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

该项目为土著青年提供了机会，通过STEAM创新和知识建设的机会进行改造和改造。该项目将在课堂之外创造机会，通过支持在重视多种语言和认知方式的社区环境中进行探索，投资于青年人对STEAM的参与、兴趣和自我效能。通过这个项目，青年人可以与社区专家、长者和知识持有者一起参与解决紧迫的社区需求，如气候变化影响、粮食和水安全、慢性健康危机和向外移民。该项目将扩大非正式STEAM学习和有意义的STEAM参与在太平洋岛屿环境中的情况。它将采用一个合作研究框架，以调查如何促进代际学习的非正式蒸汽学习活动，特别是传统故事的探索和原型，讲故事的包，以及说明土著蒸汽实践的动手模型，随着时间的推移，影响青年的参与和兴趣蒸汽和自我效能。通过培养参与者，特别是太平洋岛民青年成为共同研究者、评估者和设计者的能力，该项目将为参与者提供宣传其利益、观点和需求的空间。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的参与和兴趣，非正式STEAM学习以及影响青年参与STEAM途径的未来决策。该项目将在关岛、马歇尔群岛共和国和密克罗尼西亚联邦（包括楚克、科斯雷、波恩佩和雅普四个州）实施，并将解决核心研究问题：随着时间的推移，青年参与基于STEAM的故事讲述和故事探索在多大程度上增加了青年对STEAM的参与和兴趣以及自我效能？该项目将故事探索作为一个文化和元语言过程，不仅将故事作为一个人工制品或过程进行调查，而且将其作为调查历史，土著蒸汽和当地创新的门户。两组青年参与者将参加由长者，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，通过这些项目，青年将研究讲故事，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/或模型包，通过参与者设计的社区级和跨区域共享活动与受众共享。该项目预计将惠及140名青年和30名老年人。为了衡量学习成果，该项目建立在现有的工具来衡量非正式STEAM学习参与。有关这些工具的应用经验将有助于非正式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使参与者成为共同研究人员。该项目还将创造由社区驱动的研究机会，推动关于往往未被探索的主题的知识的产生，因为：（1）在研究设计过程中，代表性不足的少数民族埃塞俄比亚人通常不参加会议;（2）非埃塞俄比亚人/土著人的认识论在整个研究过程中通常享有特权;（3）当任何局外人要求看进去时，缺乏信任，特别是当种族化的殖民历史仍然每天留下影响时。这个项目鼓励所有参与者思考和发展这个问题的答案：谁的知识管家？研究结果和教育材料和资源将传播给研究人员，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和社区。 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学习的设计和发展的新方法和基于证据的理解;（B）提供多种途径，以扩大STEM学习经验的获取和参与;（c）推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估;（d）促进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究。以及（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 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.