Evaluation of the impact of a summer construction camp on participants' perceptions

This paper concisely reports on the design and organization of a summer camp in the construction area and explores the impacts of such activities on getting high school students' awareness of the benefits of a construction career. Summer camps provide a pathway for examining youth development in specific areas. Camps represent environments where participants can develop their technical knowledge, social skills, and emotional intelligence through a series of theoretical and practical activities that are fun, engaging, interesting, challenging, and result in tangible outcomes in the short term. Building Construction Science program at Mississippi State University offers a summer program to increase students' interest in construction careers. This summer program attracted high school students from different areas of the state of Mississippi who had limited, if any, exposure to construction related career fields. The main goal of this program was to introduce construction science and trades to students through a small-sized construction project. This gave students a first-hand encounter with construction trades, increased their construction knowledge, and provided information from construction instructors and professionals to think about construction as a future college major and career. This study aimed to explore how participating in a construction summer camp affected middle and high school students' attitudes towards construction trades and careers and their perceptions of construction careers. A group of professional instructors from the Mississippi Construction Education Foundation (MCEF) led participants for one week. Students were divided into groups of five or six and were instructed in performing construction activities such as framing, roofing, mechanical rough-in, and electrical rough-in so that all building was done by students. A retrospective quantitative survey was administered at the end of the program. Results indicate that participation in the program had a positive effect on the students' understanding of what construction is and the work different construction trades perform. The results show a positive impact on participants' attitudes toward different aspects of the construction program at Mississippi State University. Also, participants reported a significant difference between their Pre- and Post-camp perceptions in construction-related subjects.