Recently we produced three papers during a course on policy analysis, one of which I wrote about the American legislation The CHIPS and Science Act (the CHIPS is the acronym Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors, and divided into to parts, one on chips and one on science), introduced in August of 2022.
The last two points in the fact sheet from The White House concerns the gap in gender and minorities in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education)(bold text by me):
- “… To ensure more people from all backgrounds and all regions and communities around the country, especially people from marginalized, under-served, and under-resourced communities, can benefit from and participate in STEM education and training opportunities, the CHIPS and Science Act authorizes new and expanded investments in STEM education and training from K-12 to community college, undergraduate and graduate education.”
- “…including new initiatives to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions, and other academic institutions providing opportunities to historically-underserved students and communities, primarily through the National Science Foundation (NSF). […] The legislation also gives agencies and institutions the mission and the tools to combat sexual and gender-based harassment in the sciences, a demonstrated barrier to participation in STEM for too many Americans.“
Furthermore, in the legislation itself, under Section 10321:
- “The NSF shall issue undergraduate scholarships, postdoctoral awards, and other awards to address STEM workforce gaps, including for programs that recruit, retain, and advance students to a bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline concurrent with a secondary school diploma.”
A year later, The White House wrote in another fact sheet:
- “At least 50 community colleges have already announced new or expanded semiconductor workforce programs.”
- “…student applications to full-time jobs posted by semiconductor companies were up 79% in 2022-2023.”
Could these codified intentions actually mean something for STEM education and the semiconductor industry? Could the number of educations regarding semiconductors increase; the number of women (from minorities) enrolling in STEM education increase; and could the number of women graduating from STEM educations increase? Since this assignment was about evaluation/assessment, both formative and summative, I outlined a proposal on how to actually evaluate these efforts, this intervention in form of a very encompassing law, in which roughly $13 billion was directed towards “R&D and workforce development.”
With statistics from the NSF, NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), Department of Energy and Department of Labour I would’ve designed a study to analyse whether the number of women actually increased. In addition to this I’d elaborated interviews, or the possibility for women to record or write a diary, about their experiences, why they chose to continue or stop studying. The study would’ve gathered statistics between 2017 and 2027, in part because graduation will take time when the effects of the legislation came into effect in 2023 at the earliest, and graduates will become a fact in 2025. Feedback from women could contribute to formative changes in the education or the direction of the legislation.
Designing a study like this has been one of the best moments of the education so far. Partly due to being able to delve deeper into the factual legislation, partly because evaluations (however boring they might sound) can play a useful role in modern bureaucracy.