Youths' Self-Efficacy and Practices in a Vacation Camp for Team-Based Inventing of Electronic Doors

• In Event: Creating Innovative Learning Environments Through Community and Interdisciplinary Connections for Invention Education

Abstract

Inventing can improve health, environmental, and additional outcomes for the public good (Committee for the Study of Invention, 2004). But US patents do not reflect the country’s racial/ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic diversity (Bell et al., 2017). Similarly to making and tinkering (Vossoughi & Bevan, 2014), invention education shows promise for expanding participation in interdisciplinary ways, if approached equitably. We wondered how, during a vacation camp, emergent invention practices would interact with youths’ self-efficacy towards inventing.

Conceptual Framework
We used self-efficacy theory, founded on “people’s beliefs in their capacities to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 2006, p. 307), and its educational connections with “learners’ choices of activities, effort expended, persistence, interest, and achievement” (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2016, p. 34). For invention, we identified practices of doodling, organizing, talking, and tinkering and also studied additional practices in which youth engaged.

Methods
We used a mixed methods convergent design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018) to understand middle schoolers’ development of self-efficacy towards inventing. Participants included 33 students in grades 6-8 attending a vacation camp from February 18-22, 2019. Youth worked in teams of 3-4 to invent electronic doors, as well as to brainstorm ideas for additional inventions (MIT, 2019).

(Table 1)

Data Sources
Qualitative data (interviews, audiovisual recordings, field notes, work artifacts) were open coded (Creswell, 2013) using deductive codes based on self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1993) and inductive codes for emergent themes (Creswell, 2013). Quantitative data (daily self-assessments) stemmed from survey items we revised to increment both the response scale and gradations of challenge (Bandura, 2006). To estimate possible growth in self-efficacy ratings, as well as to account for sample size and missing data, we used a multilevel modeling approach (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002), based on time, gender, and a dichotomized race/ethnicity variable.

Results
Quantitative findings suggested significant growth in self-efficacy for all but one item. For another item, significant effects for race and its interaction with time suggest that non-whites experienced more growth in self-efficacy compared to their white counterparts; this growth, however, did not fully close initial gaps. For all items, gender was not found to be a significant predictor of self-efficacy.

(Figure 1 &2)

Qualitative data suggest that gendered stereotypes affected mixed-gender groups; for example, in one group tinkering was done more by the two boys, whereas doodling was done more by the two girls. These stereotypes could support a depth of self-efficacy in the stereotyped domains, but interviews suggest that campers felt limited in their breadth of self-efficacy per the same stereotypes.

Significance
This study extends self-efficacy theory to informal learning environments in a diverse setting with more detail than a pre-/post- design, addressing needs identified by Schunk and DiBenedetto (2016). Further, it adds to the literature on invention education, which can promote youth in inventing for the public good. Finally, it involved students, family and community members, researchers, practitioners, and curriculum developers to help ensure an equitable approach to inventing that helps youth “open doors” in interdisciplinary and expansive ways.

Authors

• David W. Jackson, Boston College

• Pablo Bendiksen, Boston College