Quantitative Analysis of STEM Interest in Minority Youths through Forensics Summer Camps

The article examines the impact of a four-year summer camp for Mobile Device Forensics (MDF) on a diverse group of youth with a focus on promoting STEM education for minority students. This study aims to foster interest in STEM and digital forensics, enhance critical thinking skills, and provide a pathway toward future technology opportunities using quantitative methods. Given the increasing significance of STEM fields, educators must ensure equal access and opportunities for all students. However, many intermediate ethnic students, particularly females, encounter difficulties with programming and are discouraged from pursuing computer science majors. To address this issue, researchers developed the Mobile Device Forensics summer camp, which offers a non-programming approach to computer science and emphasizes critical thinking and deductive reasoning skills. By integrating digital forensics with a liberal arts education, students are able to see the interconnectedness between STEM and humanities. A quantitative study was utilized by comparing STEM Career surveys and STEM Interest surveys by gender to measure the statistical significance of each. The result demonstrated that the MDF summer camp had a positive impact on the perceptions of some minority students regarding their potential to pursue a career in science. The findings revealed that female participants demonstrated an increased inclination toward attending the camp, with further analysis indicating that female adolescents exhibited higher scores in STEM-related fields after participation than their male counterparts. This inquiry suggests a preference for critical thinking, inference, analysis, and reporting. The study's findings underscore the importance of minority representation in STEM education and emphasize the impact of the MDF summer camp on the scientific community.