Second opportunity: Recently, requests from some PROSPECT Partner Institutions for access to measures and instruments currently being used by other partner institutions were discussed by the PROSPECT Research Team. As you know, the use of a Professional Learning Community is a foundational mechanism promoted, encouraged, and used by the PROSPECT project. One outcome of the Research Team discussion was to gauge interest from partner institutions in forming a Measures and Instruments PLC (MI-PLC). While the PLC would set an agenda that reflects the interests and needs of PLC members, an initial focus would be to discuss current measures and instruments that projects are using (or have used) to gather data to inform their own project research and explore the viability of sharing those measures and instruments with others in the MI-PLC or PROSPECT community.
An underlying assumption for the MI-PLC is that each project, in one form or another, uses various measures and instruments to gather data. While many, if not all, of these measures and instruments are validated and reliable to use with students in those projects, the MI-PLC could be a vehicle for helping to review, revise, and validate instruments to ensure data being collected is meeting project needs. Additionally, there has been some interest across a few projects to explore developing a measure that is focused on problem-solving self-efficacy for undergraduate students and accumulating evidence to provide a validity argument for using this measure with undergrads. Early indications are that many projects are using some sort of efficacy instrument within their project, typically focused on a particular STEM content. The MI-PLC could serve an important function of looking at existing project self-efficacy instruments, regardless of the content focus, and see if it is possible to prepare a more generalized STEM problem-solving self-efficacy instrument that could be used across projects. The benefit to all involved would be access to and use of a STEM problem-solving self-efficacy instrument that has sufficient validity arguments for this use. The use of this instrument within a project can help to identify areas where attention to problem-solving self-efficacy, including at the specific content or course level, would help students to increase their self-efficacy, which will likely translate to a stronger sense of STEM identity and STEM perseverance. These are important traits that are vital to the workforce and academic pursuits.
If this sounds like it might be something you would find interesting, or you see the benefit to your own institutional program, please take a few minutes to complete a very brief online survey to express interest. The survey will be open until December 30, 2023. After that, a review of responses will set the direction for the Research Team to take actions to move this MI-PLC forward.
Thanks for your consideration. The Research Team hopes to hear from you and your project.