RAPID: Assessing the Reactionary Response of High School Engineering Teachers to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education on all fronts with no warning. The response from universities to go online was relatively consistent among universities, but K-12 education?s transition has not been as straightforward. Existing issues of equity, access, and inclusion have required school districts, schools, and teachers to adopt a variety of solutions, including no instruction, online instruction, and shipping materials/supplies to students at home. The existing pilot cohort of Engineering for Us All (E4USA) teachers provides a unique opportunity to understand how teachers are transitioning, especially when implementing a new and innovative engineering curriculum. This project allows the multi-institution E4USA team (Virginia Tech, Arizona State University, University of Maryland, Loyola University Chicago, Morgan State University, Regent University, Towson University and Vanderbilt University) to collect data on what has happened during the unforeseen and unique transition to ensure better capture and understanding of the drivers behind decisions and changes within high schools.

The E4USA Team will explore the following research questions: (1) How did the pilot year E4USA teachers adapt and deliver the curriculum during the COVID-19 disruption?; (2) What effect has COVID-19 had on the initial cohort of teachers? motivation, self-efficacy, sense of expectancy/value, and imposter syndrome?; (3) Did E4USA student perceptions of the program change after the disruption?; (4) What effect has COVID-19 had on the potential effectiveness of the upcoming 2020 summer PD? A multifaceted approach will be used to collect and analyze this data. Previously collected focus group transcripts and discussion posts from the pilot teacher cohort will be revisited along with post-COVID-19 focus groups and discussion posts to explore changes due to the pandemic disruption. Focus groups will be conducted with pilot teachers, incoming teachers, and students in the E4USA class to explore how the COVID-19 disruption affected their perception of the class and of engineering. Existing survey instruments for teachers are designed to measure motivational, instructional and engagement self-efficacy. These will be modified to ask teachers to rate these items side-by-side in the context of regular classroom teaching and COVID-19 related adaptations. Existing feedback and reflection questions designed as part of the initial survey will also be modified to include adaptations related to COVID-19. Finally, we will examine course artifacts before and after the COVID disruption. This study will allow the E4USA team to develop a framework to advise and inform both internal E4USA stakeholders and external education communities. Dissemination of these findings has the potential to inform all who are developing teacher PD, those funding and researching engineering in K-12 settings, local school administrations, and other universities interested in working with K-12 schools. This unique opportunity is urgent and may be the only mechanism to truly understand how to plan for, rather than react to, future catastrophic interruptions.

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.