What leads to better outcomes in informal STEM-based environmental education programs for youth?

作为加强非正式环境中学习的总体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）项目资助了用于各种环境的创新研究、方法和资源。本项目将考察大量青少年环境教育实地考察项目的特点和结果，以阐明对21世纪学习成果影响最大的项目特点。针对青少年的环境教育项目，特别是为期一天的学校旅行项目，很受欢迎，并且处于正式和非正式STEM教育的交叉点。这样的实地考察为不同的受众提供了参与共享学习经验的机会，但目前对这些项目成功的原因的理解有限。这项大规模的研究将通过调查至少800个针对5-8年级青少年的单日环境教育实地考察项目的项目特征和参与者结果之间的联系来解决这一知识差距，特别是针对不同和服务不足的受众的项目。这项研究将确定基于证据的实践，为未来各种环境的项目设计提供信息，包括自然中心、国家公园、动物园、博物馆、水族馆和其他提供非正式环境教育项目的场所。这项“服务于实践的研究”研究以两个研究问题为指导：1)哪些课程特征（背景、设计和交付）最有力地影响学习者的自我决定和学习成果？2)最具影响力的节目特征是否在不同的和服务不足的观众（如非洲裔美国人、西班牙裔/拉丁裔、经济弱势群体）和环境（如农村与城市）中有所不同？该项目将考察一系列与项目相关的因素，包括教学方法和背景特征。一个有效和可靠的协议，用于观察78个项目特征，假设会影响学习者的结果，该项目由之前的项目开发，将被用于系统地抽样和观察分布在至少40个美国州和地区的5-8年级青少年的500个单日环境教育实地考察项目。将强调针对多样化和服务不足的青年的方案，并在方案类型和背景方面寻求多样化的方案。该样本的数据将与90多家供应商提供的334个项目的现有样本数据相结合。超过800个项目的最终组合样本将提供足够的统计能力，以自信地确定哪些项目组成部分与学习成果最一致。这一样本量还将使样本分层，以便在相关亚群体中检查这些关系。主成分分析将以理论上有意义和统计有效的方式减少数据，多层次结构方程模型将被用来检验参与者的个人特征和项目和环境特征对参与者结果的影响。由于一个研究问题关注的是不同受众的项目结果是否相同，该项目将包括至少200个项目，针对三种特定受众：主要是非裔美国人，主要是西班牙裔/拉丁裔，主要是白人，以确保对结果有足够的统计信心。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。

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. This project will examine the characteristics and outcomes of a large sample of environmental education field trip programs for youth to elucidate program characteristics that most powerfully influence 21st century learning outcomes. Environmental education programs for youth, particularly day-long school trip programs, are popular and reside at the intersection of formal and informal STEM education. Such field trips provide opportunities for diverse audiences to participate in shared learning experiences, but current understanding of what leads to success in these programs is limited. This large-scale study will address this gap in knowledge by investigating the linkages between program characteristics and participant outcomes for at least 800 single-day environmental education field trip programs for youth in grades 5-8, particularly programs for diverse and underserved audiences. This study will result in the identification of evidence-based practices that will inform future program design for a wide variety of settings, including nature centers, national parks, zoos, museums, aquaria, and other locations providing informal environmental education programs.This Research in Service to Practice study is guided by two research questions: 1) What program characteristics (context, design, and delivery) most powerfully influence learner self-determination and learner outcomes? And 2) Do the most influential program characteristics differ across diverse and underserved audiences (e.g. African American, Hispanic/Latino, economically disadvantaged) and contexts (e.g. rural versus urban)? This project will examine a wide range of program-related factors, including pedagogical approaches and contextual characteristics. A valid and reliable protocol for observing 78 program characteristics hypothesized to influence learner outcomes developed by a previous project will be used to systematically sample and observe 500 single-day environmental education field trip programs for youth in grades 5-8 distributed across at least 40 U.S. states and territories. Programs for diverse and underserved youth will be emphasized, and a diverse set of programs in terms of program type and context will be sought. Data from this sample will be combined with those of an existing sample of 334 programs provided by over 90 providers. The final combined sample of over 800 programs will provide sufficient statistical power to confidently identify which program components are most consistently linked with learning outcomes. This sample size will also enable stratification of the sample for examination of these relationships within relevant subpopulations. Principal component analyses will be used to reduce data in theoretically meaningful and statistically valid ways, and multilevel structural equation modeling will be employed to examine the influences of both participants' individual characteristics and program and context characteristics on participant outcomes. Since one research question focuses on whether program outcomes are the same across different audiences, the project will include at least 200 programs for each of three specific audiences to ensure sufficient statistical power for confidence in the results: primarily African American, primarily Hispanic/Latino, and primarily White.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.