PreK STEM Playgroups: Empowering our Youngest Learners and their Caregivers for Confidence and Competence in STEM Learning

The proposed project aims to address those gaps and to support and enhance high-quality STEM learning opportunities for all young children. By creating partnerships between researchers and practitioners, the project has the potential to impact many young children and their caregivers’ opportunities to engage in and benefit from STEM learning. 
 
The proposed science education partnership (SEP) consists of researchers and practitioners in an informal learning space collaborating together in the co-development and implementation of STEM playgroups for children with and without disabilities and their caregivers. Researchers will support the practitioner team to collect and analyze preliminary efficacy data relative to child-caregiver engagement, child STEM play skills, and caregiver feelings of self-efficacy, specifically related to embedding foundational computational thinking skills into their daily routines and activities. The project will last for two years, using a waitlist control design comparing groups receiving the intervention to those who are on the waitlist. Both quantitative data and qualitative data will be collected and analyzed in order to assess the playgroup’s preliminary efficacy and preliminary changes in caregiver perceptions following playgroup participation. Qualitative data will additionally be used for ongoing modifications and adaptations of the playgroup model and materials to ensure that they are useful and relevant to caregivers and children who are participating in them. 
The findings and products from the proposed project could inform future STEM playgroups both in informal learning spaces and beyond, and will be freely available on the partners’ websites. Overall, the project has the potential to increase STEM learning opportunities for many children and caregivers.

Grant Number: 5R25GM154384-02
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Jessica Amsbary