Science Indicators Instrumentation Improvement Workshop

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The proposal requests support for a one-day workshop to review and suggest improvements in the instrumentation used in the Surveys of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and Technology. The workshop will bring together survey methodologists and substantive experts at NSF headquarters in Arlington, VA. The participants will consider the wording of questions, the structure of response scales, the meaning of terms used in the questions, and the range and overlap of the items in light of the concepts that they are designed to measure and the need for comparability and continuity of measurement. Participants at the workshop will include leading experts in questionnaire construction, cognitive approaches to survey design, psychometrics, and item response theory, along with substantive experts in measurement of scientific literacy. Scholars who have published leading work on measurement issues in science literacy will also be invited.The results from the Surveys of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and Technology have usually been included in the NSB's annual Science and Engineering Indicators, a report which goes directly to the White House and informs public debate about science education and public support of science in the United States. It is vital that the reported survey results be based on sound, tested survey questions that ask about the right issues and provide high-quality measurement of the key concepts that reveal public understanding of science--or the lack thereof. The workshop will review and improve key items on the survey and align these instruments more closely with the relevant concepts. These improvements will allow for a more revealing and more robust assessment of public understanding in future editions of the Science Indicators report and serve as a more reliable guide for future science policy in the United States.