This is a brief literature review examining the theory and practice of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). It highlights CBPR's liberatory intent, and focuses on CBPR practice in indigenous communities and among youth.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Middle Ground Expanded (MGE), an interactive public placemaking project, showcases social-science concepts and transforms underutilized places into informal learning platforms. This broad implementation project is a collaboration between the Exploratorium, Urban Alchemy, San Francisco Recreation and Parks, and the San Francisco Public Library. Sixteen columns housing interactive, multilingual exhibits will help visitors explore how we think, feel, and interact with other people all within an immersive outdoor experience in the
This research brief highlights findings from the proof of concept pilot year of the Child Trends News Service project. It explores what we have learned regarding best practices for communicating with and engaging Latino parents through short messages on research-informed parenting practices. The findings are grounded in research that substantiates the need to amplify access to child development research, particularly among low-income Latino families; and in communication science research that demonstrates the value of the news media as an information source for child development research.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alicia TorresSelma CaalLuz GuerraAngela Rojas
Child Trends is a nonprofit organization focused on improving the lives of children and their families by conducting research and sharing the resulting knowledge with practitioners and the public. In this project, Child Trends will conduct research and development to launch a Child Trends News Service aimed at providing news reports that feature social science child-centric research. The resulting work is designed to improve outcomes for at-risk children, particularly Latinos, the largest and fastest-growing minority group among U.S. children. Working with a professional news syndication company, the Child Trends News Service will produce engaging reports for key news media outlets that feature the latest actionable social science research related to behaviors that help mitigate negative child outcomes associated with poverty, lack of education, violence, among other challenges. Child Trends will draw attention to the reports through social media and outreach to stakeholders. By airing these reports on local television news programs in English and Spanish, millions of people will have greater access to this information. This is early R&D work to demonstrate that local television stations will air these stories and to examine the audience impact—how does accessing this social science research through preferred media channels influence news audiences’ knowledge and attitudes toward specific social science research? The study will also delve deeper to better understand how news might, or might not, motivate behavioral change. The study will provide valuable lessons to the informal science education and the STEM communication science field.
The overarching aim of this project is to use commercial news to reach populations, especially Latinos, who have historically been underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and careers. The goals of the project are to:
* Leverage mass media news outlets to effectively communicate developments in social science research on child well-being and development to Latino audiences.
* Advance the field of informal STEM learning by exploring how the public interacts with actionable social science child research.
* Expand the reach and application of the news products through strategic collaborations with provider organizations serving at-risk Latino families; the child research and STEM fields; and other organizations working on Latino family issues.
Activities include the development and formative testing of the news service, the qualitative and quantitative testing of the news service's impact on audiences, and evaluation of the implementation of the project's components. The quantitative research, using a control group and treatment group, will work to establish preliminary evidence that the Child Trends News Service will result in changes in viewers' knowledge, attitudes, and intent to adopt behaviors related to child-centric social science research. The Child Trends' project team will be informed by an Advisory Board and Technical Working Group as well by working closely with Abriendo Puertas, the largest U.S. parenting education program for low-income Latino parents. Child Trends will partner with Ivanhoe Broadcast News to produce and distribute the materials. Group I&I Consultancy will evaluate the project. In year-two, Child Trends will produce a research brief on lessons learned and research outcome measures. The proposed research and development will be conducted over a two-year period; findings will inform ongoing service and additional research.
This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
WNET is producing "The Human Spark," a multimedia project that includes a four-part television series (4 x 60 min) for national primetime broadcast on PBS, innovative outreach partnerships with museums, an extensive Web site and outreach activities, including a Spanish-language version and companion book. Hosted by Alan Alda, "The Human Spark" will explore the intriguing questions: What makes us human? Can the human spark be found in the differences between us and our closest genetic relative -- the great apes? Is there some place or process unique to the human brain where the human spark resides? And if we can identify it, could we transfer it to machines? The programs will explore these questions through presenting cutting-edge research in a number of scientific disciplines including evolution, genetics, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral science, anthropology, linguistics, AI, robotics and computing. The series will highlight opposing views within each field, and the interdisciplinary nature of science, including its intersection with the humanities. The series will develop a new innovative format, the "muse concept", which involves pairing the host with a different scientific expert throughout each program. The outreach plan is being developed with a consortium of four leading science museums, American Museum of Natural History in New York, Museum of Science in Boston, The Exploratorium in San Francisco, and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, paired with their respective local public television stations. An additional six museums and local broadcasters will be chosen through an RFP process to develop local initiatives around the series. Multimedia Research and Leflein Associates will conduct formative as well as summative evaluations of the series and web.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
William GrantJared LipworthGraham CheddBarbara Flagg
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The proposed CAREER study uses a comprehensive mixed-methods design to develop measures of motivational beliefs and family supports for Spanish and English speaking Mexican-origin youth in high school physical science. The research examines a three-part model which may provide a deeper understanding of how Mexican families support youth through their general education strategies, beliefs about physical science, and science specific behaviors. This approach incorporates motivation and ecodevelopmental theories while pursuing an innovative line of research that examines how the contributions of older siblings and relatives complement or supplement parental support. The study has four aims which are to (1) to develop reliable, valid measures of Mexican-origin adolescent motivational beliefs and family supports in relation to high school chemistry and physics, (2) to test whether family supports predict motivational beliefs and course enrollment, (3) to test how indicators in Aim 2 vary based on gender, culture, English language skills and relationship quality, and (4) to examine how family supports strengthen or weaken the relationship between school-based interactions (teachers and peer support) and the pursuit of physical science studies. Spanish and English-speaking Mexican-origin youth will participate in focus groups to inform the development of a survey instrument which will be used in a statistical measurement equivalence study of 300 high school students in fulfillment of Aim 1. One hundred and fifty Mexican high school students and their families will participate in a longitudinal study while students progress through grades 9-12 to examine Aims 2- 4. Data to be collected includes information on science coursework, adolescent motivational beliefs, supports by mothers and older youth in the family, and family interactions. All materials will be in English and Spanish. The educational and research integration plan uses a three pronged approach which includes mentoring of doctoral students, teacher outreach, and the evaluation of the ASU Biodesign high school summer internship program using measures resulting from the research. It is anticipated that the study findings will provide research-based solutions to some of the specific behaviors that influence youth motivation in physical sciences. Specifically, the study will identify youth that might be most affected by an intervention and the age of maximum benefit, as well as valid, reliable measures of youths' motivation that can used in interventions to measure outcomes. The study will also identify family behaviors that may be influenced, including education strategies for school preparation, beliefs about physical science, and sciece-specific strategies such as engaging in science activities outside school. The findings will be broadly disseminated to science teachers, scholars, and families of Mexican-origin youth. This multi-tiered approach will advance current scholarship and practice concerning Mexican-origin adolescents' pursuit of physical science.
The Austin Children's Museum will develop Sixteen Candles: Growing Up from 0 - 16. a 1500 sq. ft. interactive traveling exhibition the topic of human development. Visitors will be given the opportunity to learn about the physical, intellectual, and social/emotional changes that are connected with human growth and the branches of science that study human development. Guided by the museum's maxim of exhibit and program development that experience should "build on the familiar and be personally meaningful to varied audiences" this exhibit will have components and activities that highlight similarities and differences between families and children of different cultural and economic backgrounds and family life styles. The exhibit text material will be bilingual, Spanish and English. Complementary educational material will include teacher orientation materials, educator's guide book with pre-and post-visit activities, and various parent -child activities. Museum staff will cooperate with a PBS affiliate and various other community organizations in the development of this exhibit. The exhibit will travel to an additional eight to twelve sites around the country during a three-year period. It will open at the Austin Children's Museum in the spring of 1999.
The New York Hall of Science is overseeing a complex, four-year applied research and traveling exhibit development project on "precursor concepts" to the theory of evolution. These concepts pertain to key ideas about life -- variation, inheritance, selection, and time (VIST) -- and are organized around the principle that living things change over time. The central research question is: Can informal, museum-based interventions prepare young children (5 -12) to understand the scientific basis of evolution by targeting their intuitive pre-evolutionary concepts? The work involves many collaborators -- museum personnel around the country, university researchers, exhibit designers and evaluators, web designers, the Association of Science-Technology Centers and a number of advisors in the biological sciences, psychology and in informal and formal education. The products include applied research studies that will add to the conceptual change knowledge base in cognitive psychology, a 1,000 square-foot exhibit plus discovery boxes, a section on the UC-Berkeley Understanding Evolution web site, extensive on site and online staff training opportunities for participating museums and others, several dissemination activities including two research symposia, and bilingual (English and Spanish) exhibit materials and family guides. The project is positioned as a new model in informal science education for integrating research, development and evaluation, with applicability beyond the life sciences to other STEM fields.
The Miami Museum of Science, in collaboration with the Science Museum of Minnesota, will develop a 5000-sq. ft. interactive, bilingual traveling exhibition titled "Amazon Voyage: Vicious Fishes and Other Riches." The exhibition will immerse visitors in the Amazon's rich diversity through direct contact with some of its most (ill-deservedly) notorious denizens. Spotlighting the rarely seen research conducted by renowned North- and South American scientists, "Amazon Voyage" will present visitors with the scientists' ongoing work. Visitors will discover that economy and ecology of the Amazon are intertwined, and explore their own connection to this region through the global trade in ornamental fish, arriving at a heightened appreciation of how personal choices can influence environmental outcomes.
North Carolina State University proposes to produce two one-hour documentaries on language diversity in the southeastern United States, one on a receding traditional variety of English on the Outer Banks of North Carolina tentatively titled Vanishing Voices of the Outer Banks, and one on the emergence of Spanish and Hispanic English in the Mid-Atlantic South tentatively titled The Spanish Voice in the New American South. The project is related to NSF research grant BCS-0542139, Old and New Ethnic Dialect Configuration in the American South," but it also connects with the PI's extensive, ongoing public outreach activities related to linguistic diversity. The project contributes to the public understanding of language diversity in American society and the social role of language in community life.
As science centers and children's museums re-define their roles in a society that is increasingly linguistically diverse, many seek to engage more effectively with dual language learners. Dual language learners are young children who are still in the process of acquiring basic language skills in their first language while at the same time acquiring a second language. At present, museum professionals face the challenge of developing programs and practices in the absence of research on informal science education for this population. The Center of Science and Industry (COSI) and The Ohio State University (OSU) will collaborate to begin a systematic study of informal science education programs and practices for reaching and serving preschool dual language learners. The improvement of dual language learners' informal science learning experiences is an increasingly important part of efforts to achieve equity and diversity in participation in science. Such efforts are particularly important as this population grows in number and as the significance of early science learning experiences for later achievement becomes better understood. This project will begin to address the lack of research through three interconnected activities: (1) a national needs assessment of children's museums and science museums, (2) an in-person convening and quarterly virtual meet-ups with teams from eight partner museums, and (3) an exploratory study of COSI's programs and practices to support the access, participation, and learning of preschool dual language learners and their parents/caregivers. The project will yield important insights into current practices and priorities with respect to effective museum engagement with dual language learners, their families, and the early childhood professionals who serve them. The project will (1) produce a comprehensive report on the current state of the field related to providing informal science experiences for preschool dual language learners; (2) identify gaps in existing research and practice, as well as promising foci for future study and improvement and expansion of museum practice; and (3) create a full-scale Research in Service to Practice proposal and a national network of museums to implement the proposal. The overarching goal of the project is to advance the knowledge and awareness of needs and practices related to informal science programming for preschool children who are learning English as an additional language. The national needs assessment will be conducted by means of an online questionnaire sent to museums identified via public association lists, and questions will focus on institutional practices in relation to school readiness and the needs of preschool dual language learners and perceived gaps in services. In the convening and virtual meet-ups, the project team, local community partners, project advisers, museum association leaders, and museum partners selected for their innovative work with linguistically diverse populations will discuss partners' programs, practices and frameworks; emergent project findings; and directions for further study. The exploratory study of COSI programs and practices will entail participant observation, document analysis, and interviews and focus group conversations with stakeholders, including parents, early childhood educators, COSI team members, community organization leaders. The project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. Its funding includes broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. An AISL Pathways grant, such as this one, allows practitioners and researchers to undertake exploratory development work that has the potential to produce evidence, findings, and/or deliverables that will form the basis of anticipated further innovative, or potentially transformative, research and development work.