Project Partner Interview Protocol

Project Partner Interview Protocol

Personal Background

1) Please tell me about yourself and your organization.
a. What is your current role? How long have you had this position?
b. Have you done work related to STEM education in the past?
c. Do you have experience working with the targeted participant group (e.g., teachers,
middle school girls, etc.)?
2) When did you start working with this ITEST project (e.g., in the design phase, after it was
operational)?
a. Did you have an existing relationship with the PI or project staff? If not, how did you
become involved in the project.

Project Background
3) Were you involved in the planning process? If you were, tell me a little bit about the planning
process?
4) How would you characterize your organization’s level of involvement in this project?
a. Number of staff members involved
b. Types of project roles filled by your organization’s staff.
c. Other resources contributed to the project
5) What are the key goals of this project?
a. Have these goals changed since the beginning of the project?
b. How do they relate to your organization’s goals?
6) Were there any external/contextual factors that had a large influence on the design of the
project? Probe for:
a. Resources (or lack thereof) in the local community or schools
b. Local school district initiatives
c. Priorities of your organization
d. Priorities of other local institutions

Project Participants
7) What is your role, if any, in recruiting participants?
a. Which methods are most successful (and how do you know)?
b. What do you think motivates participants to become involved?

Project Activities
8) Briefly describe the project’s interventions that you are involved with.
a. Include activities and number of contact hours.
b. Is there any variation in the experience of the participants?
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c. What technologies do you use and for what purposes?
9) Which strategies have been implemented well and what has facilitated implementation?
10) Which strategies have been the most difficult to implement?
a. What is being/has been done to address these challenges?
11) How has the project evolved over time?
a. What changes were made? Why?
b. Have these changes been effective?
c. What changes do you see (if any) going forward?

Evaluation and Outcomes
12) Do you have any data on the effectiveness of the project?
13) How are the evaluation results used?
14) What have been the key short-term and long-term outcomes for the teachers involved in
your project?
a. How do you know?
b. Do outcomes vary based on group (e.g., cohort, grade level, school)
15) What have been the key outcomes for the students involved in your project?
c. How do you know?
d. Do outcomes vary based on group (e.g., cohort, grade level, school)?
16) What have been the key benefits of this work for your organization (e.g., increased capacity,
shifts in mission, etc.)?

Sustainability and Scale-up
17) What are the current plans for your organization’s involvement in the project when the grant
period ends?
a. What resources are needed to continue the project?
b. If you plan to continue in some way, what is the plan for providing the resources to
support the project?
18) Has the project model been implemented at other institutions or in other communities?
a. If yes: What part(s) of the model was implemented? Were there any challenges in
scaling-up the model?
b. If no: What would it take to scale up and reach multiple institutions or communities?
What do you see as the barriers to scaling up this type of work?

The ITEST Community
19) To what extent do you think this project contributes to the STEM education community.
Probe on:
a. Publishing journal articles or presenting papers at conferences.
b. Creating products that can be of use to STEM educators
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20) To what extent do you work with, share advice, or otherwise interact with other ITEST
projects?
a. What do you interact about? How often? Where?

Closing Questions
21) What have been the major successes of the project? What about major challenges?
22) What are the key features and lessons learned from this project that might be of interest to
others engaged in similar work with teachers or youth?
23) What is the likelihood that participating in this project will influence the STEM academic and
career outcomes for youth participants, or students of teacher participants?

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