Authors:

Kayla Renae Phillips

Date Created:

Not specified

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About Paper:

As the United States makes an effort to manufacture all its semiconductors domestically, thousands of semiconductor industry technician and engineer positions will likely remain unfilled due to a national talent shortage. To offset this shortage, the Regional Economic Acceleration & Development Initiative (READI) aimed to create a high school program, of which the Purdue-Ivy Tech Chips Program (PITCH) is an initiative. Purdue University's FaceLab and Ivy Tech Community College designed and implemented spatial reasoning, circuits, robotics, semiconductors lifecycle, and sustainability activities. This study aims to understand the competencies (Attitudes, Skills, and Knowledge) that Indiana junior and senior high school students developed about semiconductors during the 2024 PITCH summer program activities designed by Purdue University. For each completed activity, the participants reflected on their competencies and interests through free listing, pictures, and written reflections. For this paper, we analyze the free lists through AnthroTools to produce salience and frequency diagrams that describe a possible structure of the student's semiconductor knowledge after implementing the activities. The results of this analysis suggest that participants highlighted the social aspect of semiconductor manufacturing and use and saw each activity as a combination of technical knowledge and collaborative teamwork. These results can support future analysis of the other data and inform future versions of the program and other semiconductor workforce development projects. Keywords: Semiconductors; Freelisting; Salience; Knowledge; Attitude

Source:

Purdue University / 2024

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No topics listed

Co-authors:

Kayla Renae Phillips