Methodologies of Community: Connecting and Responding to Community Science Interests (Poster 4)

• In Event: Reengaging (With) Care in Equity-Based STEM Research

Abstract

Objectives: Informal science education has long been described as a complement to school-based science education (Bell et al., 2009). This impact is even more important when informal science education serves learners whose financial circumstances limit their access to high quality informal science education programs. The study described in this poster was conducted within a program of over 20 out-of-school science clubs provided by the STEM Academy, a charitable organization serving children and youth living in low-income neighborhoods across a major city in East-Central Canada. As part of a university-community partnership, a model STEM Academy science club was established to explore ways of enhancing community-responsiveness. The study focused on supporting the STEM Academy to eventually develop an ongoing research practice in the absence of university influence.
Framework: We drew from the principles of community-based research when designing our model club. The central feature of community-based research is the involvement of community members in every stage of the study (Biscoff and Jany, 2018; Israel et al., 1998; Minkler, 2005). Moll (2019) described communities as having funds of knowledge where the researcher is called to recognize, value, and respond to knowledges and practices existing and utilized within the community. In this way, the researcher and community build a project collectively and collaboratively from the community’s vantage point.
Methods and Data Sources: The first phase of the study involved gathering information about the strengths of the existing STEM Academy program as well as the science needs, wants and preferences of a new community (we were not aware of any pre-existing free science clubs in the area). This was done through formal methods (e.g., surveys, focus groups and interviews with existing STEM Academy science club attendees and staffers) and through informal conversations with community members (including leaders of community clubs, after-school programs, and summer camps, children attending these programs, and teachers in local schools). During the second phase of the study we used the Phase 1 feedback to support the STEM Academy in establishing a model club space and gathering community feedback on the efficacy of the club in meeting their desires (through interviews and focus groups with children attending the club, interviews with STEM Academy staffers, teachers whose students attended the club, and the principal of the school hosting the club, informal conversations with parents, and researcher field notes recorded after each club session).
Results: The poster will detail findings that fell into 4 categories:
i. Redefining the role of club leaders
ii. Building on children’s pre-existing interests
iii. Centring the informal nature of club science education
iv. Gauging the parameters of community involvement
Significance: This poster describes a methodology and method that can be adopted by informal education leaders who are interested in establishing or developing a community-responsive focus for out-of-school club programming. In addition, it provides a potential model for university-community partnership that decentres the focus on the forms of data capture traditionally seen in academic publications, and instead places the researcher in a role of service to the community.

Authors

• Lydia E. Carol-Ann Burke, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author

• Kristen Schaffer, Mount Royal University
  Presenting Author