Agency and STEM Thinkability: A Study of Family Making

• In Event: Narrative in Science and Engineering Inquiry Activities: Research Investigating Families Learning in Libraries and Museums

Abstract

Objective/Framework
While children are excited about science throughout the early elementary school years, those aspirations often wane, with STEM careers becoming less “thinkable,” particularly for lower income families (Archer et al., 2012). A critical aspect of STEM thinkability is agency (Archer et al.), engagement of the environment to produce effects. The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic and distributed nature of parents’ and children’s conceptions of agency as they engage in making activities. Making not only allows for open-ended STEM inquiry, but its “aesthetic and playful qualities” can invite participation from diverse backgrounds (Vossoughi & Bevan, 2014).

Method
Educators from a museum/makerspace and volunteer STEM experts conducted two sets of three-session circuitry and programming workshops (two hours each, three weekends in a row) in two libraries in a mid-Atlantic urban area. Twenty-one children (aged 4 to 11) and 19 parents and grandparents attended both sets of workshops (several families did not attend all workshops), with a total of 16 families participating. Participants were recruited through a science enrichment program for Title 1 schools in an area with a growing population of immigrants (over half of participating families were either first- or second-generation immigrants). Workshops began with STEM experts (a chemist, molecular biologist, and several engineers) narrating childhood science experiences, connecting them to current work. Then educators introduced families to the week’s concepts (e.g., circuits, microcontrollers, drag-and-drop programming) followed by a family making challenge (e.g., build a video game controller).
One video recorder and individual audio recorders captured interactions across families. In addition, families were interviewed after each session about the making process and whether and how they saw activities connecting to STEM. Children also completed a nature of engineering task (adapted from Karatas, Micklos, & Bodner, 2011) and a science activity task (adapted from Zimmerman & Bell, 2014). Educators and STEM experts were also interviewed. Data were analyzed using a combination of tools from functional linguistics and narrative analysis (Authors, 2016; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Riessman, 2008). Linguistic categories like subjects, verb type, and modality were used to explore who or what participants represented as engaging in what kinds of agency across making and STEM experiences.

Results
Several patterns emerge in how families construct agency: first, parents support STEM thinkablilty by framing their children as past agents, for example, reminding a child of success in a school science project. Second, parents activate proxy agency when they do not believe they have the adequate knowledge (Bandura, 2006). For instance, several parents frequently call over an educator or STEM expert. Also, almost all parents “translate” during expert stories or explanations, using that external expertise to support STEM thinkability for their child. Finally, children take on collaborative agency, posing numerous “we should/will” statements, placing themselves as agents over the whole family’s making.

Significance
By understanding the dynamics of how parents and children represent selves and others as part of the making enterprise, we gain insight into the complexity of what it means to make STEM roles thinkable for all children.

Authors

• Abigail W Konopasky, George Mason University

• Kimberly Marie Sheridan, George Mason University