Classroom Instructors’ Perceptions of Site Leadership and Interest Outcomes within a Summer Engineering Program (Evaluation)

To help address the issue of underrepresentation of African Americans obtaining engineering degrees and matriculating into engineering industry, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) launched the Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK) program in 2007. As of 2015, the program had 17 sites across 16 major U.S. cities. The free 3-week summer camp provides access to engineering education activities through competition based, hands-on curriculum. At each of the locations, four individuals were hired to serve as site leaders to oversee all operations and logistics at the program: 1) Site Director 2) Assistant Site Director 3) Operations Specialist and 4) Data Specialist. Classroom instructors, who are referred to as mentors, were hired at a 6:1 ratio with a total of 3 per class. The site leaders and classroom mentors were primarily comprised of undergraduate and graduate engineering, STEM nonengineering and education majors. During the summer of 2015, instructor surveys and student pre and post assessments were distributed, collected and analyzed by the external evaluator. The instructor survey data was analyzed and findings were shared within one of the three reports provided to NSBE by the external evaluator including the overall, all-sites report, site-specific reports and an internal report. However, several of the 34 questions within the instructor post-program survey, a mix of open-ended and likert scale, were not analyzed by the external evaluator. A quantitative analysis will be conducted using raw data from questions related to classroom instructors’ feedback on site leadership performance including areas of management, supervision, their ability to give feedback, professionalism, work ethic and problem solving skills. These results will then be compared to the classroom instructors interest outcomes on the SEEK program. The implications of this research include better understanding the role of leadership during short-term, out-ofschool (OST) engineering programs such as training and professional development and other potential best practices. INTRODUCTION Out-of-school time (OST) programs including after-school, before-school, and summer-based activities assist with narrowing the achievement gap and increasing interest in STEM for students of color. OST programs serve low-income and minority children at a greater rate than the general population and provides an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students and people of color to serve as mentors [1]. OST-based programs provide services to 15% of the national school-aged population which is 24% African American, 21% Hispanic, and 16% of Native Americans; a total of 61% for URMs [2,3,4]. According to the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments Center (LIFE), children only spend 81.5% of their waking hours outside of the formal education environment [5,6]. From an outcomes standpoint, OST programs have been found to improve students’ attitudes toward STEM classes, increase interest in STEM careers, and boost academic achievement. As encouraging as this is, many OST programs struggle to provide science programming because of lack of resources and knowledge, and limited access to professional development [7]. One program that has been able to provide access to STEM education to students of color for 10 years is the Summer Engineering Experience for Kids program (SEEK) hosted by the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). As of 2015, NSBE SEEK was in place within 16 major cities across the United States. The program provides a STEM focused curriculum to approximately 3,000 students per summer and employees, on average 400 to 500 collegiate and professional instructors also known as mentors. The mentors are primarily NSBE members who are engineering or STEM students and technical professionals. For 2015, each SEEK site was led by a Site Director, Assistant Site Director, Operations Coordinator and Data Specialist. This leadership team is responsible for the overall management of mentors, student participants, parents, and sponsors. Additionally, they manage the operational and logistical aspects and needs including collecting daily attendance and managing pre and post assessment data. A majority of the site leaders had previous experience with the SEEK program either as a site leader or classroom mentor [8]. Each SEEK site was staffed by SEEK mentors in the aim to provide a unique experience in which students have an opportunity to discover the wonders of STEM. All were required to participate in a 1 week long mentor training that took place the week prior to the program beginning for the students. This training included a review and demonstration of the curriculum, classroom management, team building activities and the parent orientation, which was mandatory for parents, and guardians of all students. At the end of the 4-week experience for mentors, they completed a post-program survey that consisted of a wide variety of questions including multiple choice, likert scale and open-ended options. Several of those 34-questions were not analyzed by the external evaluator. In particular, there were questions related to classroom instructors’ feedback on site leadership performance including areas of management, supervision, professionalism and problem solving skills that were not analyzed but mentioned on a high-level within the internal report. For example, the evaluator stated that two particular sites leadership team members received overwhelming poor feedback from classroom mentors and that NSBE SEEK should further investigate the potential causes [9]. LITERATURE REVIEW The unique structure of the NSBE SEEK program requires that it is youth led. For the purposes of this review, youth are defined as 18 25. Within this youth led model, it is necessary for there to be components of service, cultural competency, and self-efficacy. Youth participation can have a considerable effect on community change. Since the community of the NSBE SEEK program is one of youth leaders, you essentially have youth leading other youth. It is important to note that the NSBE SEEK model considers “youth participation [to be] about the real influence of young people in institutions and decisions, not about their passive presence as human subjects or service recipients.”[10]. Once engaged as full participants, you begin to see youth not as necessary recipients of care, but as empowered, and involved citizens who have purpose, knowledge, drive and potential. Working on the opposite side of the spectrum of the “adolescent pathology industry”[11], NSBE SEEK works from the empowerment model to enable the Site Leadership to lead their teams throughout the NSBE SEEK program. The model is built on four antecedents, “individual level factors (sex, personality, control desire), leader-subordinate relationship factors (trust, leader-member ex-change), organization level factors (organization system control) and culture factors (power distance, uncertainty avoidance).” [12] Of these antecedents, the NSBE SEEK program must consider its impact on individual factors when seeking leadership through a people of color lens, being purposeful with gender breakdowns and allotments, and doing personality assessments to make sure that that the right teams are assembled for each camp. For organization level factors, NSBE SEEK must provide sound reporting structures, payment schedules, and mission driven programming that provides consistency for leaders, removing the concerns around organizational interests. What is left is the development of the leader-subordinate relationship factors and taking into account the culture factors. One of the main areas is to build trust and rapport, as trust is critical in youth led initiatives and in the empowerment model. Having the SEEK Mentors trust the site leadership will mean that the leaders have done an effective job of showcasing their skill-set and have empowered the others to work toward the program goals in a way that they feel capable. Lastly, by providing consistent lines of communication with NSBE SEEK programmatic leadership, there is an opportunity to lessen the power distance and remove uncertainty avoidance from the equation. This will enable the NSBE SEEK program to create those empowered, involved leaders who have purpose, knowledge, drive, and potential. An additional model of leadership is also necessary in the NSBE SEEK program, in that it takes the leader-as-a-servant of others as a baseline. NSBE SEEK Site Leadership is not just a dictatorial structure issuing edicts down to mentors, who then enforce that among the 3rd-5th grade participants. It is a servant leader model, where the site leadership are there to make the job of the SEEK Mentors easy and enjoyable. One that helps them see in themselves the capabilities to lead classrooms and further employ the empowerment model down to help the younger students believe and see themselves as engineers. This allows for a new approach to be utilized taken when taking a look at the issues of power and authority and helping people, “to learn, however haltingly, to relate to one another in less coercive and more creatively supporting ways”[13]. As the perceptions of site leadership are measured to determine the effectiveness of the NSBE SEEK program, it will be beneficial to apply the principles of these two leadership models to the review process and in considering what changes, if any, can be made to make the process effective for all those who are touched by participation. METHODOLOGY In order to further research the feedback provided by classroom instructors on Site Leaders at SEEK sites in 2015, two research questions were developed to help guide the analysis: (1) What are the perceptions of classroom mentors on their site leaders and (2) How do the perceptions of classroom mentors on their site leaders compare to the their interest in returning to SEEK and likelihood of recomme