Engineering Education Commons^™

The Impact Of Girl Scout Engineering Experiences On The Identity Development Of Middle Schoolers, Abigail M. Clark, Rachel Kajfez

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Despite years of recruitment efforts, women remain significantly underrepresented throughout engineering. While research into precollege engineering education has expanded, it has primarily focused on formal learning settings, even though students spend significantly more time outside of the classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, including the time spent outside of the classroom in informal environments. Specifically, programs had to evolve to provide online content and at-home activities. Some programs even shut down completely. Within this context, our study sought to understand the impact of one informal engineering learning experience, a Girl Scout engineering badge, which also shifted online due to the …