Planning a Design-based Implementation Research Agenda to Investigate Digital Badges as Transformative Assessment in Informal Science Learning

年轻人参加非正式的STEM学习活动可以促进他们的学术和职业成就，但这种联系很少被明确承认或培养。更系统的STEM教育方法可以使学生的正式和非正式STEM学习经历在不同的学习环境中得到一致、协调和支持。作为NSF推进非正式STEM学习计划的一部分，科学学习(SL)是美国和英国基金会之间的合作伙伴关系。SL资助那些采取变革性步骤来告知、改进和推进非正式STEM学习经验和环境的知识库、实践和设计的项目。这个具体的规划项目将美国和英国两个数字徽章系统中的利益相关者聚集在一起，计划进行一项研究，以确定系统的具体结构特征，从而使各机构的学习目标保持一致。数字徽章系统可以提供一种创造性的解决方案，以应对在多种学习环境中连接和建立青年与STEM相关的经验这一挑战。徽章作为既定系统的一部分，可用来代表和传达个人学习的证据，并为青年和教育工作者提供系统中可能有趣或有价值的其他活动的有证据支持的指标。经过适当设计和支持的徽章系统可以在非正式STEM项目和学校的网络中传递关键信息，这些网络(1)识别依赖背景的、兴趣驱动的学习，(2)提供机会在多种环境下探索这些兴趣。该项目在两个方面推动了非正式STEM学习领域的发展。首先，该项目记录和分析了两个由非正式科学教育组织和学校组成的小组就徽章作为学习目标的代表的意义和价值进行谈判的过程，以及他们如何决定承认其他机构颁发的徽章。这一进程在目标系统内建立能力，同时也开始确定促进或制约协调进程的体制、文化和物质能力问题。其次，该项目在美国和英国的少数青年中进行了一项试点研究，以调查与以下情况有关的因素：a)确定感兴趣的徽章；b)将不同徽章系统的活动彼此联系起来，并与学校或行业等非徽章机构联系起来；c)确定要追求哪些徽章；以及d)坚持特定的徽章途径。这项初步研究的结果将有助于确定机构和个人层面的因素，这些因素可能与提高学生在STEM领域的兴趣和进步有关。加深和验证对这些因素及其对学生体验和结果的相对影响的理解将是未来研究的重点。

Young people's participation in informal STEM learning activities can contribute to their academic and career achievements, but these connections are infrequently explicitly recognized or cultivated. More systemic approaches to STEM education could allow for students' experiences of formal and informal STEM learning to be aligned, coordinated, and supported across learning contexts. As part of NSF's Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, Science Learning+ (SL+) is a partnership among US and UK foundations. SL+ funds projects that take transformational steps to inform, improve, and advance the knowledge bases, practices, and design of informal STEM learning experiences and environments. This specific planning project brings together stakeholders in two digital badge systems--one in the US and one in the UK--to plan for a study to identify the specific structural features of the systems that may allow for the alignment of learning objectives across institutions. Digital badge systems may offer an inventive solution to the challenge of connecting and building on youth's STEM-related experiences in multiple learning contexts. When part of a defined system, badges could be used to represent and communicate evidence of individual learning, as well as provide youth and educators with evidence-supported indicators for other activities in the system that might be interesting or valuable. Properly designed and supported badge systems could transmit critical information within a network of informal STEM programs and schools that (1) recognize context-dependent, interest-driven learning and (2) provide opportunities to explore those interests across multiple settings. This project advances the field of informal STEM learning in two ways. First, the project documents and analyzes the processes by which two small groups of informal science education organizations and schools negotiate the meaning and value of badges, as proxies for learning objectives, and how they decide to recognize badges awarded by other institutions. This process builds capacity within the target systems while also beginning to identify the institutional, cultural, and material capacity issues that facilitate or constrain the alignment process. Second, the project conducts a pilot study with a small number of youth in the US and UK to investigate factors associated with an individual youth's likelihood of: a) identifying badges of interest; b) connecting the activities of various badge systems to each other and to non-badging institutions, such as school or industry; c) determining which badges to pursue; and d) persisting in a particular badge pathway. Findings from this pilot study will help identify institution- and individual-level factors that might be associated with advancing student interest and progression in STEM fields. Deepening and validating the understanding of those factors and their relative impact on student experiences and outcomes will be the focus of investigations in future studies.