EAGER: Web Adventures Interactive: Innovative Online Activities as Effective Tools for Broadening Participation in Science

本项目将完成创建Web Adventures Interactive （WAI）所需的探索性基础工作，这是一套互动教育游戏网站，旨在研究互动功能对科学学习、动机和科学职业兴趣的有效性。该项目由“面向学生和教师的创新技术体验”（ITEST）项目资助，该项目支持有助于提高学生对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）以及信息和通信技术（ICT）职业的知识和兴趣的实践、项目要素、背景和过程的理解。《Web Adventures Interactive》将取代上世纪90年代末至2010年代中期由联邦政府资助开发的原版《Web Adventures》。对虚拟科学工具的空前需求使得使用新技术和新的交互功能重新开发Web Adventures变得至关重要。多年来，Web Adventures服务于全球数以百万计的学生和教师，其首要目标是(1)增加学生的科学和健康知识，(2)激发与科学相关的职业。转换后的WAI为研究这些新特征的有效性和进行细粒度的新调查提供了很好的机会。除了保留原始的Web Adventures目标外，WAI的总体目标是提高学生的三个成果：(1)科学学习（法医学、微生物学和神经科学），(2)科学领域的动机，(3)通过新的和创新的功能，包括社会互动和参与，教师/家长监控和评估学生的进步，以及为教师/家长提供进一步的定制选项，提高学生对科学事业的认识和兴趣。《Web Adventures》的全面重新开发需要完成一些初始工作，包括创建一个档案网站（第一阶段），设计和测试新基础设施（第二阶段），其中包含一些额外的创新功能，包括社交互动，以及关于游戏玩法特征的详细分析。新基础设施将在至少1,000名中学生和高中生中进行beta测试，以调查(1)WAI如何影响这三个学生的成绩；(2)学生的行为（花费时间、遵循顺序、自我探索与引导、回答提示问题等）与学生的三个结果之间的关系；(3) WAI的新功能（即社会互动功能和教师/家长监控和连接工具）如何影响行为和影响三个学生的结果。学生将被给予前后调查（动机和职业兴趣）和评估（科学学习），这些将提供研究数据。还将进行数据分析和数据挖掘，并将其纳入数据分析。这些经过经验测试的互动教育游戏将在莱斯大学学校数学项目主办的网站上免费公开。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will accomplish the exploratory groundwork needed to create Web Adventures Interactive (WAI), a set of interactive educational game websites, to study the effectiveness of the interactive features on science learning, motivation, and interest in science careers. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. The Web Adventures Interactive will replace the original Web Adventures developed through federal grants in the late 90s to mid-2010s. The unprecedented need for virtual science tools makes it vital to redevelop Web Adventures using new technologies and new interactive features. Over the years, Web Adventures have served millions of students and teachers from across the globe with overarching goals of (1) increasing students' science and health knowledge, and (2) inspiring science-related careers. The transformed version, WAI, provides a great opportunity to study the effectiveness of these new features and to conduct fine-grained new investigations. In addition to preserving the original Web Adventures goals, WAI's overarching goal is to increase three student outcomes: (1) science learning (forensics, microbiology, and neuroscience), (2) motivation for science fields, and (3) awareness and interest in science careers through new and innovative features—including social interaction and engagement, teacher/parent monitoring and assessment of student progress, and further customization options for teachers/parents. A full redevelopment of Web Adventures requires some initial work to be performed including the creation of an archival website (Phase 1) and design and testing of the new infrastructure (Phase 2) with several additional innovative features including social interaction, and detailed analytics regarding game-play characteristics. The new infrastructure will be beta-tested with at least 1,000 middle and high school students to investigate (1) how WAI impacts the three student outcomes; (2) how students' behavior (time-spent, sequence followed, self-exploring versus guided, answering prompted questions etc.) relate to the three student outcomes; and (3) how new features of WAI (i.e., social interactive features and teacher/parent monitoring and connectivity tools) affect behavior and impact the three student outcomes. Students will be given pre-and post-surveys (for motivation and career interest) and assessments (for science learning) that will provide research data. Data analytics and data-mining will also be conducted and included in data analysis. These empirically-tested interactive educational games will be freely and publicly available on a website hosted by the Rice University School Mathematics Project.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.