Investigating the impact of youth's inductive exploration of local technologies featured in Indigenous stories on their engagement, self-efficacy, and persistence in STEM

该项目为原住民青年提供了改造的机会，并通过 STEAM 创新和知识建设的机会进行改造。该项目将通过支持对重视多种语言和认知方式的社区环境的探索，在课堂之外创造机会，投资于青少年对 STEAM 的参与、兴趣和自我效能。通过该项目，青年可以与社区专家、长者和知识持有者一起解决紧迫的社区需求，例如气候变化影响、粮食和水安全、慢性健康危机和人口外流。该项目将扩展太平洋岛屿背景下非正式 STEAM 学习和有意义的 STEAM 参与的形象。它将采用协作研究框架来调查促进代际学习的非正式 STEAM 学习活动，特别是探索传统故事和创建原型、讲故事包和说明本土 STEAM 实践的实践模型，如何随着时间的推移影响青少年对 STEAM 的参与和兴趣以及自我效能。通过培养参与者（尤其是太平洋岛民青年）成为共同研究员、评估者和设计师的能力，该项目将为参与者创造空间，以倡导他们的兴趣、观点和需求。太平洋地区的这项研究对于培养科学素养和扩大 STEAM 领域的参与非常重要，因为早期对科学的兴趣是未来 STEAM 兴趣和职业选择的潜在指标。该项目的目标是调查青年对土著故事中的当地技术的归纳探索如何影响他们对 STEAM、非正式 STEAM 学习的参与和兴趣，以及影响青年参与 STEAM 路径的未来决策。该项目将在关岛、马绍尔群岛共和国和密克罗尼西亚联邦（包括特鲁克、科斯雷、波纳佩和雅浦四个州）实施，并将解决核心研究问题：随着时间的推移，青少年参与基于 STEAM 的故事讲述和故事探索在多大程度上导致青少年对 STEAM 的参与度和兴趣以及自我效能感的增加？该项目将故事探索视为一种文化和元语言过程，不仅将故事作为文物或过程进行研究，而且将其作为研究历史、本土 STEAM 和本地创新的门户。两组青少年参与者将参加由长辈、合作伙伴组织和项目工作人员领导的夏季和春季校外项目，青少年通过这些项目调查讲故事、设计、研究实践和服务学习。每个群组还将创建数字讲故事包和/或模型套件，通过参与者设计的社区级和跨区域分享活动与观众分享。该项目预计将覆盖 140 名青少年和 30 名老年人。为了衡量学习成果，该项目基于现有工具来衡量非正式 STEAM 学习参与度。有关这些工具应用的课程将有助于非正式 STEAM 学习知识库，特别是关于 STEAM 中代表性不足的社区。基于社区的参与式研究（CBPR）是该项目的总体理论和方法框架，将通过多种观察、数据收集和分析方法让参与者作为共同研究人员。该项目还将创造社区驱动的研究机会，促进有关经常未被探索的主题的知识的产生，因为：(1) 密克罗尼西亚人作为代表性不足的少数群体，在研究设计过程中通常不参与讨论； (2) 在整个研究过程中，非密克罗尼西亚/土著认识论通常受到重视； （3）当任何外来者要求查看时，尤其是当种族化的殖民历史仍然留下日常影响时，就会缺乏信任。该项目鼓励所有参与者考虑并回答这个问题：谁的知识的管理者？研究结果以及教育材料和资源将分发给研究人员、项目开发人员、非正式科学机构、合作伙伴组织、正式和非正式教育工作者以及社区。 该研究项目由推进非正式 STEM 学习 (AISL) 计划资助，该计划旨在 (a) 推进非正式环境中 STEM 学习设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解； (b) 提供多种途径来扩大 STEM 学习体验的获取和参与； (c) 推进非正式环境中 STEM 学习的创新研究和评估； (d) 让所有年龄段的公众在非正式环境中学习 STEM。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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 provides opportunities for Indigenous youth to transform and be transformed by opportunities for STEAM innovation and knowledge building. This project will create opportunities outside of the classroom to invest in youths’ engagement, and interest, and self-efficacy in STEAM by supporting explorations in community settings that value multiple languages and ways of knowing. Through this project, youth can engage in pressing community needs—such as climate change impacts, food and water security, chronic health crises, and out-migration— with community experts, elders, and knowledge holders. The project will expand the picture of what Informal STEAM learning and meaningful engagement in STEAM looks like in Pacific Island contexts. It will employ a collaborative research framework to investigate how Informal STEAM learning activities that foster intergenerational learning—particularly the exploration of traditional stories and the creation of prototypes, storytelling packages, and hands-on models that illustrate Indigenous STEAM practices—impact youths’ engagement and interest in STEAM and self-efficacy over time. By building the capacity of participants—particularly Pacific Islander youth—to become co-researchers, -evaluators and -designers, the project will cultivate spaces for participants to advocate for their interests, perspectives, and needs. This research within the Pacific region is important for fostering science literacy and broadening participation in STEAM fields since early interest in science is a potential indicator of future STEAM interest and career choices. The goal of the project is to investigate how youth’s inductive exploration of local technologies featured in Indigenous stories impact their engagement and interest in STEAM, Informal STEAM learning, and future decision making that affect youth participation in STEAM pathways. The project will be implemented in Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia (comprising the four states of Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap) and will address the core research question: To what extent does youths’ participation in STEAM-based storytelling and story exploration lead to increases in youths’ engagement and interest in STEAM and self-efficacy over time? The project approaches story exploration as a cultural and metalinguistic process to investigate a story not solely as an artifact or a process, but as a doorway to investigations of history, Indigenous STEAM, and local innovation. Two cohorts of youth participants will engage in summer and spring out-of-school programs led by elders, partner organizations, and project staff through which youth investigate storytelling, design, research practice, and service learning. Each cohort will also create digital storytelling packages and/or model kits to share with audiences through participant-designed community-level and cross-region sharing events. The project is expected to reach 140 youth and 30 elders. To measure learning outcomes, the project builds upon extant tools to gauge Informal STEAM learning engagement. Lessons about the application of these tools will contribute to the Informal STEAM learning knowledge base—especially regarding underrepresented communities in STEAM. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is the overarching theoretical and methodological framework for the project and will engage participants as co-researchers through multiple methods of observation, data gathering, and analysis. The project will also create community-driven research opportunities that advances the generation of knowledge on topics that are often left unexplored because: (1) Micronesians as underrepresented minorities are not usually at the table during research design; (2) non-Micronesian/Indigenous epistemologies are usually privileged throughout the research; and (3) there is a lack of trust when any outsider asks to look in, especially when racialized colonial histories still leave daily impacts. This project encourages all participants to consider and develop answers to this question: Stewards of whose knowledge? Research findings and educational materials and resources will be disseminated to researchers, program developers, informal science institutions, partner organizations, formal and informal educators, and communities. This research project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.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.