NFB SABER Year One Evaluation Report

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), in partnership with scholars from Utah State University and educators from the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), has developed the Spatial Ability and Blind Engineering Research (SABER) project to assess and improve the spatial ability of blind teens in order to broaden the participation of blind students in STEM fields.

Activities began this summer (2018) with a week-long, residential engineering design program for thirty blind high school students at NFB headquarters in Baltimore. The evaluation focused on perceptions of process and measures of efficacy around the key themes. The evaluation questions that guided the NFB EQ program evaluation were:

1. How does this program contribute to the participant’s development of spatial reasoning abilities?
2. How do these factors influence a participant’s interest in STEM?
3. What is the participant’s intention to pursue STEM study and career?
4. How does this program contribute to the participant’s interest and intention toward STEM?

COSI’s Lifelong Learning Group conducted an evaluation of this program and prepared this report.

Researchers collected data for this program evaluation from teen participants using three different methods:

1. Passive observations throughout the program; comparing these notes with the goals of the program.
2. Brief open-ended, semi-structured interviews conducted with participants pre- and post - program.
3. A web-based questionnaire following the program.

The interview and questionnaire focused on the teens’ interest in STEM, future career intentions, and the impact of the NFB EQ program.