Science Indicators Instrumentation Improvement Workshop

该提案要求支持举办一次为期一天的讲习班，以审查和建议改进公众对科学和技术的态度和理解调查所使用的工具。研讨会将在弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿的国家科学基金会总部汇聚调查方法学家和实质性专家。与会者将根据所要衡量的概念以及衡量的可比性和连续性的需要，审议问题的措辞、答复量表的结构、问题中使用的术语的含义以及项目的范围和重叠。研讨会的参与者将包括问卷构建、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，以及科学素养测量方面的实质性专家。在科学素养测量问题上发表过领先研究成果的学者也将被邀请。公众对科学和技术的态度和理解调查的结果通常会被包括在NSB的年度科学和工程指标中，这份报告直接提交给白宫，向公众提供关于美国科学教育和公众对科学的支持的辩论。至关重要的是，报告的调查结果应基于合理的、经过测试的调查问题，这些问题询问正确的问题，并提供对揭示公众对科学的理解--或缺乏科学--的关键概念的高质量衡量。讲习班将审查和改进关于调查的关键项目，并使这些工具更紧密地与相关概念保持一致。这些改进将允许在未来版本的科学指标报告中对公众的理解进行更具启发性和更强有力的评估，并作为美国未来科学政策的更可靠指南。

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.