Community Partners’ Perspectives on Their Work With High School Students in Authentic Research Experiences (Poster 44)

• In Event: Sunday Poster Session 11:25 am
  In Poster Session: Motivation and Learning Across Learning Environments

Abstract

This research provides community partner (CP) perspectives on a high school Authentic research experience (ARE). We analyzed CP surveys using open-response questions, supported by teachers planning documents and student interviews. Our findings show that while all CP provided challenges that link students' research to companies' authentic work, CP describing the most useful outcomes from the projects expressed more detailed descriptions of engagement during the research process. Tangible benefits for businesses and positive student interactions related to CP's focus on developing interactive and equitable relationships with students, consistent communication, and aligning students with companies’ backgrounds and key personnel. A potential tension for CP in high school ARE is balancing space for student thinking, creativity, and research design, and levels of scaffolding.

Authors

• Thomas Underwood, University at Albany - SUNY

• Katherine Espinosa, University at Albany - SUNY

• Dongni Guo, University at Albany - SUNY

• Jianwei Zhang, University at Albany - SUNY

• Ge Song, University at Albany - SUNY