Citizen Science Embedded Assessment

公民科学嵌入评估项目将探索使用嵌入评估来衡量公民科学项目背景下参与者科学探究技能的发展。公民科学(CS)计划与科学家合作，让志愿者直接参与研究工作。嵌入式评估(EA)评估参与者的技能和绩效，这些技能和绩效直接结合在一起，与日常活动没有什么区别。因此，EA允许学习者通过与学习体验本身无缝集成的任务来展示他们的科学能力。社会保障领域拥有越来越多的自我评估工具，然而，如果将这些工具与参与者通过参与获得的知识、技能或其他资源的客观衡量相结合，使用这种主观评估对公民科学(和其他非正式科学项目)的评估可以得到显著改善。科学技能，如数据收集和分析，对计算机科学项目特别重要，因为它们侧重于科学过程，并且需要严格的数据收集。尽管CS项目关注的是技能的提高，但很少衡量这样的进步。嵌入式评估(EA)为理解这些参与式学习环境的影响提供了一种关键方法。该项目将开发和实地测试以环境科学为重点的公民科学主题的环境影响评估。该项目有三个主要研究重点：(1)确定CS项目针对的共同和独特的科学探究技能，以及目前如何衡量技能以记录项目影响；(2)确定为CS项目定制的EA工具的开发和管理中存在的机会和挑战，以评估科学探究技能；以及(3)评估为CS项目创建的EA工具是否可以让项目负责人更好地了解其项目对参与者科学探究技能的影响。该项目将通过对CS社区内的研究和评价研究进行需求评估和案例研究来解决这些问题，以制定和测试为三个已确定的和感兴趣的CS项目定制的EA。

The Citizen Science Embedded Assessment project will explore the use of embedded assessment to measure participant science inquiry skill development within the context of citizen science projects. Citizen science (CS) projects partner volunteers with scientists to participate directly in research endeavors. Embedded assessments (EAs) assess participant skills and performance that are directly integrated and are indistinguishable from day-to-day activities. As such, EAs allow learners to demonstrate their science competencies through tasks that are integrated seamlessly into the learning experience itself. The CS field has a growing inventory of self-assessment tools, however, the evaluation of citizen science (and other informal science projects) using such subjective assessments can be remarkably improved when these are used in combination with objective measures of knowledge, skills or other resources participants gain through their participation. Science skills, such as data collection and analysis, are particularly important for CS projects because of their focus on the scientific process and their need for rigorous data collection. Despite the focus on skill gains, CS projects rarely measure such improvements. Embedded assessments (EAs) offer a critical method for understanding the impacts of these participatory learning environments. The project will develop and field test EAs on citizen science topics with an environmental science focus. It will also design training to support their use by individual projects.The project has three primary research foci: (1) identifying common and unique science inquiry skills targeted by CS projects, and how skills are currently being measured to document project impact; (2) identifying the opportunities and challenges present in developing and administering EA tools customized for CS projects to assess science inquiry skills; and (3) assessing whether EA tools created for a CS project can provide project leaders with a better understanding of their project's impact on participant science inquiry skills. The project will address these questions with a needs assessment of research and evaluation studies within the CS community and case studies to develop and test EAs customized for three identified and interested CS projects.