Pathways: Measuring the Impact of Participation in Informal STEM Programming on University Students

科学家对公众进行有效的科学交流是人们所期望和追求的属性。该项目与物理系的研究生和本科生合作，将确定哪些干预措施最适合评估这一干部的沟通和态度能力。此外，该项目将确定哪些策略是最好的补救措施。最后，这些成功将被推广到全国其他物理项目的干预和补救措施中，也许还会推广到STEM领域的其他学科。有各种各样的因素有助于与公众进行有效的沟通。其中一些因素包括受众特征和教师/导师能力。这个项目将确定后一种教师/导师能力方面的问题。他们将评估导师在沟通、教学和应急态度方面的基本技能。这些都是单独考虑的，因为每一个都对沟通的有效性有独特的贡献。在沟通技巧部分，最初的目标是确定导师是否使用了以下任何一种模式：缺陷，即导师是专家，而参与者没有被告知；对话，在导师和参与者之间有更多的来回交流；最后是参与式互动，参与者和导师的想法完全融合在一起。一旦建立了基线，研究者将与学生导师一起引入补救干预机制，以确定是否以及可以做出哪些类型的改变，以改善公众对STEM概念和想法的理解。最后，研究人员将试图确定这些干预措施是否会对诸如职业讨论、课堂参与和/或书面产品等直接挑战产生影响。

Effective communication of science to the public by scientists is a desired and sought after attribute. This project which is working with graduate and undergraduate students in Physics will determine what interventions are best in assessing communication and attitudinal capacities in this cadre. Further, the project will determine what strategies are best at remediation. Finally, the successes will be generalized with regard to interventions and remediation to other Physics programs across the country and perhaps to other disciplines in the STEM fields.There are a variety of factors that contribute to effective communications with public audiences. Some of those factors include audience characteristics and teacher/mentor capabilities. This project will ascertain the issues in the latter teacher/mentor capacities. They will assess the mentor's baseline skills regarding communication, teaching and emergent attitudes. These are considered separately as each contributes uniquely to the effectiveness of communication. In the communications skills section, the objective will be to determine initially if the mentors are using any one of the following models: deficit, meaning the mentor is the expert and the participants are not informed; dialogue, where there is more back and forth between mentor and participant; and finally participatory interactions, where there is full integration of participant and mentor ideas. Once the baseline is established, the investigators will introduce mechanisms for remedial intervention with the student mentors to determine if and what types of changes can be made to improve communication directed toward public understanding of STEM concepts and ideas. Finally, the researchers will seek to determine if these interventions have affects beyond the immediate challenges such as career discussions, participation in classes and/or written products.