Pathways: Measuring the Impact of Participation in Informal STEM Programming on University Students

科学家向公众有效地传播科学是一种理想和追求的属性。这个项目正在与物理学的研究生和本科生合作，将确定什么样的干预措施是最好的，以评估这一干部的沟通和态度能力。此外，该项目将确定哪些战略最适合补救。最后，成功将被概括为关于干预和补救全国各地的其他物理程序，也许在STEM领域的其他学科。有各种各样的因素，有助于与公众受众的有效沟通。其中一些因素包括受众特征和教师/导师能力。该项目将确定后者教师/导师能力方面的问题。他们将评估导师在沟通、教学和紧急态度方面的基本技能。由于每一项都对沟通的有效性作出独特的贡献，因此将分别考虑这些因素。在沟通技巧部分，目标将是初步确定导师是否使用以下模式之一：赤字，这意味着导师是专家，参与者不知情;对话，导师和参与者之间有更多的来回;最后是参与式互动，参与者和导师的想法完全融合。一旦基线建立，研究人员将引入与学生导师的补救干预机制，以确定是否以及可以进行哪些类型的改变，以改善针对公众理解STEM概念和想法的沟通。最后，研究人员将试图确定这些干预措施是否具有超越眼前挑战的影响，例如职业讨论，参与课程和/或书面产品。

Effective communication of science to the public by scientists is a desired and sought after attribute. This project which is working with graduate and undergraduate students in Physics will determine what interventions are best in assessing communication and attitudinal capacities in this cadre. Further, the project will determine what strategies are best at remediation. Finally, the successes will be generalized with regard to interventions and remediation to other Physics programs across the country and perhaps to other disciplines in the STEM fields.There are a variety of factors that contribute to effective communications with public audiences. Some of those factors include audience characteristics and teacher/mentor capabilities. This project will ascertain the issues in the latter teacher/mentor capacities. They will assess the mentor's baseline skills regarding communication, teaching and emergent attitudes. These are considered separately as each contributes uniquely to the effectiveness of communication. In the communications skills section, the objective will be to determine initially if the mentors are using any one of the following models: deficit, meaning the mentor is the expert and the participants are not informed; dialogue, where there is more back and forth between mentor and participant; and finally participatory interactions, where there is full integration of participant and mentor ideas. Once the baseline is established, the investigators will introduce mechanisms for remedial intervention with the student mentors to determine if and what types of changes can be made to improve communication directed toward public understanding of STEM concepts and ideas. Finally, the researchers will seek to determine if these interventions have affects beyond the immediate challenges such as career discussions, participation in classes and/or written products.