RAPID: Collaborative Research: Influencing Young Adults’ Science Engagement and Learning with COVID-19 Media Coverage

这份快速报告是对美国国家科学基金会关于新冠肺炎大流行的亲爱同事的信的回应。该奖项是由学习研究部的AISL项目利用冠状病毒援助、救济和经济安全(CARE)法案提供的资金颁发的。社会疏远的主要公共政策在一定程度上依赖于年轻人和更健康的人的合作，这些人可能没有症状，可能会在不知情的情况下将病毒传播给更脆弱的人群。身处大流行报道第一线的科学记者可以在教育千禧一代受众了解该病毒背后的科学、它是如何传播的以及防止病毒传播的有效方法方面发挥重要作用。该奖项将帮助STEM领域更好地了解如何用有效的新冠肺炎媒体内容吸引千禧一代受众，并紧急获取危机报道方面的专业知识。KQED和德克萨斯理工大学适合根据他们目前由国家科学基金会资助的“破解密码：影响千禧一代科学参与”合作研究和评估项目(DRL 1810990和1811091)，迅速实施一个针对千禧一代和年轻受众的科学媒体非正式科学学习项目。该项目团队已经为其媒体从业者和学术研究人员的协作建立了一个功能性研究协议，并将利用这些新的快速资金来补充正在进行的努力，动员现有的团队、研究协议和研究工具来应对新冠肺炎带来的接触年轻人的沟通挑战。将创建的内容包括：1)电台广播-每日新闻报道，现场谈话；2)实时博客--实时更新冠状病毒动态，3)脸书、Instagram和推特上的社交媒体内容。项目团队将探索以下研究问题：1)新冠肺炎的报道如何设计成最好地告知、吸引和教育千禧一代和年轻受众有关病毒传播和预防的科学知识？2)当记者对不断更新的信息和不断变化的受众需求做出反应时，危机报道的一些最佳实践是什么，可以被媒体机构(如顾问PBS Digital Studios，PBS NewsHour，Nova，NPR Science等)使用？该研究方案围绕“媒体测试周期”展开，这是一项有时间限制的研究(长达5个月)，旨在探索KQED科学内容(文章、视频、社交媒体帖子和电台报道)在接触年轻受众方面的有效性。这些步骤包括确定适合于实证检验的问题；就这些问题的性质及其潜在解决方案制定可信的相互竞争的假设；以及精心设计研究设计，以支持对这些假设的相对强度的有效、现实的推断。数据将通过社交媒体收听平台深红六角，从推特和脸书的新冠肺炎观众“聊天”中收集。除了社交媒体倾听，研究人员还将对目前通过观众参与平台Heearken收集的问题进行主题分析，KQED迄今已在该平台收集了近2000个关于病毒和生活方式变化的问题。这些数据还将帮助项目组了解有关病毒预防和传播的知识差距。这两项定性研究将同时进行，并迅速报告给KQED记者，以供报道。德克萨斯理工大学的研究人员将创建病毒传播和预防知识评估。这项评估将通过一项全国性的在线调查进行验证。该项目将审查知识差异，例如基于代际和性别的差异。TTU将研究这项评估的表现与两项相关指标之间的关系：科学好奇心和普通科学智力。这项全国调查将有助于确定哪些受众存在哪些知识差距。利用这些信息，KQED记者将开发“解说员”和其他新闻内容，以满足受众需求并填补知识缺口。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。

This RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the AISL program in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The major public policy of social distancing relies, in part, on the cooperation of younger and healthier people who may not experience symptoms and can spread the virus unknowingly to more vulnerable populations. Science journalists, who are on the front lines of covering the pandemic, can play an important role in educating millennial audiences about the science behind the virus, how it is transmitted and effective ways to prevent the virus from spreading. This award will help the STEM field better understand how to engage millennial audiences with effective COVID-19 media content and to urgently capture professional knowledge on crisis reporting. KQED and Texas Tech University are suited to rapidly implement a science media informal science learning project targeting millennials and younger audiences in light of their current NSF-funded "Cracking the Code: Influencing Millennial Science Engagement" collaborative research and evaluation project (DRL 1810990 and 1811091). The project team has built a functional research protocol for its media practitioner and academic researcher collaboration, and will apply these new RAPID funds to complement on-going efforts, mobilize the existing team, research protocol, and research tools to respond to the communication challenge of reaching younger adults posed by COVID-19. Content to be created includes: 1) Radio broadcasts - daily news coverage, live talks; 2) A real-time blog - live Coronavirus updates and 3) Social media content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.The project team will explore the following research questions:1) How could COVID-19 coverage be designed to best inform, engage and educate millennials and younger audiences about the science of virus transmission and prevention?2) What are some best practices for crisis reporting, as journalists respond to both constantly updated information and changing audience needs, that can be used by media outlets (such as advisors PBS Digital Studios, PBS NewsHour, NOVA, NPR Science, and more)? The research protocol centers around "media testing cycles," which are time-bounded studies (5 months long) exploring a subset of research questions about the effectiveness of KQED's science content (articles, videos, social media posts and radio reporting) at reaching younger audiences. Steps include identifying problems that are suited for empirical examination; formulating plausible competing hypotheses on the nature of those problems and their potential solutions; and crafting study designs calculated to support valid, realistic inferences on the relative strength of those hypotheses. Data will be gathered from COVID-19 audience "chatter" from Twitter and Facebook through Crimson Hexagon, a social media listening platform. In addition to the social media listening, researchers will conduct a thematic analysis of the questions currently being collected through the audience engagement platform Hearken, where KQED has gathered nearly 2,000 questions to date about the virus and lifestyle changes. This data will also help the project team understand knowledge gaps about prevention and transmission of the virus. These two qualitative studies will be conducted concurrently and reported to KQED journalists quickly to inform reporting.Texas Tech researchers will create a virus transmission and prevention knowledge assessment. This assessment will be validated using a national online survey. The project will examine knowledge differences based on, for example, generation and gender. TTU will examine relationships between performance on this assessment and two relevant measures: science curiosity and ordinary science intelligence. The national survey will help identify what knowledge gaps are present in which audiences. Using this information, KQED journalists will develop "explainers" and other news content, to meet audience needs and to fill knowledge gaps.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.