RAPID: Science Teachers as Public Health Educators: How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Reshaped the Roles and Experiences of K-12 Science Teachers?

地平线研究公司(Horizon Research，Inc.)的研究人员表示，当全球健康危机出现时，各级学生都会向他们的科学老师寻求信息，有时还会得到安慰。科学教师担负着至关重要的公共卫生职能，并成为国家应对措施的重要组成部分。自2020年以来，美国数以万计的科学教师帮助学生应对SARS-COV-2和新冠肺炎的现实。这不仅包括支持新出现的科学学习机会，还包括在全球大流行期间发挥公共卫生教育者和倡导者的作用。人权研究所通过先前的一个RAPID项目探讨了科学教师在大流行期间的早期作用，该项目表明，科学教师与学生一起参与了与大流行病和公共卫生教育有关的各种教育活动。然而，现在全球大流行已经过去了近两年，在科学教育方面出现了一些新的主题需要探索，包括疫苗和长期免疫，这些在大流行初期无法进行评估。这项研究将进一步加深实地对科学教师在公共卫生危机期间在调整其教学方面所发挥的作用的理解，他们如何在整个大流行病的发展过程中处理新出现的想法，以及大流行对科学教师本身的影响。这项研究将建立在先前的快速奖(2027397)的基础上，并回到在这一背景下所研究的科学教师的样本。HRI将收集调查数据来探讨以下问题：(1)大流行如何继续影响教师的科学教学(例如，教学时间、教学策略)，这种影响是如何转变的？(2)关于COVID的教学是如何演变的？在COVID的背景下，他们提出了哪些新的话题(例如疫苗)？(3)目前对科学教师关于COVID的教学影响最大的因素是什么，这些因素与2020年春季发挥作用的因素有何不同？(4)大流行对科学教师本身有什么影响，包括工作量的可管理性、专业成长/发展的机会、身心健康和工作满意度？利用计划行为理论，调查将被构建，以确定预测教师是否会讨论这一主题的因素。调查还将收集有关教师如何应对病毒及其在学生中传播的数据。HRI将按学校、班级、学生和教师层面的变量分解调查数据，以确定学生机会的模式。调查数据将通过对50名调查受访者的访谈来补充，以收集与感兴趣的结构有关的更深入的信息。研究结果将立即通过初步报告分享，该报告侧重于调查数据；通过从业者和研究组织进行陈述和传播；向疾控中心和国家卫生研究院提供政策简报，以承认科学教师作为公共健康倡导者的作用，并鼓励这些机构向科学教师提供支持这一角色的资源。这一快速奖项由学习研究部的DRK-12项目颁发。探索研究学前班计划(DRK-12)旨在通过研究和开发新的创新和方法，显著提高学前班学生和教师在科学、技术、工程和数学方面的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究以及为项目提供理论和经验证明的先前研究和开发工作的基础上。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

When a global health crisis emerges, students at all levels turn to their science teachers for information and, at times, reassurance, according to researchers at Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI). Science teachers serve a critically important public health function and become an important part of the nation’s response efforts. Since 2020, tens of thousands of science teachers in the United States have helped students grapple with the reality of SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19. This includes not only supporting the emergent scientific learning opportunities, but also functioning as public health educators and advocates in the midst of the global pandemic. HRI explored the early role of science teachers during the pandemic with a prior RAPID project, which demonstrated that science teachers were engaged in a wide variety of educational activities with students related to the pandemic and public health education. However, now nearly two years into the global pandemic, there are a number of new topics that have arisen to explore with respect to science education, including vaccines and long-term immunity that were not able to be assessed early in the pandemic. This study will further the field's understanding of the role that science teachers play in adapting their instruction during a public health crisis, how they address emergent ideas throughout the unfolding of the pandemic, and the impacts that the pandemic has had on science teachers themselves. The research will build on the prior RAPID award (2027397) and return to the sample of science teachers studied in that context. HRI will collect survey data to explore the following questions: (1) How does the pandemic continue to influence teachers’ science instruction (for example, instructional time, instructional strategies), and how has that influence shifted? (2) How has teaching about COVID evolved? What new topics (for example, vaccines) have they taken up in thecontext of COVID? (3) What factors now exert the greatest influence on science teachers’ teaching about COVID, and how do those differ from the factors at play in the spring of 2020? (4) What are the impacts of the pandemic on science teachers themselves, including manageability of workload, opportunities for professional growth/development, physical/mental wellness, and job satisfaction? Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, the survey will be constructed to identify factors that predict whether teachers take up the topic. The survey will also collect data about how teachers address the virus and its transmission with their students. HRI will disaggregate survey data by school-, class-, student-, and teacher-level variables to identify patterns in student opportunities. Survey data will be supplemented by interviews with 50 survey respondents to gather more in-depth information related to the constructs of interest. Study findings will be immediately shared through a preliminary report that focuses on the survey data; presentations and dissemination through practitioner and research organizations; and policy briefs to the CDC and NIH to acknowledge the role of science teachers as public health advocates and encouraging those agencies to make resources available to science teachers to support this role.This RAPID award is made by the DRK-12 program in the Division of Research on Learning. The Discovery Research PreK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers, through the research and development of new innovations and approaches. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for the projects.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.