these standards. Using a qualitative content analysis approach, we assess the presentation of Africa in three widely used Georgia social studies textbooks. We document and analyze coverage of Africa across Georgia’s seventh grade world studies learning domains. Our research demonstrates: 1) that, despite widespread calls for decolonization of education and strengthening of multicultural education, Euro-American perspectives on Africa are still prevalent; 2) textbooks vary widely on how they choose to address the social studies standards for Africa; and 3) negative stereotypes of Africa and its peoples continue to be reaffirmed, to the detriment of Georgia students. Lastly, our research also contributes to larger conversations on the utility of content analysis as a methodology for understanding educational practices. 

Purpose Mechanical anisotropy associated with material extrusion additive manufacturing (AM) complicates the design of complex structures. This study aims to focus on investigating the effects of design choices offered by material extrusion AM – namely, the choice of infill pattern – on the structural performance and optimality of a given optimized topology. Elucidation of these effects provides evidence that using design tools that incorporate anisotropic behavior is necessary for designing truly optimal structures for manufacturing via AM. Design/methodology/approach A benchmark topology optimization (TO) problem was solved for compliance minimization of a thick beam in three-point bending and the resulting geometry was printed using fused filament fabrication. The optimized geometry was printed using a variety of infill patterns and the strength, stiffness and failure behavior were analyzed and compared. The bending tests were accompanied by corresponding elastic finite element analyzes (FEA) in ABAQUS. The FEA used the material properties obtained during tensile and shear testing to define orthotropic composite plies and simulate individual printed layers in the physical specimens. Findings Experiments showed that stiffness varied by as much as 22% and failure load varied by as much as 426% between structures printed with different infill patterns. The observed failure modes were also highly dependent on infill patterns with failure propagating along with printed interfaces for all infill patterns that were consistent between layers. Elastic FEA using orthotropic composite plies was found to accurately predict the stiffness of printed structures, but a simple maximum stress failure criterion was not sufficient to predict strength. Despite this, FE stress contours proved beneficial in identifying the locations of failure in printed structures. Originality/value This study quantifies the effects of infill patterns in printed structures using a classic TO geometry. The results presented to establish a benchmark that can be used to guide the development of emerging manufacturing-oriented TO protocols that incorporate directionally-dependent, process-specific material properties.