Collaborative Research: Roots and Wings: Developing Informal Learning Resources in Engineering with Black Families

This project will broaden participation in engineering by developing learning resources through which Black families have opportunities to engage in engineering practices and to see themselves as part of the engineering community. The research team will co-develop informal learning resources with Black families in which children, ages six to ten, have opportunities to engage in biological, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, and mechanical engineering activities at home. Caregivers will support their children through engineering practices such as empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing, while also educating them about Black engineers and scientists who made significant advancements within each field. Research will explore whether and how the identity-affirming informal learning resources fostered the children's engineering identities and interest. The resulting deliverables include video workshops for caregivers, to support them in using the resources, as well as a suite of easy-to-use engineering activities that will be disseminated via national homeschool networks, through public media, through high-traffic repositories with engineering lesson plans, and through professional networks of science and engineering educators.

Research will explore how identity-affirming engineering educational resources impact children's engineering identities and interests. To investigate whether and how these resources contribute to shifts in children's engineering identities and interests, the research team will conduct a mixed-method study in which they generate and analyze the following data sources: pre- and post-engagement surveys with the caregivers; video-recordings of caregiver-child interactions as they engage with the informal learning resources; interviews with children and caregivers; caregiver reflective journals; and artifacts produced by the families, such as children's sketches. The results from these analyses will provide insights into how informal educators can design at-home learning resources that build children's interests in engineering pathways, as well as how families can use identity-affirming interactions in engineering to spark their children's interest in this field. Findings will be disseminated widely via professional conferences, networks, and journals in educational research. Ultimately, this project is likely to broaden participation in engineering among Black people who remain underrepresented in engineering pathways and careers.