NRT-IGE: A test bed for STEM graduate student communication training

科学家经常因为没有更多地与公众接触而受到批评，这导致科学家在实验室里所做的与普通公众对科学的理解之间的差距越来越大。大多数科学家都没有接受过沟通技巧方面的训练，这有助于他们与公众接触。密苏里-哥伦比亚大学研究生教育创新（IGE）轨道上的国家科学基金会研究培训（NRT）奖将通过调查研究生的沟通培训并开发确保其有效性的方法来解决这一问题。该项目汇集了来自生物学、物理学、战略传播、新闻学、戏剧、创意写作和视觉设计等领域的跨学科团队，旨在开发和测试评估研究生课程中传播培训有效性的方法。这个新的试点项目将利用科学之外的传播研究，并从包括公众在内的多个角度对培训效果进行统计评估。该项目将产生研究生培训项目可以用来保证通信培训质量的工具和程序，并最终在科学家和其他人之间提供更好的沟通。尽管人们普遍认为需要更好的科学传播和大量的培训项目，但是很少有证据表明什么样的方法能真正提高科学家的沟通技巧。一个跨学科的团队将开发一个控制的测试平台，用于科学研究生课程的沟通训练。纵向研究将评估受训者在五个学习模块中的习得和保留情况。严格的统计设计将把受训者的自我评价和教员的评价与数百名非科学听众对调查工具的反应联系起来。对培训前、培训后和不培训对受众的影响进行统计比较将建立有效性。受训者将来自生命科学，随后来自物理科学，以确定该计划在学科之间的可转移性。这些实验将为培训评估提供一种创新的模型，可以为其他项目以较低的成本采用。NSF研究培训（NRT）计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的、新的、具有潜在变革性和可扩展的STEM研究生教育培训模式。研究生教育创新轨道专门用于试点，测试和评估新颖，创新和潜在的变革性研究生教育方法。这项工作得到了EHR核心研究（ECR）项目的部分支持。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。投资在至关重要、广泛和持久的关键领域：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大STEM参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。

NRT-IGE: A test bed for STEM graduate student communication trainingScientists are often criticized for not engaging more with the general public, causing a widening gap between what scientists do in the lab and what the lay public understands about science. Most scientists are not trained with communication skills that would help them engage with the general public. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award in the Innovations of Graduate Education (IGE) Track to the University of Missouri-Columbia will seek to remedy this problem by investigating communication training for graduate students and developing ways to assure its effectiveness. This project brings together a highly interdisciplinary team from biology, physics, strategic communication, journalism, theater, creative writing, and visual design to develop and test the means of evaluating the effectiveness of communication training in graduate programs. The novel pilot will draw on communication research outside the sciences and use statistical evaluation of training effectiveness from multiple points of view, including the public's. The project will result in tools and procedures graduate training programs could use to assure the quality of communications training, and eventually provide better communication between scientists and others. Despite widespread agreement on the need for better science communication and a proliferation of training programs, there is little evidence about what approaches actually improve scientists' communication skills. An interdisciplinary team will develop a controlled test bed for communication training in science graduate programs. Longitudinal studies will assess trainees' acquisition and retention over five learning modules. A rigorous statistical design will relate trainees' self-evaluations and instructors' evaluations to responses to survey instruments by hundreds of non-science audience members. Statistical comparison of pre-, post-, and no-training impacts on audiences will establish effectiveness. Trainees will come from the life sciences and later from physical sciences to determine the program's transferability among disciplines. These experiments will provide an innovative model for training evaluation that can be adopted by other programs at relatively low cost. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable models for STEM graduate education training. The Innovations in Graduate Education Track is dedicated solely to piloting, testing, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education.This work is supported, in part, by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.