Investigating Barriers to and Designing Activities and Tools for Broadening Participation in the Tulsa Regional Science Fair among Underrepresented Students in Northeast Oklahoma

About This Grant

While science fairs can support engagement in STEM learning and promote STEM career exploration, students from economically disadvantaged and racially diverse communities in the Tulsa, Oklahoma region often face barriers to their participation. Specifically, students from both Tulsa Public Schools (a diverse urban school district) and small districts located in Creek County, OK (a rural county in the region) are typically underrepresented at the Tulsa Regional Science Fair, with most participants coming primarily from suburban school districts and small private schools in the Tulsa metro. This project will build the STEM education research capacity of the principal investigator to examine barriers to science fair participation among underrepresented students in the Tulsa region as well as explore how informal learning opportunities connected to the science fair can inspire long-term interest in science and engineering for all participants. In particular, this project seeks to understand how participation in a science fair impacts student engagement and interest in STEM, and how targeted outreach activities affect participation rates in the Tulsa Regional Science Fair across different student groups. Outreach activities will focus on students from school districts that have been underrepresented in recent years at the science fair, particularly urban and rural schools in Tulsa and Creek Counties in Northeast Oklahoma. The project will develop outreach events and tools to give students experience with simple, hands-on research activities, including using technology-rich AI-supported tools to identify research topics for a science fair project. Project outcomes will provide valuable insights into how such programs can build confidence, expand educational opportunities, and strengthen the STEM workforce. The project also includes professional development activities for the principal investigator to help build a stronger STEM education research community in the region. The primary goals of this research project are to (1) investigate the motivational and structural barriers to participation in the Tulsa Regional Science Fair, and (2) to design and study the impact of outreach interventions, primarily in informal STEM learning contexts, that address the barriers to science fair participation among students from economically disadvantaged and racially diverse communities in the Tulsa, Oklahoma region. Through research and professional development activities, the principal investigator will draw on social cognitive career theory, peer mentoring theory, and self-determination theory to explore how aspects of student agency correlate with participation and engagement in the science fair and outreach activities and how different project interventions impact student motivation, self-efficacy, and agency in STEM learning among underrepresented groups. Additionally, the PI will investigate how technology-rich tools (specifically Artificial Intelligence/Large Language Model-derived resources) help students identify and develop science fair project topics, and how these tools shape student experiences participating in the Tulsa Regional Science Fair. A grounded theoretical approach will provide a framework for data collection and analysis, as well as focus the professional development activities of the PI towards building capacity in conducting STEM education research. An advisory board of STEM education research and outreach experts will mentor and support the PI in assessment, design, educational theory, and data collection methods. The findings associated with this work will be shared through publications, conference presentations, and regional dissemination efforts. The project is supported by NSF's EDU Core Research Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR:BCSER) program, which is designed to build investigator capacity to carry out high-quality STEM education research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.