One of the things that bother me are releasing statistics such as “[x] percent of students who participate on an FRC team seek a STEM degree in college” without context. Because often, those who participate in FIRST are already more likely to seek a STEM degree. It’s a pretty classic case of correlation implying causation, so I’m wondering if anyone has studied and published how FIRST has truly impacted people who were originally not going to seek a STEM degree/career but changed course because of participation on a FIRST team, as well as the converse, those who were dissuaded from STEM due to a negative experience.
The landmark research here is the ongoing longitudinal study being done by Brandeis University. While FIRST’s marketing materials may gloss over your questions, the researchers’ reports do address many of them in depth.
FIRST tries to quantify this information regularly. I know I have filled out more than a few surveys as an alumni of FRC asking what I am doing and the impact FIRST has had on me.
A quick glance at the impact page on the FIRST website may have the answers you seek.
There was (is?) a study done by Brandeis University that has follow-up reports yearly that is linked on the impact page as well. Brandies University 36 Month Follow-Up
You likely won’t find all of the information you are looking for, but this is a good starting point.
It looks like they’ll be finishing data collection soon. I’ll be very interested to read their findings. Having so much FIRST influence in the study is slightly alarming since the results could reveal significant results of their efficacy as an organization, so hopefully conflicts of interest have been minimized (nobody wants to find out the organization they work for has minimal impact, if any).
help me understand that statement, where is this coming from?
Thanks, I hadn’t seen these.
I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Just looking at the study webpage, there seems to be a lot of people who are involved with FIRST or FIRST Stakeholders involved in the study. Any time a study is done, objectivity is key. For example, how much do you trust a climate report bankrolled and designed by a natural resources or renewable resources company? I’m just pointing out that there is a potential conflict of interest, but I understand a bit of conflict of interest may be necissary to get access to the participants.
There are also a load of STEM programs that are not being studied to this degree.
I have a personal opinion that despite my own interest in FRC, it is likely not the best money per unit of [insert desired noun for ‘value’] returned to society of all the various STEM education programs that exist. That doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome/fun/spectacular/MFD/etc though.
I absolutely agree that it is awesome and fun and all those things, otherwise I wouldn’t have been participating for so many years. I’m just wanting to know if when we are out trying to recruit students (and truthfully, their parents), whether or not we are telling half-truths regarding the impact of the program. I’m perfectly fine saying that it’s awesome and fun to parents, but I find it a little more difficult to say their kid is more likely to enter a STEM field for having been involved in FIRST without real evidence of this being the case.
I have this concern as well. Sometimes in our own fanaticism we assume FIRST is working in the big picture with little-to-no data supporting that assumption.
FIRST has it’s own set of data regarding school performance, impacts on schools, higher education enrollment of FIRST alum, and lots of other data that they use for recruiting schools to support new teams. I am aware of this information because I was interested in starting a new team and spoke to the MAR Program Director who said he has presentations and data relevant to the school to show the benefits of FIRST in the school district.
I imagine they have data relating to how FIRST graduates become valuable to the workforce, and those numbers are likely presented to potential sponsors. Very few companies sponsor such things out of the kindness of their hearts.
In my experience certain individuals have this information, and FIRST has it at the ready for when people need it, but it isn’t incredibly accessible to anyone and everyone. I imagine you could ask FIRST for this information directly. They may (or may not) provide you with it, but of any party involved they likely have the best idea of how well they are accomplishing their own goals.
It might be easier to study your own schools/districts to figure out how many students go onto stem on average per X number of students(especially before a school had a FIRST team). I’m not sure where or when I read it but something like 2 students per high school on average on to STEM degrees. If your school is hitting way above that or above your area’s average, I think its fair to say FIRST has some impact in that regard.
One thing I have been tracking for our team is how many students going into a STEM field of study graduate with that major. It’s well known that engineering programs have a terrible retention rate, only around 50% of students entering college thinking they want to major in engineering graduate with those degrees.
I think FIRST helps tremendously in getting students over the tedious first two years of an engineering program and advancing into more interesting material and hands-on projects. Many schools even have required weed-out classes for freshman and sophomores designed to flush out those on the fence. Without the inertia provided by FIRST I think many would have decided that engineering just isn’t fun and is not for them.
In my 14 years of leading our FRC team, I can’t think of more than a couple of students who switched out of engineering after entering with that intention.
Besides introducing students to engineering when they wouldn’t have considered it before, retention may be FIRST’s superpower.
I used to collect data at my school on things like, impact on grades in math classes and on standardized tests among students who took our tech and engineering classes verses the control group, and found that there was some correlation. It’s been ten years and the data are in some old computer unfortunately, so I can’t give exact numbers, sorry, but it was something like a 4-6% increase I think. I also checked on intended courses of study for graduating students enrolled in college. In year one of our current program (2003) there were four students (out if a graduating class of around 400, I think) who planned on pursuing engineering. Last year we had 37. Is this part of a broader cultural trend? Yes, I think so. Does it help that we have a program to plug kids into who are interested, or who might become interested given the opportunity? I’d bet on it.
FIRST itself is certainly not the only option for such programs. As the one making decisions on which options to put our resources into as a school, I stopped supporting Punkin Chunkin, MESA, and several other organizations to put more into FIRST, because it gives more BANG! Not for the buck (other programs cost less, obv). Just, more bang.
Dale this is what I have found to be the most powerful effect of FIRST. In particular this has been true for the women and under represented minority students who have come through our FIRST program. The competence and confidence that FRC gives to students helps them weather the ups and downs that many students experience at the start of a college. I have lost count of the students who told me that their experiences in FRC helped them in college. I have also had more than a few students who majored in engineering who came back and told me they wished they had participated in FRC, because their classmates in college who had definitely had a leg up.
Aren’t we failing in our “mission” to change the culture in that the first two years are tedious and boring though? Are we not failing in that universities feel the need for weed out classes instead of embracing everyone and giving them exciting work? I for one wish I had something more positive to tell my students about their first two years of college other than “just get through it”. Honestly, I’d rather some of them just go start their careers and be happy rather than going through 2 years of boring nonsense.
It might be true that FIRST teaches you that you have to painstakingly file the part after machining it and before putting it on the robot but at the end of it you get a robot and the end isn’t but 6 we… well more like 13 weeks away. It seems disingenuous to sell the notion of project based learning to students only to turn around and see them go back into a world of traditional learning… maybe that’s just me though.
Are we not failing in that universities feel the need for weed out classes instead of embracing everyone and giving them exciting work?
It does pain me that we’re putting all this effort at the high school level towards filling the pipeline for colleges only for them to cavalierly flush out half of them. Not only that but those students then have to major in something else potentially adding a semester or two of student loans.
Case in point. One of the big public engineering universities in my home state, Oregon State, has 8,700 engineering majors! No way can that experience, on average, be as engaging as FRC. At least our students go in more boyant and resistant to the flushing action that department has had to put in place to manage their numbers. Still it bothers me a lot.
folks have to remember that colleges and universities are money making organizations. If students start in majors that they can’t finish or are forced out of, that’s just more money for them. Supporting students costs money and hurts their bottom line.
But don’t they also want successful alumni to donate money?
QFT
Universities and colleges are money making machines and although they do provide a good service, their ultimate goal is making money.
They could really care less if you graduate or not, as long as those tuition checks are rolling in.
Perhaps slightly off topic, and I don’t know if others share this thought, but I believe with the increasing college/university costs (and decreasing value proposition, perceived or not), growth of online learning alternatives (e.g., MOOCs) and finally the broadening of the base of products and areas featuring robotics needing capable technicians - that university is not the only avenue to success and fulfillment for all FRC students. While my hope is that the Kauaibots FRC students go on to post-secondary education and they are encouraged in this, I for one fully support those who take other paths or defer post-secondary education. FRC teaches many many key lessons in various areas; and some of the brightest, most impactful technical types (Einstein, Steve Jobs come to mind) had less-than-typical educational paths.
The eventual impact on humanity of FRC teammembers is what counts most in my mind. Haven’t figured out a great way to measure that one, but you know it when you see it.