Dundee Science Centre Science Learning Institute. Create and Inspire. January March 2012 Evaluation Report

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1 Dundee Science Centre Science Learning Institute Create and Inspire Three month science communication and public engagement professional development experience for research scientists January March 2012 Evaluation Report

2 Contents Executive summary 3 Introduction 4 Project timeline 5 Evaluation and impact 6 Create and Inspire training day 6 Science in the City event 7 Evaluation session 7 Acknowledgements 8 2

3 Executive summary Dundee Science Centre has a vision to create a culture of curiosity, confidence and engagement with science for the Tayside community, aiming to engage the community with local research and promote Dundee as a city of science and scientific discovery. The Create and Inspire project represents a key objective of the Dundee Science Centre Science Learning Institute, supporting the vision, missions and values of the science centre. During January to March 2012, thirteen researchers from local universities were provided with this opportunity for professional development in science communication and public engagement. Furthermore, local schools had the opportunity to engage with current, topical science, which supports the ethos of Curriculum for Excellence. Evaluation of the project highlights the success of the Create and Inspire format, with delegates developing their confidence and skills in public engagement through an active learning experience. Another significant outcome of the project was the increase in excitement about science communication, with delegates inspired to continue with public engagement throughout their research careers. Pupils really benefit from meeting experts in their field reflecting on real life projects and investigations. It leads them to see connections in their learning, and how exciting academic life can be! Teacher The project has been really useful in giving me some experience with developing my own activity and managing it over several days. It has also given me insight into how science museums run and what working in this field would entail. Delegate 3

4 Introduction The Create and Inspire project represents a key objective of the Dundee Science Centre Science Learning Institute, supporting the vision, missions and values of Dundee Science Centre. Dundee Science Centre s vision: A culture of curiosity, confidence and engagement with science for the Tayside community. Dundee Science Centre s mission is to be a community resource, which: - provides a high quality, inspiring social venue for learning for the whole community - contributes to the development of a culture of engagement with science, and promotes science as an aspect of local culture - engages the wider community with Dundee s science research community, raising local pride in local discovery - raises the profile of Dundee as a city of science and scientific discovery - supports the formal 3-18 Curriculum - is an efficient, responsible and trusted organisation Our values: - we aim to inspire learners, and we act as learners ourselves, in everything we do - we aim to inspire excitement about science and learning, and we are excited about our work - we act ethically and as responsible citizens - we are proud of Dundee and our region s discoveries - we aim to be a trusted resource for the community Create and Inspire is a three-month immersive project specifically designed for research scientists, to help build confidence, skills and inspiration to share their research with the public. Dundee Science Centre supports them through a structured and supportive experience, helping researchers to meet their public engagement aims. During the initial training day, researchers are immersed in the science centre, discovering Dundee Science Centre s ideas, methods and philosophy for effective science communication. After this training event, delegates are supported to develop and deliver effective public engagement activities which showcase their scientific research at a meet-the-scientist event, Science in the City, held at Dundee Science Centre. The project provides continuing professional development for local researchers in all aspects of science from our local universities and research institutes. Additionally, it supports the ethos of Curriculum for Excellence, engaging school audiences with current, topical science. Thirteen researchers took part in Create and Inspire during January to March Researchers were from the University of Dundee, University of Abertay Dundee and University of St Andrews, from a range of science and social science subjects. 4

5 Project timeline Create and Inspire is a three-month experience, designed to be carried out alongside delegates research; below is a timeline detailing the project s format: 17 th January 2012 Science communication training day January - February 1 st March 2012 Public engagement practice session with Dundee Science Centre s Science Learning Team Delegates develop activities for public engagement days, with support from Dundee Science Centre 2 nd -15 th March Delegates make final alterations to plans and activities 16 th - 18 th March 2012 Science in the City meet-the-scientist event for schools and public 21 st March 2012 Evaluation session 5

6 Evaluation and impact A learning experience should be evaluated according to its impact on learners, especially regarding impact on understanding, skills, attitudes and practice. Create and Inspire training day The science communication training day at the start of the project was aimed at equipping delegates with the knowledge and skills to start to develop their public engagement activities, and at building their confidence and inspiration for science communication and public engagement. The day was split into six sessions: Introduction and Ice-breakers; Exhibit/Demonstration Engagement; Introduction to Café Science; Questioning Techniques; Understanding your Learner; and Facilitating Discussions. To assess the impact of each session, Likert scale questions assessed the enjoyment, usefulness and inspiration felt by delegates in each session. Delegates were asked to indicate on a scale of 1 to 8 how they felt about each element of the course, where 1 was unpleasant, not useful or demotivating, and 8 was enjoyable, really useful or inspirational, respectively. Feedback shows that level of enjoyment was high in all sessions (average session score ranged from 6.5 to 7.3), while usefulness also scored highly (with mean average responses across the six sessions ranging from 6.2 to 7.3), especially in sessions which provided new techniques and a hands-on experience. Levels of inspiration in each section also scored highly (mean average responses ranging from 6.5 to 7.1); especially for sessions that included a specific set of techniques they could use in their future engagement activities. I ve been on other science communication courses but this one covered more exhibit-demonstrations side which was a nice change! Delegate Delegates were asked open-text questions about their day, with comments supporting the feedback they provided through scoring. Delegates commented that the most useful aspect of the training day was the engagement techniques that were shared comments included [useful for] unpacking a topic and provided an excellent framework for a variety of situations. Most delegates felt all parts were useful, with just two delegates mentioning the Facilitating Discussions session was something they were unlikely to use at this time, although it was something they may use in the future. Many delegates did use activities from this session in their final activities. This course changed my perception of what communication is. Delegate Given good ideas for what sort of exhibit to design, and how to run a good demonstration - the message I got was something short, revealing and hands-on! Delegate All delegates said they would recommend this course to colleagues, five also commenting absolutely!, unreservedly and definitely!. Science in the City event 6

7 On the first day of the Science in the City event, delegates engaged 133 primary school pupils (P3-7) from schools in Dundee, Fife and Angus. Teachers from each of the six schools were asked to fill in a short evaluation form to assess the impact on children s learning and impressions of science. All responses indicated that pupils enjoyed speaking to the scientists, with all rating the scientists communication skills as excellent. When asked whether the event would enhance the way teachers engage with Curriculum for Excellence, four said yes and two said in part. [This event benefitted pupils by] improving communication, asking searching questions and encouraging their thinking skills. Teacher Lots of cross-curricular skills engaged! Teacher This event was delivered as part of the Fife Science Festival programme, and as such teachers completed evaluation forms as part of the festival. Teachers were also asked to score on a Likert type scale of 1 to 5 (1 being Strongly agree to 5 being Strongly disagree ). Feedback from teachers was very positive, with enjoyment and the feeling of having learned something new being the highest scoring outcomes (average 1.14 and 1.0, respectively). The feeling of science being more relevant to their lives or that science is more interesting having visited the event also scored highly (with both It really made science much more accessible. Concepts such as DNA, X- rays etc, were made much easier to understand. Teacher achieving a mean average of 1.42). Open-text feedback was just as encouraging, with comments including Fabulous stands- thought it was all ten out of ten!, [I enjoyed the] freedom to speak to scientists and [the best thing was] the interactive nature of the scientists displays. Evaluation Session The project ended with a final evaluation session, providing delegates with time to reflect on their experience together, and provide feedback to Dundee Science Centre about the project as a whole. Delegates were asked to score on a Likert scale question how they felt about the overall experience of create and inspire. This question assessed overall enjoyment, level of challenge and inspiration for the whole project (from 1 being unpleasant, not useful or demotivating, to 8 being enjoyable, really useful or inspirational, respectively). Average mean scores for levels of enjoyment, challenge and inspiration were 7.0, 4.6 and 5.8, respectively. The score of 4.6 for level of challenge is appropriate for the purpose and aims of this course, which included providing delegates with a challenging project that stimulated their learning, while not being so challenging as to demotivate participants. Throughout the project, delegates were asked to fill in a mini-questionnaire to gauge their confidence in developing their own engagement activities. Delegates indicated whether they felt confident in creating and delivering an effective piece of public engagement activity, and scored this out of six (1 being lowest and 6 being highest level of confidence). Results from this short questionnaire highlight the impact of the project on increasing researchers confidence with developing public engagement activities. At the beginning of the three month period, the majority of delegates felt they could not develop an activity on their own from scratch, whereas by 7

8 the end of the project all eleven delegates felt they could do so. At the start of the project, the majority of delegates felt they could create an activity if offered advice, materials and/or able to work with others; however, their confidence in these areas developed further through taking part in the project - delegates confidence to create an activity if they were offered advice was found to increase from an average score of 3.5 to 5.3. Similarly, their confidence to develop an activity if provided with instructions and materials increased from 4.2 to 5.6, and confidence to develop an activity if working with others increased from 4.3 to 5.6. At the evaluation session, delegates were also asked a range of open-text questions about the project as a whole. When asked what was their favourite aspect of the course, the most common response was connected to the Science in the City days, specifically citing experiences including engaging new audiences with their work, sparking new ideas, telling someone a new fact, and provoking thoughts and discussions. [My favourite part was]... When you told someone something they didn t know. When visitors said Ooh, I didn t know that! Delegates The majority of delegates felt they learned about the importance of good science communication, with key messages being to keep it simple, let the public decide where they want to go on the topic, to be willing to adapt to the needs of the audience and of course, to have fun!. Five of the eleven responders also felt they had learned to be more adaptable and how to engage audiences of different ages and levels of understanding. Create and Inspire is designed as a continuing professional development input, therefore, evaluation of the perception of their own personal development is extremely valuable and important. When asked to comment on one key area of this, six delegates commented on their increased confidence with public engagement, not just in the delivery but also the planning stages. Ten out of the eleven said they would definitely do more public engagement activities, with two already signing up to become STEM Ambassadors as part of the UK-wide STEMNET programme, and three enquiring about delivering a Cafe Science talk. Other delegates mentioned adding public engagement to their future funding applications, being more willing to do press conferences, sharing their experience with colleagues and taking part in Dundee Science Festival events. Acknowledgements Thank you to all participants from the University of Dundee, University of Abertay Dundee and University of St Andrews. Special thanks to support from Revealing Research at the University of Dundee and kind funding from Open North East. Reports on other Dundee Science Centre initiatives are also available on request and online: 8

9 - Science Learning Institute Fife Science Festival Dundee Science Festival Germ Wars Fife Science Festival Dundee Science Centre annual report Dundee Science Festival Dundee Science Centre HMIE report Dundee Science Centre annual report Dundee Science Centre annual report Dundee Science Centre annual report Dundee Science Centre HMIE report Dundee Science Centre annual report