Middle-schoolers often struggle to create research questions and hypotheses that are clear, specific, and empirically testable, especially in resource-limited settings [1, 2]. Evidence suggests that AI tutors deliver real-time, individualized feedback that sharpens scientific reasoning [3, 4]. AI-driven feedback enhances clarity, specificity, and logical coherence of students' inquiries by highlighting gaps in reasoning and fostering independent problem-solving [5].

Spatial visualization is critical in engineering and many other STEM fields. Poor spatial abilities can affect student success in college courses and continue to struggle with tasks in the workforce. Spatial ability, verbal-logical reasoning, and mathematics performance are correlated with each other. Thus, improving spatial ability can improve other areas as well. However, although educators and researchers agree about an increasing need for visualization skills, few educational opportunities existed in secondary schools where spatial reasoning and three-dimensional (3D) printing are combined. Informal learning environments such as summer STEM camps can offer students opportunities to improve spatial skills through a variety of activities. Our research is based on behaviorist and constructivist theories. Both theories recognize the central role of social factors in child development. Constructivist education depends on mutual respect to promote autonomy and reasoning. Althoughchildren can discover things, child development consists in inventing new logical, mathematical knowledge. Behaviorist educators guide children's learning through “demonstration, leading questions, and by introducing the initial elements of a task's solution.” In addition, collaborative learning through social negotiation leads to the co-construction of knowledge. During these summer camps, students worked collaboratively and used social negotiations to construct new knowledge. During a one-week summer camp, students participated in multiple mini -classes centered on spatial relationships. A pre-camp survey was used to assess students' prior work with activities involving spatial skills. The purpose of the study was to determine whether and which of these activities could be correlated with spatial visualization and drawing skills as determined through a spatial drawing activity. We used the Visualization and Drawing Assessment 2 to collect data related to drawing 3D objects accurately. Finally, we scored the data using a specifically designed rubric. We found a moderate correlation with prior activities and the spatial drawing score. Other camp activities were designed to involve students in additional spatial skills activities. The classes were 75 minutes per day over a one-week period. First, flying uncrewed aerial vehicles (UA Vs) gave students experience maneuvering an object in the space of a large, high-ceiling room. To control the UA V, students needed some visualization skills as they moved toward the assigned targeted route. The second class was paper engineering, in which students created pop-up scenes or cards. Students learned several folds to create different types of pop-ups and incorporated these folds in their projects. Creating these 3D paper designsgave students opportunities to visualize and create 3D projects, likely increasing their spatial abilities. The third class was 3D design, in which students used Tinkercad to create a design to be 3 D printed. In the process of creating the design, students rotated the object to see it from different views and perspectives, ensuring adequate printing supports, appropriate scaling, and object completeness. Experience working with 3-D software can improve students' spatial abilities, and better prepare them to study in many science fields.

Spatial visualization is critical in engineering and many other STEM fields. Poor spatial abilities can affect student success in college courses and continue to struggle with tasks in the workforce. Spatial ability, verbal-logical reasoning, and mathematics performance are correlated with each other. Thus, improving spatial ability can improve other areas as well. However, although educators and researchers agree about an increasing need for visualization skills, few educational opportunities existed in secondary schools where spatial reasoning and three-dimensional (3D) printing are combined. Informal learning environments such as summer STEM camps can offer students opportunities to improve spatial skills through a variety of activities. Our research is based on behaviorist and constructivist theories. Both theories recognize the central role of social factors in child development. Constructivist education depends on mutual respect to promote autonomy and reasoning. Although children can discover things, child development consists in inventing new logical, mathematical knowledge. Behaviorist educators guide children's learning through “demonstration, leading questions, and by introducing the initial elements of a task's solution.” In addition, collaborative learning through social negotiation leads to the co-construction of knowledge. During these summer camps, students worked collaboratively and used social negotiations to construct new knowledge. During a one-week summer camp, students participated in multiple mini-classes centered on spatial relationships. A pre-camp survey was used to assess students' prior work with activities involving spatial skills. The purpose of the study was to determine whether and which of these activities could be correlated with spatial visualization and drawing skills as determined through a spatial drawing activity. We used the Visualization and Drawing Assessment 2 to collect data related to drawing 3D objects accurately. Finally, we scored the data using a specifically designed rubric. We found a moderate correlation with prior activities and the spatial drawing score. Other camp activities were designed to involve students in additional spatial skills activities. The classes were 75 minutes per day over a one-week period. First, flying uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) gave students experience maneuvering an object in the space of a large, high-ceiling room. To control the UAV, students needed some visualization skills as they moved toward the assigned targeted route. The second class was paper engineering, in which students created pop-up scenes or cards. Students learned several folds to create different types of pop-ups and incorporated these folds in their projects. Creating these 3D paper designs gave students opportunities to visualize and create 3D projects, likely increasing their spatial abilities. The third class was 3D design, in which students used Tinkercad to create a design to be 3D printed. In the process of creating the design, students rotated the object to see it from different views and perspectives, ensuring adequate printing supports, appropriate scaling, and object completeness. Experience working with 3-D software can improve students' spatial abilities, and better prepare them to study in many science fields.

This research-to-practice full paper presents a study about capturing student interest in computer science. Constructing new knowledge through doing provides an effective pedagogy to increase interest in STEM fields. Coding has become increasingly more important in most career fields, STEM and non-STEM, as technology advances permeate every aspect of our lives. Summer camps offer informal learning opportunities that allow students to engage in STEM activities collaboratively. This study, using a microcircuit kit to introduce basic coding concepts, is seen through the lens of culture, cognition, and literacy. Common themes when defining culture include united standards, common past, shared linguistics, and collective behavior patterns. Cognition comprises knowing, remembering, and judging with the ultimate goal of problem-solving. The cognition of this informal learning experience focused on coding concepts as related to interacting with a microcircuit kit. Literacy, in general, is based on three components: print knowledge, phonological awareness, and oral language. STEM literacy is the ability to develop fluency in STEM such that an individual can express ideas plainly and persuasively, and challenge personal reasoning and thinking. The theoretical framework combines two ideas: 1) situated learning, from John Dewey's theory of experiential learning, and 2) pathways to STEM. Situated learning-based constructivism, occurs in social contexts where knowledge develops through experience, practice, and engagement. As learners develop meaning, competence, and knowledge, they construct identities through blending culture, cognition, and literacy. Recommendations for facilitating pathways to STEM careers include reducing STEM participation barriers for all students. Also recommended is incorporating technology, demonstrating relevance, using collaborative teamwork to cultivate social support systems, and hands-on activities with investigative learning. The research question was, "What effect did a summer camp experience that included microcontroller kits have on student knowledge of circuitry, microcontrollers, coding, and computing careers?" Rising 7th-12th grade students participated in a summer camp in the western part of the US. They engaged in four mini-courses, one of which was working with microcontroller kits. These kits required students to create circuits that performed actions such as flashing light, buzzers, and pitched sounds. Although some students created codes from scratch, most students downloaded and edited code to perform the various functions. Students (N = 30) completed a pretest and posttest to assess their knowledge of circuitry, microcontrollers, and coding. There were 19 males and 11 females in the study, with foster students, students with learning disabilities, and diverse ethnicities represented. A paired-sample t-test was conducted to determine whether the scores from pre and post were statistically significantly different. Hedge's g effect size was calculated. Mean scores from the pretest and posttest increased from 6.63 to 8.20 and were statistically significantly different (p = 0.018). Hedge's g effect size showed practical significance. Additionally, several students spent extra time at every opportunity, to use their microcontroller kits to expand or create additional projects.

The opportunities for fostering divergent thinking and creativity are limited in traditional lecture-focused classrooms, which could discourage students' from applying and developing their creativity and divergent thinking within an academic context. STEM project-based learning is an alternative to traditional instruction that can be used to challenge students to identify creative solutions to problems. This alternative involves an innovative instructional method that allows one to integrate engineering and technology into mathematics and science classrooms within a project that includes various teaching and learning practices grounded in constructivism. The purpose of this study was to understand the effect of STEM PBL on students' attitudes toward engaging in divergent thinking and students' perceptions of their creative problem-solving (CPS) skills. Therefore, we provided STEM PBL courses (e.g., coding, cryptography, microcontroller, bridge-building, 3D-printing) to secondary school students during the summer of 2018. Examining the differences between students' pre-and post-test in SPSS-25 revealed that students (n = 48) who received two-week long STEM PBL intervention held more positive attitudes toward engaging in divergent thinking and demonstrated improved self-perceptions of their CPS skills. The implication of this study is that integrating STEM PBL into mathematics and science classrooms can help students develop positive attitudes toward engaging in divergent thinking and positive perceptions of their CPS skills, thus increasing their persistence and perseverance in engaging with complex problems that require the generation of original ideas.

A high quality STEM preparatory curriculum can help students develop foundational skills and knowledge they require to successfully pursue a variety of college majors and future careers. In particular, use of STEM-related curricula, such as the curriculum found in STEM schools and PLTW schools, has been recommended as a strategy for increasing students' college readiness and reducing barriers to college entrance and success. The purpose of this study was to analyze students' postsecondary Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) preparedness for entering academic and career pathways. The authors examined college and career readiness of students in grades 11-12 who attended: (a) schools implementing Project Lead the Way curriculum (PLTW schools), (b) Texas inclusive STEM high schools that do not implement PLTW curriculum (T-STEM schools), and (c) schools that do not implement any STEM curriculum or PLTW curriculum (non-STEM/non-PLTW schools). The results of this study indicated that T-STEM schools had the highest rate of student career readiness when compared to PLTW and non-PLTW/non-STEM schools. However, non-PLTW/non-STEM schools had the highest rate of student college readiness when compared to the other two school types. In addition, there was a statistically significant correlation between college readiness and career readiness. These findings lay the groundwork for educators to continue modifying educational curricula to support students' academic readiness for their future careers.

Professors who have integrated computer programing into their college courses have faced a complex challenge as students often have had difficulties learning the fundamental concepts of coding due to a lack of prior knowledge and interest. There are few existing studies in which researchers have investigated how to prepare 6th-12thgrade students for coding-oriented college level STEM courses using physical computing materials. The purpose of this study was to first design and implement a microcontroller coding course during a two week STEM summer camp for middle and high school students (N=86) in order to prepare such students for codingoriented STEM courses in college. The results from the quantitative data (surveys) and qualitative data (interviews and observations) indicated that students, after taking the course, felt that they were more likely to be successful in courses requiring coding tasks because they had developed an initial understanding of coding. Most students showed an increased interest (p <; .05) in majoring in computer and electric engineering after engaging in the microcontroller course includes coding. Incorporating coding into middle and high school STEM courses may have far reaching implications for student preparation in programming and interest in computer and electrical engineering.

Project Lead the Way (PLTW) has been developed to provide a rigorous engineering curriculum that allows high school students to learn about advanced engineering concepts and their application in various STEM-related subjects. The present study was designed to examine the effectiveness of PLTW curriculum on high school students' mathematics and science achievement. Mathematics and science scores of students attending PLTW schools and students attending non-PLTW schools were compared using student data gathered from the 2016 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STARR). In the present study, T-STEM schools were removed to avoid the impact of other STEM curricula on participants' mathematics and science achievement. Scores on the mathematics STARR test were gathered from 804 students in PLTW schools and 805 students in non-PLTW schools, and scores from the science STARR test were gathered from 800 students in PLTW schools and 800 students in non-PLTW schools. The results indicated that the mean of students' mathematics achievement in PLTW schools was higher than the mean of students' mathematics achievement in non-PLTW schools (d=0.400, 95%, CI=[0.300, 0.498]). The mean of students' science achievement in PLTW schools was higher than the mean of students' science achievement in non-PLTW schools (d=0.197, 95%, CI=[0.099, 0.295]).

Engineering collaboration requires successful interdisciplinary communication between professionals who have highly specialized, content specific vocabularies. STEM language research has shown that people encounter barriers to communication due to different understandings of particular words. Additionally, linguistics research has shown that confusion over specific words can be due to many causes such as alternate meanings or senses associated with that word. However, very little research has studied interdisciplinary task collaboration within a linguistics-based framework. This study identified and categorized patterns of words and phrases that caused confusion during an engineering task at a STEM summer camp for secondary teachers. The results demonstrated that confusion over meanings of words inhibited the participants' progress toward completing the task. When two participants had a common or shared vocabulary, they were able to negotiate meaning, resulting in greater success on the task.

This paper investigates the effect Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Problem-Based Learning (PBL) activities have on single-sex classes and how these experiences affect students' attitudes toward STEM careers. To close the gap of underrepresentation of females in STEM, research suggests single-gender classes should be implemented. Single-gender classes have shown to improve female interest in STEM fields. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to assess female and male interest and attitudes toward STEM fields and careers. There were 97 participants in 7ththrough 12thgrade who attended a one-week STEM Camp. Of those, 50 females participated in an all-female option, 23 males participated in an all-male option, and 25 campers participated in a co-ed option. Participants completed a survey using a Likert scale to rate their perceptions of STEM. The results were contrary to previous research indicating that both single-gender classes had lower affect toward engineering than the mixed gender group. Females in the mixed group rated their attitudes and interest toward STEM fields and careers statistically significantly higher than the females in the all-female group in three of the four constructs (knowledge, importance, and career). The findings support the inclusion of STEM PBL in classrooms because there were no significant differences between the class type after participating in a one-week STEM camp. Through the use of STEM PBLs, females' interest in STEM careers is equal to male interest.

Modeling with 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software to design and print 3D products can improve students' spatial visualization skills, creativity, and problem solving skills. 3D CAD software has been used as a teaching tool in secondary school classrooms since the early 2000s, but it becoming more ubiquitous due to increased affordability of an innovative concept: 3D printing. Yet research about the effect of 3D design and printing on students' academic achievement, problem solving skills, and creativity has been limited. For the present study, the effects of applying 3D CAD software and 3D printing were observed on students' perceptions of their need for creativity when solving problems that could be encountered across STEM careers. Participants (N = 95) were high school students who attended a two-week long STEM summer camp at a university located in central Texas in 2016. Results indicated that the students who participated in the 3D CAD and printing improved their perceptions about creativity and problem solving skills required for STEM disciplines (p <; .01). The effect for the study was impressive with Cohen's d effect sizes for students' perceptions about creativity and problem solving skills in STEM disciplines at d = 0.61 and d = 0.66, respectively. Students who participated in the informal STEM learning and engaged with 3D project-based learning indicated that creativity was important for STEM fields and for engineering in particular. They also indicated that problem solving skills were essential for being successful in a STEM career. Teachers who desire to increase their students' creativity along with their STEM competencies should integrate classroom activities that promote creativity and problem solving while being actively engaged in the activity.

Prospective engineering students often have difficulty with study expectations when transitioning from high school to college. Mathematics is particularly challenging for those who have been successful in high school without needing to study. Engineering mathematics college courses tend to cover twice the volume of material in 60% of the class time of high school mathematics courses. Thus, the need for outside study time is increased drastically, and the time to absorb and practice concepts and skills is reduced. Surveys from students in a summer precalculus program revealed that they understood that their strategies for success in mathematics should change as they transitioned to college. However, they often failed to begin the change while participating in the summer program designed to increase their algebra and precalculus skills in preparation for engineering calculus. The research questions for this study are: 1) For prospective engineering students in a summer precalculus bridge program, how did their expectations of college mathematics study compare with their expectations of high school mathematics study? 2) How well do prospective engineering students in a summer precalculus bridge program begin to change their study habits in preparation for engineering college mathematics?.

Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) are increasingly emerging in the research literature and have yielded promising effects on students' science and mathematics achievement [1; 2; 3]. ISHSs emphasized STEM preparation for underrepresented subpopulations and offered open enrollment. In the present study, we selected 17 ISHSs in Texas and divided those schools into two groups. Of these schools, seven (n=1,682) implemented Project Lead the Way (PLTW) curriculum and 10 (n=3,070) did not implement the PLTW curriculum. PLTW was an engineering curriculum and professional development program intended to increase K-12 students' interest in the fields of science and engineering [4]. Results from the present study showed that students who attended ISHSs increased their mathematics score regardless of the curriculum used. Results also showed that the mathematics achievement of students over time did not differ (p>.05) between STEM schools that implemented PLTW and those that did not. In fact, given the effect sizes, it is arguable that schools in which PLTW was not implemented had greater gains in mathematics.

Postsecondary matriculation is important for a young person's future financial and social positioning. Matriculation can be attendance at a four-year institution, two-year program, or a trade school of some kind. Scores on standardized tests such as the SAT are often components of a student's application to attend a postsecondary education institution. This is a follow up study to one in which students (n=35) from the same school attended a STEM summer camp. The STEM camp lasted 13 days and engaged students in project based learning activities 8 hours per day. Students attended classes on robotics, bridge building, solar power, and other challenging, informal learning activities. The results of that study found statistically significant gains for both reading and writing, although not for math. This study followed up with 27 of those students by obtaining their SAT scores and matriculation to postsecondary education data. Correlations between SAT and matriculation, confidence intervals for SAT results, and effect sizes are given. Further research recommendations are discussed.