Reasons why FIRST is good for Universities

[JohnCushion]

Several studies have been conducted which show the benefits of FIRST for the students who participate. We believe that FIRST sponsorship by colleges and universities is a benefit to the involved schools. As a fulfillment of our junior year project, we will be researching our hypothesis and publishing the results in March 2011.

This is where you all come in. In order to conduct our survey, we will need the contact information of university faculty representatives- Vince Wilczynski recommended that we use Chief Delphi to reach to all of you for your help. If your team is interested, please urge your faculty member to contact us via email at FQP@wpi.edu.

Thanks in advance,
John Cushion, Katherine King, Sebastian Courtney, Autumn Paro

[davidthefat]

My hypothesis is: Students who participated in the FIRST Robotics during their highschool career have a higher chance of going into a 4 year college.

[XaulZan11]

My hypothesis is: Students who participated in the FIRST Robotics during their highschool career have a higher chance of going into a 4 year college.

Is that because FIRST just attracts college bound students or does FIRST actually influence students' decisions to go to college? It is possible to control for this issue, but it would be significantly more work.

[davidthefat]

Is that because FIRST just attracts college bound students or does FIRST actually influence students' decisions to go to college? It is possible to control for this issue, but it would be significantly more work.

I would say combination of both honestly.

[EricH]

I think the OP wanted to talk to university faculty representatives, especially if they work with the team. This is something that would fall into their area, and might have reasons that students wouldn't necessarily know about.

[Chris Hibner]

Is that because FIRST just attracts college bound students or does FIRST actually influence students' decisions to go to college? It is possible to control for this issue, but it would be significantly more work.

FIRST definitely attracts students that are already planning on going to college, and FIRST is good experience for these students.

The challenge for teams is to reach out to students that have potential but otherwise might not choose to go to college. It's important to have a good relationship with the teachers in the school so they can identify this type of student and send them to the team. That's the tricky part.

I know for sure that I have worked with students that have gone to college that would not have otherwise. FIRST definitely works. It may not have 100% success (I'd say not even close), but even if it has 5% success, that's a big victory.

[Jared Russell]

I knew I would go to college, but I didn't know that I was going to go for Engineering until I did FIRST.

[Brandon Holley]

Sebs- you know how to reach Don, feel free to get him involved.

-Brando

[JohnCushion]

I think the OP wanted to talk to university faculty representatives, especially if they work with the team. This is something that would fall into their area, and might have reasons that students wouldn't necessarily know about.

Yes. We are trying to contact university representatives and find out why they sponsor FIRST. Plenty of research has been done on the effects of FIRST on the students who are involved, I would point anyone who is interested in these to the report done by Brandeis University, which can be found on the FIRST website here: http://usfirst.org/aboutus/content.aspx?id=46&terms=brandeis.

We are asking that ChiefDelphi readers who know of an university which supports FIRST ask a faculty representative if they would be willing to fill out a survey, then contact us either through ChiefDelphi or via email at fqp@wpi.edu


Thank you

John Cushion, Katherine King, Autumn Paro, Sebastian Courtney

[Joe Ross]

FIRST recently posted a lot of marketing material. http://usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/resourcecenter.aspx?id=638 One of the flyers is specifically geared for universities. It mentions a survey of universities, and has several statistics from it. It might be worth tracking down that survey.

[Jonathan Norris]

John,

Our team, K-Botics team 2809, is partnered with Queen's University here in Kingston Ontario. Feel free to contact me if you want us to help out.

[JohnCushion]

Just to restate to everyone what we are trying to achieve with this thread.

Our project at WPI is to survey Universities nationwide that support FIRST through mentorship, sponsorship or through any other means. However, there are over 300 universities in the United States that provide some amount of support. We are asking that if anyone on ChiefDelphi who has some connection to any university that supports FIRST to ask the lead contact within that university if they are willing to answer some questions and either ask them to contact us either by e-mail at fqp@wpi.edu or here on ChiefDelphi.

Thank you all again

John Cushion, Autumn Paro, Sebastian Courtney, Katherine King

[Vince]

John -

Here are some links to background material on your project.

Though dated, the references might be a source of university folks that you can connect with.

I think your work is very important, and recognize the challenge finding specific university faculty to connect with - Vince

FIRST & Universities Discussion Paper (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1300)

Document that accompanied Woodie's 2004 presentation to engineering educators (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1556)

Journal paper on using FIRST at universities (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1875)