Development of Out-of-School Time STEM Program Quality Standards for Broadening Participation

This article details the methodology used by a team of researchers to develop a set of evidence-based quality standards for pre-college STEM programs that center equity and justice to drive programs to broaden participation of racially/ethnically minoritized groups in STEM. With support from a National Science Foundation INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot (DDLP) grant, a team of researchers and pre-college STEM program leaders at the University of Pittsburgh engaged in a five-stage process that tapped existing understandings and field knowledge about engaging and serving minoritized communities, leveraged frameworks for accrediting educational organizations, and built on approaches to evaluating the quality of out-of-school programming to derive critical qualities of programs successful in broadening participation. This article details the development methodology and presents the evidence-based quality standards for broadening participation that can be used to focus STEM program improvement efforts. It further describes how these standards are being used within the STEM PUSH Network, an NSF-funded Alliance that brings precollege STEM programs from seven cities together to better serve racially/ethnically minoritized students.