Effects of MSTI Summer Camp Program on Students’ Perception on STEM Learning

Abstract

To arouse African American high school students' interests and motivation in engineering fields, especially transportation, this paper introduces the details of the 2017 MSTI summer program host by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Jackson State University. The MSTI Summer Camp is supported by the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The summer camp curriculum includes senior professors' academic lectures, hands-on technical projects, field trips and recreational activities related to traffic engineering to help students increase STEM course knowledge, improves their academic awareness of transportation engineering, and enhances their abilities to create, analyzing and solving practical problems. Satisfaction and MSLQ questionnaires are used to assess the effectiveness of the program. The analysis results indicate that the MSTI project is beneficial to fostering students' interest in engineering technology, successfully guiding students to choose their future STEM career and make further education plans after graduating from high school, especially in the transportation field.