Assent Form
Project Title: You’re Hired! – Infusing STEM and 21st Century Skills
Investigator(s): This study is being done by: Kristin Brevik, Student at UND; Dr. Frank Bowman, UND Instructor; Dr. Brian Tande, UND Instructor; Dr. Kristi Jean, NDSCS Instructor; Dr. Bradley Bowen, NDSU Instructor
We are doing a research study; a research study is a special way to find out about something. We are trying to find out if your attitude towards engineering changes over the course of the school year. We will be coming to your school 3 times to do activities that will improve your 21st century skills. Examples of 21st century skills are: teamwork, time management, collaboration, and critical thinking. These 21st century skills are skills engineers use every day.
If you want to be in this study, we will ask you to do several things:
Before the first activity we will have you fill out a pre-survey. There are no right answers. We will then be doing 3 activities with your school throughout the school year. When we come you will spend the entire school day working with us. We will give you a problem in the morning and then you and your team of classmates will have the entire day to find a solution. At the end of the day before school gets done you will have the opportunity to present your solution to judges in a board room. When you are done presenting, you will be asked to fill out an anonymous survey which will give you the chance to rate how your teammates did. You will also be given time to look back at how you did throughout the day and comment on what you would like to get better at for next time. At the end of the school year we will have you fill out a post-survey just like the pre-survey.
We want to tell you about some things that may happen to you if you are in this study: This activity takes an entire school day which may seem like a long time, but you will not be asked to do anything different than what teachers could normally have you do.
Not everyone who is in this study will benefit. A benefit means that something good happens to you. We don’t know if you will benefit. But we hope to learn something that will help other people someday.
When we are done with the study, we will write a report about what we found out. We will not use your name in the report.
You do not have to be in this study. It is up to you. If you want to be in the study, but change your mind later, you can stop being in the study.
If you do not want to be in this study, your school will still have you do the project along with the assessments and surveys, we just won’t be able to talk about your accomplishments in the report.