Supported employment has been shown to be an effective way to contribute to the community reintegration of persons with disabilities. Traditionally, the hiring practice for supported employment staffs has focused on individuals with social service training; however, it has been proposed that employment specialists need to possess advanced skills that tend to be emphasized in business training programs. This study uses several new measures to identify differences in attitudes toward vocational rehabilitation and readiness and aptitude for a supported employment position, of social service and business students. Results indicate that social service students possess higher levels of clinical readiness and aptitude and more favorable attitudes toward vocational rehabilitation than do business students. Nevertheless, business students' readiness, attitudes, and aptitude are above theoretical neutral points, and comparable to those of social service students, and thus, effort should be devoted to diversifying the workforce by recruiting individuals with business training. / Department of Psychological Science

Science education has maintained a longstanding goal of enhancing societal interest, values, and understandings of science. Despite a series of public education reforms and efforts by scientific researchers, scientific literacy and passion remain sparse across the American public. In fact, many students demonstrate a lack of interest in the sciences as early as first grade, with major drop-offs occurring by the age of 14. This is further exacerbated for youth of color, as science is deeply rooted in pervasive and institutionalized racism. When accessible, out-of-school science experiences are uniquely positioned to promote youth agency, leverage students’ current values, and challenge structural inequities. Therefore, this work sought to highlight the narratives of three young science learners who identify as youth of color and graduated from an eight-year-long museum science program. A narrative inquiry was implemented, guided by Critical Race Theory and Cultural Learning Pathways as frameworks. Data from semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and drawings provided insight into the students’ orientations towards science and the development of those orientations. The study took place during the Covid-19 outbreak. Implications of the pandemic on the study are discussed. Findings from the study suggest that students positively identify with science and feel at home in The Museum. It was also noticed, however, that the students maintained ideologies consistent with Western perspectives. Recommendations include creating homeplaces, making out-of-school learning more easily accessible, and creating justice-centered curricula.

This study explores how an afterschool science program for girls that uses a curriculum written by female scientists/science educators and highlights the contributions of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields affects girls’ perception of scientists, confidence in their science skills, belief in their ability to do science, and helps them construct a positive science identity. Using self-efficacy, identity, feminist, gender, and learning theories as theoretical frameworks, this study investigates how strengthening girls’ belief in their ability to do science and confidence in their science skills and content knowledge can increase girls’ curiosity and generate a sustained interest in science that may eventually lead to STEM degrees and careers later in life. By providing girls with hands-on science experiences that emphasize leadership, cooperative learning, critical thinking, and creativity, as well as female role models and stories of successful women in STEM fields, the study provides evidence of a successful intervention format that leads to a sustained interest in science both in and outside of school. Data were collected in this qualitative case study via a survey (with Likert scale and open-ended questions), an interview, and artifacts (student work), and analyzed using open and axial coding to look for themes in the data around participants’ changing perceptions of science and scientists, increasing confidence in their science skills and content knowledge, enhanced belief in their ability to do science, and positive identity construction. The results of this study provide information about how to format a successful after-school program with a curriculum and methodology that nurtures learning, and by proxy, generates greater achievement and participation in STEM among girls that could extend through secondary school and possibly into post-secondary education and career choices. HYPOTHESISters was an afterschool STEAM program for upper elementary-aged girls (4th and 5th grades) based in West Harlem. The program was conducted on twelve consecutive Saturdays, for two hours per session, in the fall of 2019 (September 21st through December 7th) at The Forum at Columbia University. The curriculum, developed by the primary researcher in conjunction with another educator, consisted of one 12-lesson outer space-themed unit. The program participants consisted of twenty girls - ten 4th grade girls and ten 5th grade girls, between the ages of eight and ten. Most of the participants reside in West Harlem or the surrounding area. Except for four girls who identify as Caucasian, most identify themselves as members of communities of color, with seven participants being Latina, eight being Black or African American, and one being Asian (from India).

This case study investigated the potential of a place-based watershed curriculum, using STEM principles, to increase watershed literacy and knowledge of human impacts on stormwater in the environment. A secondary goal was to examine whether the place-based connection and increased exposure to issues within their local watershed impacted the students' environmental attitudes and sense of place. Over 500 sixth graders participated in this localized curriculum, where they learned the science behind watershed issues on their own school campuses. They focused on ways humans can monitor and mitigate their impacts on stormwater, through engineering investigations. The mixed-method research study investigated the effectiveness of the OLWEDU curriculum, to address these key questions: 1) To what degree did the OLWEDU increase the students' combined watershed literacy? 2) To what extent did the OLWEDU affect their environmental attitudes? 3) How did using a STEM oriented and place-based curriculum make the learning more relevant? In order to provide a solid triangulation of data, this study used a quasi-experimental design format with multiple measures: a) A Pre-Posttest (PPT), was given to all of the students to gather quantitative changes in knowledge of watershed concepts, stormwater issues related to human impacts on the environment, and engineering techniques; b) A constructed-knowledge questionnaire (CKQ) was used with forty four of the participants, to gather additional quantitative data on the students' local watershed knowledge; c) an environmental attitudes survey (EAS) was included in this sub-sample group; d) interviews were conducted with ten of the students to examine their opinions on the STEM aspects of the curriculum in addition to the place-based connections between the unit and their community. The statistically significant results showed increases in overall watershed literacy, knowledge of human impacts on stormwater, engineering principles, and environmental attitudes. These findings will be used to improve the current curriculum, and have broader implications concerning the benefits of using a formalized middle-school 21st century standards-based curriculum to teach watershed literacy and promote pro-environmental attitudes by using a combination of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math in a local, place-based context.

The aim of this study was to validate an instrument that can be used by instructors or social scientist who are interested in evaluating statistics anxiety. The psychometric properties of the English version of the Statistical Anxiety Scale (SAS) was examined through a confirmatory factor analysis of scores from a sample of 323 undergraduate social science majors enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States. In previous studies, the psychometric properties of the Spanish and Italian versions of the SAS were validated; however, the English version of the SAS had never been assessed. Inconsistent with previous studies, scores on the English version of the SAS did not produce psychometrically acceptable values of validity. However, the results of this study suggested the potential value of a revised two-factor model SAS to measure statistics anxiety. Additionally, the Attitudes Towards Statistics (ATS) scale was used to examine the convergent and discriminant validities of the two-factor SAS. As expected, the correlation between the two factors of the SAS and the two factors of the ATS uncovered a moderately negative correlation between examination anxiety and attitudes towards the course. Additionally, the results of a structural regression model of attitudes towards statistics as a predictor of statistics anxiety suggested that attitudes towards the course and attitudes towards the field of statistics moderately predicts examination anxiety with attitudes towards the course having the greatest influence. It is recommended that future studies examine the relationship between attitudes towards statistics, statistics anxiety, and other variables such as academic achievement and instructional style.