Anita Welch, assistant professor in the School of Education, gave a presentation on students’ attitudes toward science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields at the National Science Teachers Association national convention in New Orleans.
Titled “FIRST: Changing Attitudes … Changing the Future,” Welch’s study examined the impact of the participation in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition on high school students’ attitudes toward science.
According to Welch’s findings, the FIRST Robotics Competition provided significant outcomes in four of the seven primary areas examined, including social implication of science, normality of scientists, attitude to scientific inquiry and adoption of scientific attitudes. “The study does offer some evidence that the FIRST Robotics Competition has an attitudinal impact on students’ views toward science,” Welch said. “The most interesting finding is that the program seems to have the greatest impact with ‘at-risk’ youth and makes a significant difference in how they ‘see’ scientists and engineers as real people.”
FIRST is a multinational non-profit organization founded by Dean Kamen, whose goal is to transform culture by making science, mathematics, engineering and technology as exciting for students as other team sports. Using a competition in which students design and build robots in a six-week period, then compete in regional events, FIRST attempts to make STEM activities exciting and rewarding, thus leading the students toward careers in STEM related fields.