RAPID: Science Teachers as Public Health Educators: How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Reshaped the Roles and Experiences of K-12 Science Teachers?

RAPID：科学教师作为公共卫生教育者：COVID-19 大流行如何重塑 K-12 科学教师的角色和经验？

• 批准号: 2204901
• 负责人: Peggy Trygstad
• 金额: $ 18.57万
• 依托单位: Horizon Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-02-01 至 2024-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2204901&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Science; Teachers; Public; Health

When a global health crisis emerges, students at all levels turn to their science teachers for information and, at times, reassurance, according to researchers at Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI). Science teachers serve a critically important public health function and become an important part of the nation’s response efforts. Since 2020, tens of thousands of science teachers in the United States have helped students grapple with the reality of SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19. This includes not only supporting the emergent scientific learning opportunities, but also functioning as public health educators and advocates in the midst of the global pandemic. HRI explored the early role of science teachers during the pandemic with a prior RAPID project, which demonstrated that science teachers were engaged in a wide variety of educational activities with students related to the pandemic and public health education. However, now nearly two years into the global pandemic, there are a number of new topics that have arisen to explore with respect to science education, including vaccines and long-term immunity that were not able to be assessed early in the pandemic. This study will further the field's understanding of the role that science teachers play in adapting their instruction during a public health crisis, how they address emergent ideas throughout the unfolding of the pandemic, and the impacts that the pandemic has had on science teachers themselves. The research will build on the prior RAPID award (2027397) and return to the sample of science teachers studied in that context. HRI will collect survey data to explore the following questions: (1) How does the pandemic continue to influence teachers’ science instruction (for example, instructional time, instructional strategies), and how has that influence shifted? (2) How has teaching about COVID evolved? What new topics (for example, vaccines) have they taken up in thecontext of COVID? (3) What factors now exert the greatest influence on science teachers’ teaching about COVID, and how do those differ from the factors at play in the spring of 2020? (4) What are the impacts of the pandemic on science teachers themselves, including manageability of workload, opportunities for professional growth/development, physical/mental wellness, and job satisfaction? Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, the survey will be constructed to identify factors that predict whether teachers take up the topic. The survey will also collect data about how teachers address the virus and its transmission with their students. HRI will disaggregate survey data by school-, class-, student-, and teacher-level variables to identify patterns in student opportunities. Survey data will be supplemented by interviews with 50 survey respondents to gather more in-depth information related to the constructs of interest. Study findings will be immediately shared through a preliminary report that focuses on the survey data; presentations and dissemination through practitioner and research organizations; and policy briefs to the CDC and NIH to acknowledge the role of science teachers as public health advocates and encouraging those agencies to make resources available to science teachers to support this role.This RAPID award is made by the DRK-12 program in the Division of Research on Learning. The Discovery Research PreK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers, through the research and development of new innovations and approaches. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for the projects.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.

地平线研究公司（Horizon Research, Inc.， HRI）的研究人员称，当全球健康危机出现时，各级学生都向他们的科学老师寻求信息，有时还寻求安慰。科学教师承担着极其重要的公共卫生职能，成为国家应对工作的重要组成部分。自2020年以来，美国数万名科学教师帮助学生应对SARS-COV-2和COVID-19的现实。这不仅包括支持新出现的科学学习机会，还包括在全球大流行期间发挥公共卫生教育工作者和倡导者的作用。人类研究所利用先前的一个快速发展项目探讨了科学教师在大流行病期间的早期作用，该项目表明，科学教师与学生一起参与了与大流行病和公共卫生教育有关的各种教育活动。然而，现在全球大流行已经近两年了，在科学教育方面出现了一些需要探索的新主题，包括在大流行早期无法评估的疫苗和长期免疫。这项研究将进一步加深该领域对科学教师在公共卫生危机期间调整教学中所起作用的理解，他们如何在大流行的整个发展过程中处理突发思想，以及大流行对科学教师本身的影响。该研究将以先前的RAPID奖（2027397）为基础，并回归到在该背景下研究的科学教师样本。HRI将收集调查数据以探讨以下问题：(1)大流行如何继续影响教师的科学教学（例如，教学时间、教学策略），以及这种影响如何转变？(2)关于COVID的教学进展如何？在COVID的背景下，他们采取了哪些新主题（例如疫苗）？(3)目前哪些因素对理科教师的新冠肺炎教学影响最大？这些因素与2020年春季的因素有何不同？(4)疫情对科学教师自身有何影响，包括工作量管理、专业成长/发展机会、身心健康和工作满意度？利用计划行为理论，我们将构建调查来确定预测教师是否接受这个话题的因素。该调查还将收集有关教师如何应对病毒及其与学生之间传播的数据。HRI将按学校、班级、学生和教师水平的变量分解调查数据，以确定学生机会的模式。调查数据将通过与50名受访者的访谈来补充，以收集与兴趣结构相关的更深入的信息。研究结果将通过一份侧重于调查数据的初步报告立即分享；通过从业者和研究组织进行介绍和传播；以及向CDC和NIH提交的政策简报，承认科学教师作为公共卫生倡导者的角色，并鼓励这些机构为科学教师提供资源，以支持这一角色。该RAPID奖是由学习研究部的DRK-12项目颁发的。探索研究PreK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发新的创新和方法，显著提高PreK-12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为项目提供了理论和实证依据。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。