Perceived Authenticity Scale

STEAM education is a method for driving student engagement in STEM topics through personal expression, creativity and aesthetics. EarSketch, a collaborative and authentic learning tool which introduces students to programming through music remixing, has previously been shown to enhance student engagement and intent to persist in computing. The goal of EarSketch is to broaden participation in computing through a thickly authentic learning environment that has personal and real world relevance in both computational and music domains. This mixed methods study extends previous work by 1) using a newly- developed instrument to assess creativity and 2) testing a theory of change model that provides an explanatory framework for increasing student engagement in STEAM. The results suggest that students who used EarSketch express statistically significant gains in computing attitudes and creativity. Furthermore, a series of multiple regression analyses found that a creative learning environment, fueled by a meaningful and personally relevant EarSketch curriculum, drives improvements in students' attitudes and intent to persist in computing. This work makes a significant contribution to computer science education by establishing the effectiveness of an authentic STEAM curriculum and advancing our knowledge of the underlying mechanisms driving students' motivations to persist in STEM disciplines.

Average Review: 0 (not yet rated)

Supplemental Information:

  • Authenticity_and_Person_Creativity.pdf (1.04 MB) Download

Assessment Type:

Scale

Scale:

Multiple choice, point scale (e.g. Likert scale), or selected response

Publication Date:

Nov 20, 2017

Respondent:

High school classroom setting (secondary school; approx. age 14-18 years), Postsecondary education

Domain(s) Evaluated:

Engagement, Attitude / Behavior

Sample items:

N/A

Reliability:

See comment section

Validity:

See comment section

Frequency:

Sometimes

Administration time:

Under 15 minutes minutes

Requires a Computer:

No

Requires Internet Access:

No

Primary reference:

Engelman, S., Magerko, B., McKlin, T., Miller, M., Edwards, D., & Freeman, J. (2017). Creativity in Authentic STEAM Education with EarSketch (pp. 183–188). ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017763McKlin, T., Magerko, B., Lee, T., Wanzer, D., Edwards, D., & Freeman, J. (2018). Authenticity and Personal Creativity: How EarSketch Affects Student Persistence (in press)

Comments:

Reliability: Test-retest reliability among 205 high school Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles students is alpha equals to 0.91 at the post.------------------------------------------------------ Validity: Two confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs), one for the pre-test items and one for the post-test items, to determine how well the items cluster or group together into their respective constructs. Overall, the theoretical model that was tested fit the data well.

STEM Criteria

Science

Yes

Technology

Yes

Engineering

Yes

Math

Yes
Contact

Tom McKlin, The Findings Group, tom.mcklin@gmail.com