I Lead, Therefore I Am: The Impact of Student-mentor Leadership Opportunities on STEM Identity Development and Sustainability

The national imperative to increase the production of computer science and engineering professionals has garnered the attention of both public and private sectors of the economy. As such, private companies, such as Verizon have begun to fund what they call Innovation in Learning (VIL) initiatives that aim to increase participation in these fields. Initiatives such as these, also recognize the need to diversify the engineering workplace by focusing specifically on engaging, inspiring, and motivating underrepresented minority (URM) youth by exposing them to engineering and other STEM concepts. During summer 2017, a southeastern university participated in hosting one of the seventeen Verizon sponsored STEM Camps. The university hosted 144 URM middle school boys for three weeks on campus to explore engineering habits of mind, engineering design principles, and computer science application development fundamentals. The camp was primarily facilitated by fourteen student mentors. One of the principle elements of the camp was to have mentors that reflected the demographics of the student population. As such, the mentor demographics consisted of 12 URM male mentors and 2 URM female mentors. Upon conclusion of the summer camp all of the student mentors were asked to participate in an open-ended survey that inquired about their experiences as studentmentors. The research questions guiding this study were: What role does race and gender have on the development of student mentor relationships? What are the implications of those mentor relationships on STEM identity development of the student-mentors? These research questions were answered through the use of thematic analysis, yielding two main themes: 1) barriers and connections associated with race and gender and 2) development of role identity specifically the sub-constructs of performance/competence and interest. The results of this study suggest that engaging in mentoring relationships, while motivated by altruistic desires, strengthened STEM role identity development of the student-mentors. Previous literature has demonstrated that salient STEM identity development can contribute to persistence in these fields. Promoting engagement in mentoring opportunities, like summer camps, could aid in increasing and sustaining URM STEM majors. Introduction In order for the nation to continue its prominence in a global market, many scholars have deemed the need to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities (URM) in engineering and other STEM related fields imperative. This push to increase the participation of URM has launched efforts at the K-12 through graduate level. Within the K-12 space the national academies have deemed the need for equity and diversity in science and engineering a priority for the nation, labeling it a “democratic ideal worthy of focused attention”. This call to action was made when they published their K-12 Framework for Science Education. The government, however, is not the only sector focused on increasing the participation of URM in STEM fields. Private industry has also begun to recognize the value and necessity of diversity in the engineering workforce, spawning over $164.2 billion in diversity initiatives at private companies in recent years. These initiatives include everything from bias training that addresses company culture, policy, and hiring practices to community outreach with the goal of engaging the next generation of STEM professionals. One such program is the Verizon Innovative Learning (VIL) program. The Verizon Foundation has developed an outreach initiative focused on increasing interest in STEM fields through experiential learning opportunities. While VIL has a number of initiatives, the focus of this summer camp and study was minority males, namely African-Americans and Latinos, due to their low representation in most STEM fields. Although the number of science and engineering bachelor's degrees awarded to minority males increased 45 percent in 2012, minority men as a proportion of all science and engineering bachelor's degree recipients has remained essentially unchanged, at 6.1 percent in 2002 and 6.2 percent in 2012. Census data show that while African-American men make up 6.2 percent of the population between 18 and 64 years old, they represent 3 percent of the scientists and engineers working in those fields. Meanwhile, Hispanic men comprise 7 percent of scientists and engineers working in those fields. In an attempt to garner more interest in STEM fields of Hispanic and Black males, a summer camp was developed that not only served the Black and Hispanic populations of the local community it was also facilitated largely by minority male engineering, computer science, and STEM education undergraduate students. Leveraging existing literature around the impacts of mentorship and, more specifically, same gender and same racial/ethnic identity mentorship as a factor in garnering interest in STEM of minority middle school boys, the camp leaders were deliberate in their pursuit of minority male and female mentors. The camp leaders recruited and hired student-mentors that were representative of the students served minority male undergraduates. The aim was to surround the minority middle school boys with role models and mentors that reflected their image and background. An unexpected benefit of this model of same gender, same racial/ethnic mentorship was the increased salience of STEM identity in the student-mentor upon completion of the three-week STEM camp. Literature Review In the attempt to better understand representation in STEM fields, scholars have begun to explore the diverse factors that increase participation, graduation rates, and ultimately, persistence of students including the role of mentorship. Within this space, research inquiries have posed questions largely focused on: how mentor relationships help students and why should mentor relationships be studied? The current body of literature acknowledges that mentorship relationships are often mutually beneficial for both the mentee and mentor. Likewise, scholars have reported the benefits of same gender/same race mentoring relationships. Scholars such as Wright and Wright, contribute to this body of literature by keenly observing the implications and benefits of same gender and race mentor relationships reporting findings that suggest that, within same gender and race mentor relationships, there are improvements (among the mentors) in: communication skills, confidence and identity. That same study noted that mentors benefit from passing knowledge to their mentees and developing a legacy. Given the role that mentors play as “teachers”, there is also an academic gain, one in which mentors improve or solidify their skills and previous knowledge in their subjects (the affective academic). When exploring mentoring relationships of women (to women), one research study reported that such mentoring relationships helped women feel less isolated and experienced decreased fears of failure in male dominated fields. These benefits of mentoring have also been expanded to identity development and salience. Largely in the domain of business and leadership, scholars have suggested that mentoring and identity are connected. Identity scholars that believe that identity is malleable and fluid also ascribe to the idea that identity is influenced by social and cultural factors, such as discourse and relationships; in this case mentoring relationships. This research study leverages the work of these scholars to explore the implications of same race/same gender mentoring relationships on identity salience of mentors. As such, the research design aims to analyze the implications of mentorship on the mentor rather than the mentee by answering the following research questions: 1) How does gender and race play a role in the development of student mentor relationships? 2) What are the implications of those mentor relationships on STEM identity development of student mentors? Theoretical Framework Social identity theory provides an established theoretical framework that has been utilized effectively in science and engineering education research for understanding participation in science, engineering, and other related fields. This form of identity exploration is considered role identity and can include roles such as physics, chemistry, engineering, science (more broadly), researcher, etc. Engineering education scholars have successfully transferred the operationalization of role identity to engineering in order to better understand the impact of identity on engagement, retention, and persistence in college and industry. Researchers have measured identity in their participants through the ways in which they talked about engineering, how they acted/participated in the engineering world, how they described being in the engineering world (classroom), how they described themselves, and how they related to others in the community. Identity theory has also been used as a predictor for persistence in the context of physics and engineering. These same scholars have disaggregated identity in to three sub-constructs: performance/competence, interest, and recognition. Their work has defined performance/competence as a person’s perception of their own performance or competence in a field of study. Meanwhile, interest is defined as a person’s perceived interest in a field of study. Lastly, recognition is the measure of a person’s perceived level of recognition by others of their ability or role identity. Recognition can be given in the traditional sense awards, accolades, and grades or in a less traditional sense other’s asking for their help in a class or subject. Identity development and sustainability have also been linked to participation in a community. In science and engineering education these communities were explicitly learning communities. In those learning communities there are often peer-t