EVALUATION

The BRIDGES project evaluation plan includes a comprehensive formative (process) and summative (outcome) evaluation. Formative evaluation activities measure the project's successful attainment of stated objectives with the goal of project improvement. Summative activities provide credible evidence of the degree to which the stated objectives are achieved, including (1) the degree to which BRIDGES engages and sustains youths’ STEM-related identity work and pathways and (2) the degree to which the BRIDGES program supports the ability of teachers to implement and sustain an after-school STEM club. 

 

FORMATIVE EVALUATION QUESTIONS

FORMATIVE EVALUATION QUESTION 1

To what degree does the BRIDGES program engage students in STEM-based field research related to a significant societal problem? 

a. How do students like the field-based research, field trips, presentations, hands-on activities, and cumulative problem-solving activity?

b. Which BRIDGES activities do they find most engaging/least engaging and why?

c. Which aspects of socioenvironmental problems do they find most engaging and why? 

d. What suggestions do they have for improving the program?

FORMATIVE EVALUATION QUESTION 2

To what extent do participating teachers find the program supportive of their needs?

a. To what degree do they believe it will allow them to develop an after-school STEM club at their local school?

b. What additional supports do they desire to enable them to develop STEM clubs?

c. What do they find most useful/least useful?

d. What suggestions do they have for improving this experience for future teachers to increase the likelihood that they can develop afterschool STEM clubs that are sustained?

 
 

SUMMATIVE EVALUATION QUESTIONS

SUMMATIVE EVALUATION QUESTION 1

To what degree have teachers' engagement shifted their perspectives on teaching science, engineering, and/or computing? 

  1. How does this shift change, if at all, how they view their students' STEM knowledge, engagement, and agency?

  2. To what extent have teachers developed afterschool STEM clubs, to what degree are they attended, and what pedagogical practices are teachers using to engage students in these clubs?

SUMMATIVE EVALUATION QUESTION 2

To what degree have students’: 

a. disciplinary knowledge increased,

b. engagement in disciplinary practices increased,

c. recognition of self and by others as STEM-capable and promising increased,

d. desire to seek and actual seeking opportunities to do, use, and contribute to STEM during and after their participation in the program increased, and 

e. awareness of STEM careers increased, as a result of participating in BRIDGES?