Science Indicators Instrumentation Improvement Workshop

该提案要求支持举办一次为期一天的讲习班，审查公众对科学和技术的态度和了解调查中使用的工具并提出改进建议。研讨会将汇集调查方法学家和实质性专家在美国国家科学基金会总部在阿灵顿，弗吉尼亚州。与会者将审议问题的措辞、回答量表的结构、问题中所用术语的含义、以及项目的范围和重叠，以考虑到这些项目旨在衡量的概念以及衡量的可比性和连续性的必要性。研讨会的与会者将包括问卷构建、调查设计的认知方法、心理测量学和项目反应理论方面的领先专家，沿着还有科学素养测量方面的实务专家。在科学素养测量问题上发表过重要著作的学者也将受到邀请。《公众对科学和技术的态度和理解调查》的结果通常包含在国家统计局的年度《科学和工程指标》中，该报告直接提交给白宫，并为美国公众关于科学教育和公众支持科学的辩论提供信息。至关重要的是，报告的调查结果必须基于合理、经过测试的调查问题，这些问题要问对了问题，并对关键概念进行高质量的衡量，以揭示公众对科学的理解-或缺乏理解。讲习班将审查和改进调查中的关键项目，并使这些工具与相关概念更加一致。这些改进将有助于在未来版本的《科学指标》报告中对公众的理解进行更有启发性和更有力的评估，并为美国未来的科学政策提供更可靠的指导。

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.