Hundreds of studies have explored student evolution acceptance because evolution is a core concept of biology that many undergraduate biology students struggle to accept. However, this construct of “evolution acceptance” has been defined and measured in various ways, which has led to inconsistencies across studies and difficulties in comparing results from different studies. Many studies and essays have offered evaluations and perspectives of evolution acceptance instruments, but publications with a focus on consensus building across research teams is still needed. Further, little attention has been paid to how evolution acceptance instruments may be interpreted differently by students with varied religious backgrounds. Funded by a Research Coordination Network in Undergraduate Biology Education grant from the National Science Foundation, we gathered 16 experts from different disciplinary and religious backgrounds to review current evolution acceptance instruments and create a guide to the strengths and weaknesses of these instruments, including appropriate contexts for using these instruments and their potential weaknesses with different religious populations. Finally, in an attempt to move the field forward, we articulated a consensus definition of evolution acceptance that can be used to guide future instrument development.
Neutron Instruments for Research in Coordination Chemistry: Neutron Instruments for Research in Coordination Chemistry
- Award ID(s):
- 1633870
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10099994
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry
- Volume:
- 2019
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 1434-1948
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1065 to 1089
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract -
Scientific instruments have long been a vital part of science, paving pathways to remarkable scientific advancements. Such advancements have changed the world both socially and culturally, especially in the past few decades. Students can be introduced to this idea through the concepts of nature of science (NOS): scientific observations are often filtered through apparatus, inferences can be made through observations, and science is a socially and culturally embedded practice. The curriculum often fails to emphasize the role of instruments in scientific practices, even in teaching laboratories. This study uses semistructured interviews to investigate the cognitive (thoughts) and affective (feelings) domains of first-year university students as they relate to scientific instrumentation, including students’ ideas of instruments. First, the study probed how general chemistry students conceptualize scientific instruments in relation to the three NOS notions. Second, students’ practices related to experimental data evaluation were investigated as data collection is a large part of psychomotor learning in laboratory. Third, students’ affective states toward learning about instruments were queried. The interview results suggested that a majority of participants acknowledge some ideas of NOS, while a few students displayed an advanced understanding when discussing scientific instruments and also tended to have higher interest and motivation toward learning about instruments.more » « less
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National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Engineering Research Centers (ERC) must complement their technical research with various education and outreach opportunities to: 1) improve and promote engineering education, both within the center and to the local community; 2) encourage and include the underrepresented populations to participate in Engineering activities; and 3) advocate communication and collaboration between industry and academia. ERCs ought to perform an adequate evaluation of their educational and outreach programs to ensure that beneficial goals are met. Each ERC has complete autonomy in conducting and reporting such evaluation. Evaluation tools used by individual ERCs are quite similar, but each ERC has designed their evaluation processes in isolation, including evaluation tools such as survey instruments, interview protocols, focus group protocols, and/or observation protocols. These isolated efforts resulted in redundant resources spent and lacking outcome comparability across ERCs. Leaders from three different ERCs led and initiated a collaborative effort to address the above issue by building a suite of common evaluation instruments that all current and future ERCs can use. This leading group consists of education directors and external evaluators from all three partners ERCs and engineering education researchers, who have worked together for two years. The project intends to address the four ERC program clusters: Broadening Participation in Engineering, Centers and Networks, Engineering Education, and Engineering Workforce Development. The instruments developed will pay attention to culture of inclusion, outreach activities, mentoring experience, and sustained interest in engineering. The project will deliver best practices in education program evaluation, which will not only support existing ERCs, but will also serve as immediate tools for brand new ERCs and similar large-scale research centers. Expanding the research beyond TEEC and sharing the developed instruments with NSF as well as other ERCs will also promote and encourage continual cross-ERC collaboration and research. Further, the joint evaluation will increase the evaluation consistency across all ERC education programs. Embedded instrumental feedback loops will lead to continual improvement to ERC education performance and support the growth of an inclusive and innovative engineering workforce. Four major deliveries are planned. First, develop a common quantitative assessment instrument, named Multi-ERC Instrument Inventory (MERCII). Second, develop a set of qualitative instruments to complement MERCII. Third, create a web-based evaluation platform for MERCII. Fourth, update the NSF ERC education program evaluation best practice manual. These deliveries together will become part of and supplemented by an ERC evaluator toolbox. This project strives to significantly impact how ERCs evaluate their educational and outreach programs. Single ERC based studies lack the sample size to truly test the validity of any evaluation instruments or measures. A common suite of instruments across ERCs would provide an opportunity for a large scale assessment study. The online platform will further provide an easy-to-use tool for all ERCs to facilitate evaluation, share data, and reporting impacts.more » « less
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This Innovative Practice Work in Progress paper presents the collaborative efforts made by three NSF-funded Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) to synthesize common tools for educational program evaluation. The aim of the NSF ERCs is to achieve transformative changes by integrating engineering research and education with technological innovation within areas at the frontiers of science and engineering (e.g., NSF's 10 Big Ideas). Such centers across the nation study and innovate within their technical area using similar structures and implementation strategies, including the coordination of educational endeavors. Independent partners are enlisted as part of these centers to evaluate education and diversity impacts annually. Each center typically performs this task in isolation from other such centers. The effort required to create resources for such evaluation outcome can result in redundancy and an inability for psychometric analysis due to small available populations within a single center. This paper elaborates on the ongoing efforts of this collaborative research aimed at addressing these issues by creating a streamlined, customizable, and standardized set of evaluation instruments that can be applied to any ERC evaluation.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1002/ejic.201801076
