EXP: Collaborative Research: Empowering Learners to Conduct Experiments

EXP：协作研究：授权学习者进行实验

基本信息

批准号：
1736056
负责人：
Steven Sutherland
金额：
$ 7万
依托单位：
University of Houston - Clear Lake
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2017-09-01 至 2022-10-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1736056&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
EXP Collaborative Research Empowering Learners

项目摘要

This project seeks to transform current practices in the teaching of scientific research methods by shifting the fundamental dynamics and focusing in a scientific domain that is relatable to a broad audience: designing and conducting social and behavioral science experiments. Scientific inquiry is key to making societal progress and improving our understanding of the world. Social and behavioral science programs are largely designed to prepare future researchers, but have a minimum expectation that students become critical consumers of research. Understanding the scientific method and the experimental methods used by researchers is necessary for establishing an ability to effectively assess the research that students will encounter in both the media and scientific outlets. Student understanding of scientific inquiry is significantly enhanced when anchored in inquiry experiences; however, opportunities for scientific research experiences are limited, even in research methods courses, due to the challenges of teaching experimental design and problems regarding access to and recruitment of participants. Without these experiences, students in higher education struggle to fully understand scientific inquiry. To address common barriers to learning how to conduct research, this project is designing a flexible, computer-based platform to be collaborative, narrative-based, engaging, and inspired by constructionist theories to facilitate learning with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) support. The platform developed in this project will serve as a model of a new genre of constructionist research environments, that enable learners to leverage technologies to create, modify, and replicate experiments, recruit participants, and analyze their results to learn about the world. The design-based research approach will operate in two cycles; in each cycle, a revised module and set of tools will be deployed. This results in two major research contributions: (1) Using mixed-methods, the theoretical and educational contribution is to study the process by which students in higher education learn to conduct experimental research, and about the roles of AI assistance, collaboration, narrative, and activities motivated by curiosity, exploration, and reflection. (2) The technological contribution is an innovative, AI-assisted set of scenario creation tools that empower learners to create experiments and that allow us to understand how an intelligent, collaborative, engaging, narrative-based platform can support students in higher education in designing and conducting social and behavioral science experiments. With this system, it will be easier to create, run, replicate, and build upon studies and to reach out to a broader audience than the pool of university students used in typical in-person laboratory experiments. As a result, the platform will make it possible to transform social science research practices and even has the potential to foster new scientific discoveries.

该项目旨在通过改变基本动力并专注于与广大受众相关的科学领域：设计和进行社会和行为科学实验，来改变科学研究方法教学的当前实践。科学探究是社会进步和增进我们对世界了解的关键。社会和行为科学项目主要是为了培养未来的研究人员而设计的，但至少期望学生成为研究的关键消费者。了解科学方法和研究人员使用的实验方法对于建立有效评估学生在媒体和科学渠道中遇到的研究的能力是必要的。当学生以探究经验为基础时，对科学探究的理解会显着增强；然而，由于实验设计教学的挑战以及参与者获取和招募方面的问题，即使在研究方法课程中，获得科学研究经验的机会也很有限。如果没有这些经验，高等教育学生就很难充分理解科学探究。为了解决学习如何进行研究的常见障碍，该项目正在设计一个灵活的、基于计算机的平台，该平台具有协作性、基于叙事、引人入胜，并受到建构主义理论的启发，通过使用人工智能 (AI) 支持来促进学习。该项目开发的平台将作为新型建构主义研究环境的模型，使学习者能够利用技术来创建、修改和复制实验，招募参与者并分析他们的结果以了解世界。基于设计的研究方法将分两个周期进行；在每个周期中，将部署修订后的模块和工具集。这产生了两项主要的研究贡献：（1）使用混合方法，理论和教育贡献是研究高等教育学生学习进行实验研究的过程，以及人工智能辅助、协作、叙事、以及由好奇心、探索和反思激发的活动。 (2) 技术贡献是一套创新的、人工智能辅助的场景创建工具，使学习者能够创建实验，并让我们了解智能、协作、引人入胜、基于叙述的平台如何支持高等教育学生进行设计并进行社会和行为科学实验。有了这个系统，与典型的现场实验室实验中使用的大学生群体相比，它将更容易创建、运行、复制和建立研究成果，并接触到更广泛的受众。因此，该平台将有可能改变社会科学研究实践，甚至有可能促进新的科学发现。