Did it work? An interactive report on the follow-up evaluation of an intervention program for minority high school girls

In the USA, minority women are particularly under-represented in the fields of science and engineering. To reach this pool of talent, intervention programs have been developed at various stages in the educational pipeline. One program offered at the George Washington University (GW), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1989 through 1993, utilized computer technology and cooperative learning in a university setting to motivate minority high school girls to continue studies in science, mathematics, engineering and computing. There have been a number of positive outcomes from this project. In 1991, a two-day working conference of experts was convened to determine the characteristics of exemplary programs that focus on this population. The conference resulted in a set of planning tools and guidelines to help future program planners. To date, over five hundred copies of a professional quality video of the GW program and the conference report have been disseminated nationally and internationally. The National Science Foundation provided additional funds to conduct a follow-up study of the 100 student and 20 teacher participants in the project two years after the project ended. The purpose of the follow-up study was to track the participants and compare them to a similar population of minority high school girls who did not participate in the project. This report presents the results of the follow-up study, which shows that the project raised the confidence level of participants and increased their ability to deal with the problems and challenges often encountered by females in the classroom and workplace.