2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Overview of Fab Friday. Funded by NSF SSTEM, we created a program to improve the academic success and workforce readiness for low income, high academic potential Computer Science majors. Our SSTEM Scholars represent our university’s population: Hispanic and Minority Serving Institution, majority Pell grant recipients, and half of our students are the first in their family to attend college. This paper will focus on the impact of the centerpiece of our program, “Fab Friday,” which is an on-campus hackathon where our Fabulous Scholars work in teams on Friday afternoons to fabricate computing solutions for real world projects and challenges presented by community and industry partners. We aimed to build the SSTEM Scholars social capital through the relationships built and resources at Fab Friday, which are paramount for students’ future academic and career success.

Methods. For the last five years, we administered a survey each semester to assess the satisfaction and motivation levels of our participants (n=107). We used the Glynn et al (2011) Science Motivation Questionnaire (SMQ). The SMQ provides scores on 5 domains: Career motivation: an extrinsic motivation for learning CS in order to secure a good career; Grade motivation: an extrinsic motivation for learning CS in order to achieve good grades; Self-determination: an individual’s beliefs in their personal control over learning CS; Self-efficacy: an individual’s confidence in their ability to learn CS well; Intrinsic motivation: the innate pleasure of learning CS simple for the sake of learning CS. This same survey was also administered to Computer Science majors who had not participated in Fab Friday (n=527) to measure the effect of Fab Friday experiences. Additionally, with only our Fab Friday students, we conducted focus groups each semester to facilitate student feedback on what’s working well and what areas of the program may need improvement. This mixed method study continued through the COVID pandemic and created powerful understanding of student confidence, community, and connection through uncertain times.

Results & Discussion. The paper will provide examples of activities and programming details for Fab Friday, along with statistical testing on the effectiveness of Fab Friday. Student quotes highlight the benefits of group work and community building: “Working in teams has been really helpful, and we were able to support each other. Even if we were learning something entirely new, we were able to learn it together, and I love how the entire project was based on group effort.” Preliminary analysis of the survey reveals that as a result of Fab Friday, more than 90% of scholars reported that were:
- More confident about earning a job in a CS related field
- More confident about succeeding in CS related classes
- More confident about their abilities to learn
- More positive about achieving their goals
- Have established connections with more professionals
- Have built more friendships within the majors

Conclusion. The elements of Fab Friday provided an engaging place to build relationships (e.g., increase social capital), learn about the technical and social skills necessary for a career in Computer Science, and felt a higher levels of belonging in the major. Recommendations for future intervention implementation will be outlined. Scaling up and institutionalizing Fab Friday will be discussed.