tools Measuring Our Moonshot Goal: STEM Belonging
Beyond100K partners are committed to preparing and supporting teachers to cultivate classrooms of STEM belonging, and to ensuring that those teachers can do their best work possible by experiencing workplaces of belonging themselves. While research and measurement tools focused on assessing belonging are increasing in awareness and use, the Beyond100K network has the potential to shine a light on STEM belonging and to contribute to the field’s knowledge about what contributes to and sustains STEM belonging (and non-belonging), how teacher belonging connects to student belonging, and how belonging leads to teacher retention and student success.
Common tools make this learning possible. From 2024-2025, Beyond100K partners co-developed and experimented with shared tools. We are now eager to invite more partners to use these tools, which can lead to valuable and actionable insights about how to prepare and retain STEM teachers with equity, representation, and a sense of belonging. As you adapt and interact with this resource, please note this is Version 1 (Spring 2025), and Beyond100K will continue to update and refine as we learn more. Feedback on these tools is encouraged via email or Circle.
What do we mean by STEM Belonging?
When we talk about STEM belonging, we mean that teachers and students, especially Black, Latinx, and Native American teachers and students:
- Are respected, valued, and accepted by others in their school setting;
- Have agency;
- Can show up without betraying their authentic self;
- Know they can succeed and are supported to do so by others who care about them; and
- Experience joyful, relevant, and rigorous STEM teaching and learning.
While individual organizations may have important nuances in their own definitions of belonging, we use these five constructs because they are grounded in the literature and, for student belonging, emerged during The UnCommission as powerful ideas in stories we heard from students.
What is the STEM Belonging Question Bank?
The Belonging Question Bank is designed to support organizations to measure STEM belonging with teachers and/or students.
The Belonging Question Bank is presented as a Google Sheet with an introductory tab, one tab focused on student belonging in STEM and one tab focused on teacher belonging in STEM (each with the following five columns), and a sources tab for reference.
- Construct: The underlying idea that a question is meant to address. This might be one overall belonging in STEM or it might be one of the five constructs noted above. For teachers, we also included questions about teacher retention, which is connected to belonging.
- Question: The specific questions that you can ask. In this column, the question is formatted the way it might be used in a survey.
- Survey Response Type: The scale or options associated with the question.
- Focus Group/ Interview Modifications: The instructions you might use if the question is posed in a focus group setting or an interview (in-person or online).
- Source(s): The specific instruments from where we drew the questions and notes about any adaptations we made to the original questions.
| Important Note: The Question Bank is a curated (though not exhaustive) list of questions drawn from an extensive review and analysis of available instruments. The reason for this is that we hope multiple organizations will use the same questions, giving us guidance on their usefulness as part of future shared measurement. |
How do I use the STEM Belonging Question Bank?
The questions are free to use and are meant to be used in surveys, interviews, or focus groups of students and/or teachers. If you plan to use them, please:
- Decide which questions you plan to use. You can use as few or as many as you wish. Where there are options listed related to a single construct, we recommended choosing one option from the list.
- Decide on the format and platform you plan to use. You might add questions to an annual digital survey of program participants, or include a single question as an exit ticket for a program session.
Some questions to ask yourself as you make the decisions above:
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- Share your item selection and implementation ideas with the Beyond100K team via Circle who will be able to provide feedback and/or consultation guidance.
- Collect answers AND demographic information from participants, when possible. As you implement your plan, do your best to gather basic information about your respondents. At the bottom of this document, you will find our preferred demographic questions. Using them will help us a great deal because demographic data helps us conduct nuanced analyses aligned to Beyond100K’s goals.
- Share your findings and your lessons learned with us. If you are interested in providing feedback on these data tools and/or have collected data, we encourage you to reach out to our team. We will also invite you to join a conversation with other partners to share your learnings and help us determine our next steps.
If you have any technical questions, please reach out to our team at in**@********0K.org.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are partner organizations expected to do?
Partner organizations who use this resource are asked to select questions related to STEM sense of belonging from the question bank, decide what format to ask them, collect and analyze responses, and share and reflect on what you learned from the process. Reach out to in**@********0K.org for additional guidance or questions.
Can we adapt the questions? (e.g., change the wording and/or potential responses)
Keep in mind two things. First, nearly all the questions as written come from research-tested instruments. Second, our efforts to develop shared tools would benefit from multiple organizations using the same questions. However, the most important thing is that you are thinking about the role of belonging in your work and asking about it! So, adapt them if it works better for your use case!
Who counts as a “STEM teacher” when using this resource?
Any individual who is associated with your organization who is either preparing to be a teacher who teaches students STEM content (so a teacher candidate, teacher intern); or is currently teaching STEM content part-time or full-time. This includes elementary teachers who are trained specifically for STEM.
What counts as STEM?
Any content that provides access to STEM learning, including, but not limited to science, technology (including computer science), engineering, math, integrated STEM, and data science.
How do we add additional resources to the STEM Belonging Question Bank?
Beyond100K Partners are encouraged to share resources and evaluation methods at any time! If you have suggestions for additions or revisions, please reach out to the Beyond100K team at in**@********0k.org.
The collection and analysis of this STEM Belonging Bank was led by the Beyond100K Measurement CoLab. These partners researched evaluation methods, reviewed resources, and participated in study groups to further evaluate the bank. Thank you to the Beyond100K Measurement CoLab!
| Kathy Kostrzewa, EnCorps, Inc. | Will Brown, Mouse.org |
| Maia Elkana, Institute for School Partnership, Washington University in St. Louis | Tara Henderson, Explora! |
| Lynda Kennedy, Intrepid Museum, | Lara Smetana & Megan Leider, Loyola University Chicago |
| Bhesh Mainali, Rider University | Doron Zinger, UC Irvine |
| Melanie Hobbs, American Federation of Teachers | Angel Valerio, KQED |
| Teresa Barnett, Community Resources for Science | Jason Sullivan, STEMTeachersNYC |
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