Broadening Participation Research Project: Investigating the Impact of Collaborative Project-Based Learning on the Self-Efficacy of Minority STEM Students

Bowie State University, Bowie MD

Investigators

Abstract

Bowie State University will study the impact of collaborative project-based learning on the self-efficacy of minority freshmen enrolled in STEM courses and examine the underlying instructional system using a participatory strategy and socio-constructivist theories. The project is designed also to enhance the educational research skills of STEM faculty through their engagement in action research. The intervention incorporates small in-class collaborative projects to inspire students' interest in learning new theory and to train students in the design process. The researchers will leverage the Robotics Clinics learning environment at Bowie State to understand why the intervention is effective and to generalize the innovative teaching practice to the broader STEM education community, particularly minority serving institutions. The researchers propose to investigate two research questions in two phases. The research questions are what are the learning characteristics of minority freshmen in STEM, and how do various features in collaborative learning and group dynamics influence the development of efficacy. In the first phase, the investigators will collect and analyze survey data of students enrolled in the Robotics Clinic freshman seminar courses using a social constructivist framework. They will then conduct a learner and contextual analysis to study the influences of learner characteristics and group differences. In the second phase, the investigators will use the results of the first phase to design and test the effectiveness of the evidence-based instructional system in fostering self-efficacy. The researchers will assess the impact of the project on faculty through surveys, focus groups, and self-reported anecdotes. The project is expected to produce a measure to evaluate the developmental impacts of the collaborative learning strategy on learning outcomes, to articulate an effective instructional system that integrates community inquiry, and to indirectly enhance the training of STEM faculty in educational research.