NSF Award
2325453
In order to successfully address the challenges facing the global community, STEM researchers must possess the ability to convey their work to policymakers, journalists, business leaders, the general public, and to other scientists. Yet communication training in graduate STEM education remains inadequate, particularly at public, non-flagship or minority-serving institutions. Though STEM students graduate with a high level of expertise in their field, they often lack the skills to share their work in an effective, clear, and culturally sensitive manner that a general audience can understand. This National Science Foundation Innovations of Graduate Education (IGE) award to UNC Charlotte will address this problem by creating and delivering an innovative STEM communication graduate training curriculum that will test the hypothesis that foundational training in cognitive science theories will improve students’ ability to communicate STEM, and will lead to the development of a cutting-edge STEM communication curriculum that will be made publicly available for other institutions’ implementation. Participants in the program and students of the resulting curriculum will become better collaborators, more confident in their communication abilities, more competitive on the job market, and better equipped to impact the general public with the significance of their work.<br/><br/>This project will recruit UNC Charlotte STEM graduate students, who will be randomized into one of two groups in order to test the effectiveness of providing versus not providing education in cognitive science theories in a STEM communication curriculum. Group one will participate in a foundational short course devoted to theories of human cognition relevant to communication (e.g., information processing, choice framing, decision-making, and cultural impacts on cognition), before launching into five sequentially-delivered STEM communication short courses. Group two will participate only in the five STEM communication short courses. These courses will be non-credit bearing and delivered in a hybrid format, and will address topics such as non-scholarly writing, speaking to lay audiences, and communicating with diverse teammates. Raters blind to group assignment will assess students’ mastery of learning outcomes based on individual course capstone projects. Students will also participate in experiential learning events with community members and industry professionals, which will allow them to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in a field setting and to engage the public in STEM topics. Attendees will be surveyed to assess students’ communication skills. The data provided by the blind raters and the event attendees will be used to answer our educational research question, which evaluates the hypothesis that students undergoing the foundational cognitive science training will demonstrate better STEM communication learning and skills than students not receiving cognitive science training. The project curriculum, implementation guide, and results will be shared publicly so that STEM educators and researchers, learning scientists, and the public can access the findings and implement the curriculum. The dissemination of this innovative approach to STEM communication graduate training will support transformative improvements in graduate STEM education.<br/><br/>The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.<br/><br/>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.
