NSF Award
2418077
The Science Communication Education Research Network (SCERN) will bring together researchers studying how to improve undergraduate students’ science communication skills. Undergraduate science students are currently serving as science communicators within their communities about crucial science topics, but rarely receive training on how to communicate effectively. To advance science in society we need these future scientists, doctors, and science educators to become more effective communicators. Biology Education Researchers (BERs) have begun investigating how to empower undergraduate students in science classes with science communication skills. However, researchers are currently disconnected from one another, which may hinder this developing field’s ability to make meaningful and robust recommendations. To build a strong foundation for the important and nascent field of BER in science communication, this project will bring together researchers in BER who are beginning their research in science communication and connect them to each other and to seasoned communication scholars. This project will build a community of researchers across approximately 15 institutions, thus impacting the science communication training of thousands of students taught by SCERN members and many more through the research that results from a more cohesive, collaborative, and united science communication education field. By accelerating knowledge development on how to teach undergraduates science communication skills, this project has the potential to equip the next generation of scientists to collaborate with diverse people and groups to solve complex socio-scientific issues. <br/><br/>Through both virtual and in person meetings, SCERN will bring together BERs and science communication experts to share their research and create a more connected and cohesive field. The network activities will consist of virtual meetings and an in-person meeting. Virtual meetings will acquaint participants with one another, remind and clarify the purpose of the network, and begin to build shared community norms. Following these, participants will convene at an in-person meeting in which participants will present their research, identify common goals and barriers, and design collaborative studies to overcome barriers. Recorded discussions and open-ended responses from participants will be collated and crafted into a call-to-action essay for accelerating undergraduate science communication education research. To encourage continuity of the network, a virtual meeting will be held after the in person meeting to provide support to collaborative teams, gauge the progress of their research, and discuss barriers they are facing. To evaluate success of increasing connections, a survey will be given to participants both before SCERNs first meeting and after the last virtual meeting in which participants list the connections and strength of connections they hold with other colleagues in science communication education research. This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for STEM Education, Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange/finalreport/).<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.
