Increasing Middle School Engagement: Impacts of a Robotics Summer School Program

• In Event: 75.061 - Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: 75.061-4 - Evaluating Programs Designed to Enhance College and Career Readiness

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a quasi-experimental study of the impact of a summer robotics program for two cohorts of middle school students on their school attendance rate in the year following the intervention. Program students (who were nearly all minority students eligible for free or reduced price lunch) were matched to comparison students who did not attend summer school using propensity score and Mahalanobis metric matching. After establishing baseline equivalence between the two groups, the study found a statistically and educationally significant program effect on attendance. The paper discusses the educational importance of impacts on middle school attendance even if an impact on mathematics achievement was not detected in the first year of the program.

Authors

• Douglas J. Mac Iver, Johns Hopkins University

• Martha Abele Mac Iver, Johns Hopkins University