GSE/SGER: Developing An Extension Service Proposal to Recruit Middle School Girls to Information Technology Careers

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This exploratory project will create the infrastructure for establishing an extension service for the rural, Appalachian regions of Virginia and surrounding states. The project seeks to engender a significant and sustained increase in interest which would lead to the choice of an information technology (IT) career among typically underserved middle school girls. The planning year will be spent in developing school, community, and industry partnerships and relationships with stakeholders; developing a rigorous evaluation plan that encompasses the entire project; and solidifying a unified program of change to increase the interest and choice of an IT career among a diverse, underserved regional population of middle school girls. INTELLECTUAL MERIT--This project builds on previous grants to the Women In Technology (WIT) research team to investigate barriers to females' pursuit of IT careers, the development and dissemination of a DVD and Facilitator's Guide to support parents, teachers, counselors and advisors as partners to girls in career decision-making, and multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, a book, and international research conference and national presentations. It will use an interdisciplinary team approach to provide insights into our understanding of rural, Appalachian cultures and the development of a model of change that can be replicated nationally using school counselors to reach middle school girls to increase the interest and choice of an IT career. BROADER IMPACT--The interdisciplinary approach of this project will develop an infrastructure and knowledge base of best practices to increase rural Appalachia middle school girls' interest and choice of an IT career. The model is innovative in focusing on middle school counselors as a community of practice and connecting this community to a broad range of best practice strategies and research with a feedback loop from implementation experiences to further inform practice. Virginia and the contiguous Appalachian region of states is a good choice for this effort given its increase in IT companies and opportunity for developing a rural model for effectively impacting the national IT workforce from an early developmental middle school age.