RAPID: Children's Biological Beliefs Concerning COVID-19 Disease Transmission

在当前的新冠肺炎危机中，开发有效的手段对儿童进行疾病传播知识教育是一件至关重要的事情，这不仅是科学素养的问题，也是公共健康的问题。儿童在传染病的传播中发挥着重要作用，因为他们经常从事危险行为，如触摸自己的脸或与照顾者进行身体接触。公共卫生建议包括向儿童传授减少疾病传播的最佳做法，但先前的研究表明，如果不确切了解疾病传播的潜在过程，儿童不太可能从事这些做法。这项授予密歇根大学研究团队的快速奖项将评估儿童对新冠肺炎传播的了解和不了解，以及他们认为自己知道(但从科学上讲是不准确的)什么。在对5-12岁的儿童及其父母进行全面评估时，研究人员将解决这样的问题：儿童在多大年龄了解病毒传播的不明显或不可见的方面，如无症状的携带者，或物体和表面携带感染的可能性？什么年龄段的孩子可以超越他们已经学会的孤立事实，弄清楚在新的情况下应该做什么？儿童的生物推理是如何受到非生物因素的影响的，比如潜在的携带者是朋友还是陌生人？孩子们对一场已经严重扰乱了他们日常生活的大流行的推理(新冠肺炎)与他们对一种更普通、更无害的疾病(普通感冒)的推理相比如何？该项目的发现将使家长、教育工作者、研究人员和公共卫生专业人员了解儿童对疾病传播的一般理解，特别是对新冠肺炎的理解。它将为迅速发展针对儿童理解中的差距和误解的循证教育干预措施奠定基础，从而提高科学素养和遵守公共卫生准则。这一快速奖励是由DRL的EHR核心研究(ECR)计划利用冠状病毒援助、救济和经济安全(CARE)法案的资金做出的。ECR支持推进STEM学习基础研究文献的工作。研究小组将采访5-12岁的儿童及其父母，采用一系列措施来评估儿童对病毒传播生物过程的理解，并将新冠肺炎与普通感冒进行比较。研究1将通过一系列儿童友好的任务来解决儿童对病毒如何工作和传播以及病毒如何工作和传播的理解，评估：潜伏期(感染和疾病发病之间的延迟)，无症状宿主，病毒可以在表面或物体(如门把手)上生存，以及病毒可以通过眼睛、鼻子和嘴巴进入身体。研究2将侧重于谁可能感染、传播或遭受病毒疾病的后果，以及生物和非生物因素(如一个人的国籍、语言或熟悉度)在这些判断中的作用。例如，儿童将收到一系列小插曲，每个小插曲涉及两个具有不同社会身份的假设角色，其中疾病传播是可能的，并将被要求评估角色感染疾病的可能性、角色患病的程度以及角色是否会将疾病传播给另一个人。虽然面对面接触受到限制，但儿童将通过面对面的远程视频和Qualtrics发送给家长/监护人的调查链接进行采访。采访将被录制、转录和编码。儿童在不同任务中的表现之间的相互关系将评估理解是否由零碎的事实组成，而不是连贯的理解。在这场全球大流行期间，确定儿童对疾病传播的理解提供了一个前所未有的机会，可以找出儿童对病毒传播理解中的差距和误解，为在小学和中学制定有效的生物教育规划提供基础。它还将成为STEM教育的重要理论数据来源，这些数据涉及儿童生物学理论在发育过程中的连贯性，以及儿童的非正式生物学理论在持续的健康危机背景下可能如何转变。该项目将为改善生物教育，以及公共卫生和儿童对他人疾病的了解和反应提供基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the current COVID-19 crisis, developing effective means of educating children about disease transmission is a matter of vital concern, not only for scientific literacy, but also for public health. Children play an important role in the transmission of contagious illness, given how frequently they engage in risky behaviors such as touching their faces or making physical contact with caregivers. Public health recommendations include teaching best practice to children to reduce disease spread, but prior research shows that children are unlikely to engage in these practices without a firm understanding of the underlying process of disease transmission. This RAPID award to a team of researchers at the University of Michigan will assess what children know, what they don't know, and what they think they know (but is scientifically inaccurate) about the transmission of COVID-19. In conducting a comprehensive assessment with children aged 5-12 years and their parents, the researchers will address such questions as: At what ages do children understand aspects of viral transmission that are non-obvious or invisible, such as asymptomatic carriers, or the potential for objects and surfaces to carry infection? At what ages can children go beyond isolated facts they have learned to figure out what to do in new situations? How is children's biological reasoning influenced by non-biological factors, such whether a potential carrier is a friend or a stranger? How does children's reasoning about a pandemic that has already massively disrupted their daily lives (COVID-19) compare with their reasoning about a more ordinary and innocuous illness (the common cold)? Findings from the project will inform parents, educators, researchers, and public health professionals about children's understanding of the transmission of disease in general, and COVID-19 in particular. It will lay the foundation for the rapid development of evidence-based educational interventions that target gaps and misconceptions in children’s understanding, thereby improving both scientific literacy and adherence to public health guidelines. This RAPID award is made by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program in DRL, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. ECR supports work that advances the fundamental research literature on STEM learning. The research team will interview children age 5-12 years and their parents, employing a battery of measures to assess children's understanding of the biological processes of viral transmission, comparing COVID-19 with the common cold. Study 1 will address children's understanding of how and why viruses work and spread, with a battery of child-friendly tasks that assess: incubation periods (lag between infection and disease onset), asymptomatic hosts, that viruses can survive on a surface or object (such as a doorknob), and that viruses can gain access to the body through the eyes, nose, and mouth. Study 2 will focus on who may contract, transmit, or suffer the consequences of viral disease, and the role of both biological and non-biological factors (such as a person's nationality, language, or familiarity) in these judgments. For example, children will receive a series of vignettes, each involving two hypothetical characters of different social identities, where disease transmission is a possibility, and will be asked to assess the likelihood that the character will contract the illness, how sick the character will get, and whether or not the character will transmit the illness to another person. While in-person contact is restricted, children will be interviewed via face-to-face remote video and a Qualtrics survey link sent to the parent/guardian. Interviews will be recorded, transcribed, and coded. Intercorrelations among children's performance across the different tasks will assess whether understanding consists of piecemeal facts as opposed to coherent understandings. Determining children's understanding of disease transmission during this global pandemic provides an unprecedented opportunity to identify gaps and misconceptions in children's understanding of viral transmission, to provide a foundation for developing effective educational programming about biology in the elementary and middle school years. It will also be a source of theoretically significant data of central interest to STEM education regarding the coherence of children's biological theories over developmental time, and how children's informal biological theories may shift in the context of an ongoing health crisis. The project will provide a foundation for improving biological education, as well as for public health and children's understanding of and reactions to illness in others.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.