Informal science, technology, engineering and math learning conditions to increase parent involvement with young children experiencing poverty

Abstract

Broadening participation in early science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning outside of school is important for families experiencing poverty. We evaluated variations of the Teaching Together STEM pre-kindergarten program for increasing parent involvement in STEM learning. This informal STEM, family engagement program was offered in 20 schools where 92% of students received free/reduced lunch. The core treatment included a series of family education workshops, text messages, and family museum passes. The workshops were delivered at school sites by museum outreach educators. We randomly assigned schools to business-as-usual control or one of three additive treatment groups. Using an additive treatment design, we provided the core program in Treatment A, we added take-home STEM materials in Treatment B, and added materials + parent monetary rewards in Treatment C. The primary outcome was parent involvement in STEM (n = 123). There were no significant impacts of any treatment on parent involvement; however, the groups that added take-home materials had larger effect sizes on parent involvement at posttest (ES = −0.08 to 0.18) and later, kindergarten follow-up (ES = −0.01 to −0.34). Adding parent monetary rewards only produced short-term improvements in parent involvement that faded at follow-up. We discuss implications for other community-sponsored family engagement programs focused on informal STEM learning, including considering characteristics of families who were more versus less likely to attend. These null findings suggest that alternatives to in-person family education workshops should be considered when parents are experiencing poverty and have competing demands on their time.

Virtual Teaching Together: engaging parents and young children in STEM activities

“…There were small, non-significant increases (ES = 0.18) in parents’ reported frequency of STEM involvement. Although non-significant, effect sizes were similar in magnitude to past, in-person versions of this program ( ES range − 0.08 to 0.18 at posttest; Zucker et al, 2022 ). On the one hand, these similar magnitudes of impacts on parent behaviors for in-person and virtual modalities may indicate that both approaches are suitable.…”

“…The materials mailed to families were exactly the same as the in-person funshop materials mentioned in our study, but we selected a portion of past materials because we only delivered four of the six available workshop themes in this brief virtual intervention. We also did not send the nine supplemental materials given in two groups of our prior study (B and C; Zucker et al, 2022 ) because that would have resulted in a likely overwhelming number of activities for parents to use and because the cost of mailing these exceeded typical museum outreach budgets. The text messages and facilitators in modeling videos were exactly the same as in our initial study.…”

“…Parent involvement in STEM was measured with nine items about the frequency of STEM-related activities. Items were adapted from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES; West et al, 2007 ), such as: “How many times in the past week have you compared sizes of objects or toys with your child?” “How many times in the past week have you talked to your child about plants, animals, or other living things?” These were the same items used in our past study ( Zucker et al, 2022 ).…”

“…We modified the existing, in-person TT STEM “funshops” due to COVID-19, but we hoped this virtual approach might prove useful post-pandemic. This was a conceptual replication study because we hypothesized that the virtual version of the TT STEM program could produce small increases in parent involvement in science and math commensurate in magnitude with effect sizes [ES] observed in an earlier, in-person study (ES range = −0.08 to 0.18; Zucker et al, 2022 ). Both the prior study and the current study used very similar materials and methods, such as the same STEM educators as funshop facilitators and a series of follow-up text message reminders and extension activities after each event.…”

Evaluation of a community-based, hybrid STEM family engagement program at pre-kindergarten entry

“…This study considered if hybrid delivery of a STEM family engagement program was an accessible and effective means of increasing parent involvement and child STEM enthusiasm during the 3-and 4-year-old pre-kindergarten (pre-k) period. This experiment was a conceptual replication of a museum outreach program focused on broadening STEM access for families experiencing poverty, which we evaluated when delivered in person (Zucker et al, 2022), virtually (Zucker et al, 2024), and here with a hybrid approach. We previously found that families' in-person attendance was challenging due to limited time and scheduling conflicts (Zucker et al, 2022).…”