Impact of Outreach on Physics Students: Quantitative Results from a National Survey

Each year physics students around the country engage in opportunities to take their passion for the field outside their classrooms, engaging with the public through informal outreach programs. Research on the impacts of these activities, often conducted at single institutions, has shown that students working to facilitate outreach experienced improved measures of identity, belonging, and career skill development. Here we present results from the first nationwide survey examining the impact of physics outreach experiences on university physics students. This newly developed instrument incorporated both closed- and open-ended questions and was distributed to students through the national Society of Physics Students network. The goals of the survey were to sample student perceptions of their physics identity, sense of belonging, mindset, self-efficacy, and career skill readiness. This talk focuses on the quantitative analysis of the closed-ended survey responses. Through regression analysis a positive relationship between participating in informal physics outreach was observed with both growth mindset and sense of belonging. Analysis also showed that participation in outreach was no more or less likely for students based on a variety of demographic factors, except for being a freshman.