Long-term effects of a middle school engineering outreach program for girls: A controlled study

Abstract

This study compares the high school choices and choice of college major of two groups: young women who participated in the two-week Camp Reach engineering program as rising sixth graders, and those who applied to the program but were not chosen in the random lottery (control group). Results indicate that, in comparison to the control group, Camp Reach participants were significantly more likely to attend a public high school specializing in mathematics and science and also more likely to enroll in elective math and science courses in high school. While a higher fraction of the Camp Reach group chose engineering majors upon college entry, the difference did not reach statistical significance. Grouping all STEM-related majors together, choices of the Camp Reach and control groups were not significantly different. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in the engineering self-efficacy and other measures of efficacy between the Camp Reach and control groups. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2007.