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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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Program Description

Overview Located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the Miami Museum of Science's SECME RISE (Raising Interest in Science and Engineering) project was a three-year program to increase middle school girls' self-esteem and confidence in learning mathematics and science, reducing the attrition in advanced level mathematics and science coursework that occurs as girls move from middle school to high school. Part of SECME RISE's mission was to facilitate the expansion of the SECME Clubs—SECME, Inc.'s after school and weekend programs in the Miami-Dade public schools.
Start Date October 1998
Scope local
Type summer/vacation, weekends
Location urban
Setting public school, community-based organization, private facility, other
Participants middle school students
Number of Sites/Grantees 44 of the 52 Miami-Dade County middle schools
Number Served 42–43 girls each summer (1998–2001)
Components SECME RISE meets their objectives in a variety of ways: (1) enrolling girls in Summer Leadership Academies, in which they participate in team-based engineering design challenges, technology training, field trips, and interactions with minority female engineers, (2) offering teacher in-services, which emphasize hands-on engineering projects, integration of technology, and strategies for achieving gender equity, (3) increasing parental awareness and support through Engineering Days, which provide a forum for parents to ask questions related to promoting their daughters' interest in science, mathematics, and technology, while also working together on hands-on design challenges, and (4) publishing the SECME RISE website, which includes girls' web pages, events, and information as well as documents and materials necessary for organizations interested in replicating the program. Other components of the program included Saturday Technology Workshops, career exploration seminars, an engineering design studio, and peer leadership training.
Funding Level $899,909 (1998–2001)
Funding Sources National Science Foundation


Evaluation

Overview During each year of the project a progress report was completed documenting and describing the major program activities carried out each year. These three progress reports were synthesized into a final three-year evaluation report, which also assesses benefits to project participants.
Evaluator Carolyn Jarvis, New York University School of Education
Evaluations Profiled SECME RISE Raising Interest in Science & Engineering: Final Evaluation Report, September 1, 1998–August 31, 2001
Evaluations Planned none
Report Availability Jarvis, C. (2002). SECME RISE Raising Interest in Science & Engineering: Final evaluation report, September 1, 1998–August 31, 2001. Miami, FL: Miami Museum of Science.

Jarvis, C. (1999). SECME RISE Raising Interest in Science & Engineering: Year one progress report. Miami, FL: Miami Museum of Science.

Jarvis, C. (1999). SECME RISE Raising Interest in Science & Engineering: Year two progress report. Miami, FL: Miami Museum of Science.

Available at www.miamisci.org/rise/about.html.


Contacts

Evaluation Carolyn Jarvis
New York University
285 Mercer St.
New York City, NY 10003
Tel: 212-998-7516
Fax: 212-995-3458
Email: chj2@nyu.edu
Program Jennifer Santer
Co-Project Director, SECME RISE
Miami Museum of Science
3280 South Miami Ave.
Miami, FL 33129
Tel: 305-854-4247, ext. 251
Fax: 305-285-5801
Email: jsanter@miamisci.org
Profile Updated April 4, 2003

Evaluation: SECME RISE Raising Interest in Science & Engineering Final Evaluation Report, September 1, 1998–August 31, 2001


Evaluation Description

Evaluation Purpose To describe project implementation over the three years of SECME Rise's operation and provide information on short-term outcomes. The evaluation focused mainly on the activities and participants of the SECME RISE Summer Leadership Academies (SLA).
Evaluation Design Non-Experimental: Data were collected from teachers, SLA participants, participants' parents, and program staff and management. In addition, activities were observed during site visits. One hundred twenty-seven middle school girls participated in the Summer Leadership Academies over the three-year period (42 or 43 girls per year). Thirty of the 42 year one SLA participants took part in the Summer Academy Overnight Camp-In, while 41 year one and year two SLA girls participated in a second camp-in held during year three.
Data Collection Methods Interviews/Focus Groups: During year one, individual interviews were conducted with 35 of the 42 SLA participants. Small groups of girls were interviewed at the end of the year two and three Summer Leadership Academies. Participants were asked about their perceptions of and experiences in SECME RISE activities. Evaluators also conducted interviews with staff and management during all three years.

Observation: The evaluation team observed SLA project activities during site visits to the museum in all three years. Evaluators also accompanied SLA participants on selected field trips and took part in Family Days.

Secondary Source/Data Review: Attendance and other project records were collected and analyzed from the program's records.

Surveys/Questionnaires: Teacher surveys were collected during in-service trainings (to evaluate the these trainings), at the end of the program years (to collect information about SECME in-school activities), and during years one and three (to collect demographic information and information about themselves and about science, mathematics, technology, and gender equity issues).

At the beginning and end of each SLA session, the evaluators collected student questionnaires containing information on attitudes toward mathematics and science, as well as prior experiences with technology and personal knowledge about scientists and engineers.

Parents filled out questionnaires during the family days, to gauge their assessment of the program and its impact on their daughters, as well as any benefit to themselves in terms of increased awareness of how to support their daughters' SMET (science, mathematics, engineering, and technology) studies. Parents who attended the closing event held at the museum at the end of each SLA session also completed a questionnaire. Both these questionnaires asked about their feelings toward the SECME RISE summer program.
Data Collection Timeframe Data were collected from 1998 to 2001.


Findings:
Formative/Process Findings

Activity Implementation Year one activities held at the museum included Saturday Technology Workshops for teachers and female students, two E-Days (Engineering Days), held in February and May, and a Family Day held in April. In year two, the Saturday Technology Workshops were disbanded, but two more E-Days were sponsored at the museum for girls, teachers, and family members. E-Days were held again in year three.

Year one SLA participants were invited to an overnight camp-in at the museum held during December of year two. During this camp-in, the coordinator of an engineering magnet school program spoke about tips to navigating the magnet school application process. Other activities included engineering-related activities and social time to renew friendships formed during the SLA experience. A second camp-in was held during year three.

Each year, SLA girls were divided into two cohorts of approximately 20–24 participants. Within each cohort, girls were divided into four six-person teams, with each team supported by a female college mentor. These groups attended one of two four-week sessions guided by a female college student who was hired as a mentor.

SLA participants discussed how important it was that the program was just for girls. Many emphasized the importance of working in small groups in which everyone was recognized and celebrated as an individual.
Parent/Community Involvement Parent participation in E-Days was low, but parent participation at the Family Days, held at the end of each four-week summer session, was almost 100%, i.e., virtually all of the SLA participants attended, along with parents and other family members.

Most parents (71%) rated their communication with the program as “excellent,” although some reported that it was weak.

About one-quarter of parents reported that they had been involved in other SECME-sponsored activities at school or at the museum. Another quarter of parents said that they did not know much about the SECME Clubs in their daughters' schools.
Program Context/Infrastructure During the first year, project staff from the Miami Museum of Science, Miami-Dade County public schools, and SECME met approximately every two months, along with the project's external evaluator. These management team meetings were meant to be a forum for addressing a wide range of issues and for planning project activities, but eventually proved too unwieldy for the purpose of ongoing decision making. Beginning in May 1999, two CO-Project Directors became responsible for management decisions. The management team continued to meet two to three times a year to provide overall direction for the project.
Program-School Linkages Museum staff and Miami-Dade math and science school administrators knew each other before the project was instituted and had already worked together on a variety of projects, which the evaluator concluded was helpful in fostering the formal SECME RISE collaboration with the schools.
Recruitment/Participation Interviews revealed that low student participation in Saturday Technology Workshops and E-days may have been caused by poor communication systems delivering information within some schools to students. Lead Teachers relied on other teachers to distribute notices about project activities to students, and some SECME RISE teachers reported discovering that some teachers never distributed the notices to students.

Teacher and student participation in the Saturday Technology Workshops and the E-Days was lower than expected. Major reasons given by teachers in informal interviews for low teacher attendance were lack of transportation, lack of compensation, and prior Saturday commitments.

Approximately 40% of year one SLA participants reported that they had participated in regular SECME Club activities during the past school year.
Satisfaction Each year, the SLA summer program was rated as highly successful by all of the girls. According to most girls, the Summer Academy was “fun” and “awesome.”

Ninety-three percent of parents rated the overall program as “excellent.”
Staffing/Training Each summer, four female college students were hired as mentors for the Summer Academy. These mentors worked directly with the girls, guiding them in completing their engineering projects and serving as role models. For the most part, these mentors were engineering students with varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds similar to those of the student participants.

In the second and third years, past students were invited back to the Summer Academy to serve as peer or “mini-mentors,” assisting the mentors and helping with participants' projects. Many participants expressed that they liked having mini-mentors because they could relate to them very well, and they were “like sisters.”

A total of 48 teachers attended SECME Summer Institutes over the three years. These institutes were professional development opportunities training SECME teachers how to coordinate SECME Club activities. Gender equity issues and hands-on science activities were also addressed during the 12-day institutes.

Almost all of the surveyed teachers agreed that their SECME training had increased their awareness of a variety of topics related to gender equity. The vast majority also agreed or strongly agreed that they were also more aware of topics related to the use of technology in the classroom and hands-on engineering activities.

Many girls described the female college student mentors as very nurturing, with terms such as “big sisters” and “moms.” Many said that the fact that the mentors were black or Latino and had attended Miami-Dade public schools let them know that they too could become successful engineering students.

Before the summer academies, many participants expressed their perception that female engineers would be “weird,” a notion that was contradicted by seeing that their mentors were “attractive young ladies who wore nice clothes and had boyfriends.”
Systemic Infrastructure The evaluator reports that SECME RISE facilitated the expansion of SECME Club activities in the Miami-Dade public middle schools. By the end of the project, teachers in almost all middle schools (90%) had participated in SECME RISE training. For many of these teachers, SECME RISE training was their first experience with the SECME program, and many did not yet have SECME Clubs institutionalized in their schools. By the end of the project, according to school system records, 79% of the middle schools had registered SECME Clubs.


Summative/Outcome Findings

Youth Development Over the three years of the program, 86% of SLA participants indicated that they planned to pursue a career in SMET. About half (52%) indicated they had changed their career plans as a result of their participation in the Summer Academy.

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