EAGER: Talk of the Town App for Research

教室不是孩子们学习的唯一场所。孩子们每天都通过花时间与家人和同龄人在一起来进行“非正式学习”。然而，虽然研究人员知道这种学习发生，但对这种学习的基础科学-这种学习如何工作-知之甚少。这是因为调查人员缺乏机会和手段来收集相关数据。该项目的目标是开发一个技术解决方案，即一个名为“城市谈话”的移动研究平台，为儿童的非正式学习提供一个窗口。 该工具的开发意义重大，因为它将使人们能够获得对大规模开发和测试教育干预措施至关重要的数据，并且它将提供比通常在实验室，家庭和科学博物馆中研究的样本更加多样化的样本。 这个概念验证项目的目标是开发一个名为“Talk of the Town”的开源移动平台，该平台由两个组件组成。第一个组件是一个移动的应用程序，将用于获得同意，管理入职人口统计学问卷。重要的是，该应用程序可以提示父母在不同的环境和不同的位置记录与孩子的对话。它通过使用关于特定主题的对话提示来实现，包括可以通过接近特定地标来触发的提示。第二个组件将是一个服务器，用于存储记录的对话，并根据对入职问卷的回答和参与家庭过去完成的任务，为不同的应用程序用户管理任务。这些新开发的技术能力将能够支持观测设计，以及实验操作和教学干预。重要的是，他们将打开一个窗口，了解儿童的学习和发展方面，被忽视和/或研究不足。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

Classrooms are not the only places where children learn. Children engage in ‘informal learning’ every day just by spending time with their family and peers. However, while researchers know this learning occurs, less is known about the underlying science of this learning -- how this learning works. This is so because investigators lack access and the means to gather relevant data. The goal of this project is to develop a technical solution, a mobile-based research platform called “Talk of the Town” that will provide a window into children’s informal learning. The development of this tool is significant because it will make possible access to data that are important for developing and testing educational interventions at scale, and it will provide access to much more diverse samples than are typically studied in laboratories, homes, and science museums. The goal of this proof-of- concept project is to develop an open-source mobile-based platform called “Talk of the Town,” which consists of two components. The first component is a mobile app that will be used to obtain consent, administer onboarding demographic questionnaires. Critically, the app can prompt parents to record conversations with their children in different contexts and different locations. It does so by using conversational prompts about specific topics, including prompts which can be triggered by proximity to specific landmarks. The second component will be a server that will be used to store the recorded conversations, and administer tasks to different app users based on responses to the onboarding questionnaire and tasks the participating family has completed in the past. These newly developed technical capabilities will be able to support observational designs, as well as experimental manipulations and teaching interventions. Importantly, they will open a window into aspects of children’s learning and development that have been overlooked and/or understudiedThis 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.