Lakin Joni M, Ewald Mary Lou, Hardy Emily E, Cobine Paul A, Marino Janie G, Landers Allen L, Davis Virginia A
Department of Educational Studies, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 USA.
Office of Outreach, College of Sciences and Mathematics, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849 USA.
J Sci Educ Technol. 2021;30(5):658-677. doi: 10.1007/s10956-021-09910-7. Epub 2021 Mar 12.
Science and Engineering (S&E) fairs are a valuable educational activity and are believed to increase students' engagement and learning in science and engineering. However, due to differences in resources, many schools do not implement fairs to achieve these benefits for their students. This study reports the findings of a program intended to increase the participation of students from low-achieving and under-resourced schools in a regional fair program that feeds into the international fair competition. We found that the number of schools and projects participating in our regional fair increased dramatically since the start of the program. Teachers had mostly positive expectations for the project and expressed buy-in for the effort the project would take. They recruited a diverse pool of students to participate in the school fairs. Quasi-experimental methods allowed us to explore the impact of completing S&E fairs on student gains on science self-efficacy, interest and value perceptions. Controlling for pre-existing differences in these attitudes, we found that students not completing projects showed declines in their science attitudes during the year. Students who completed projects maintained similar attitudes, while those whose projects advanced to the regional fair had substantial gains on all three variables. It is unknown whether this gain can be attributed to the experience of engaging with a quality project, from being the kind of student who completes a quality project, or some other factor. Future research with greater experimental control could address these questions.
科学与工程（S&E）展会是一项很有价值的教育活动，人们认为它能提高学生对科学与工程的参与度和学习效果。然而，由于资源差异，许多学校并未开展此类展会，以使学生从中受益。本研究报告了一项计划的结果，该计划旨在提高成绩较差且资源不足学校的学生参与一个地区性展会项目的比例，该项目最终会进入国际展会竞赛。我们发现，自该计划启动以来，参与我们地区展会的学校和项目数量大幅增加。教师对该项目大多抱有积极期望，并表示支持项目所需付出的努力。他们招募了各种各样的学生参与校内展会。准实验方法使我们能够探究完成科学与工程展会对学生在科学自我效能感、兴趣和价值认知方面的收获所产生的影响。在控制这些态度方面已有的差异后，我们发现未完成项目的学生在这一年里科学态度有所下降。完成项目的学生保持了相似的态度，而那些项目进入地区展会的学生在所有这三个变量上都有显著提升。目前尚不清楚这种提升是归因于参与高质量项目的经历、成为完成高质量项目的那种学生，还是其他因素。未来进行更严格实验控制的研究可以解决这些问题。
