ABSTRACT

Background: Previous studies have investigated effects of out-of-school STEM activities aimed at stimulating children’s interest in science with positive results. However, research has not discussed the reasons why such activities are successful.

Purpose: In this study, we address this gap by investigating which factors children themselves identified as interesting when they visited events at an out-of-school activity named The Children’s University.

Sample: Children aged 8–12 participated in the study. Altogether, there were 353 children involved in the data collection.

Design and methods: A mixed method design was used, including a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews in which children’s self-reported experiences were collected. Likert scale questions in the questionnaire were analysed based on descriptive statistics. The open-ended questions and data from the interviews were categorized by content analysis and analytically interpreted through ‘the Ecological framework for understanding learning across places and pursuits’.

Results: The children were positive about their visit, and these utterances could mainly be related to the development of the individuals’ interest and knowledge according to the Ecological framework. We identified two new factors influencing student’s interest in STEM in out-of-school activities: appreciating the spectacular and learning; verifying two factors of importance previously suggested in the literature: appreciating the content and the learning environment.

Conclusions: The study highlights the specific factors the children actually appreciated from their visits to out-of-school activities, which could be of interest for stakeholders arranging different kinds of STEM events promoting informal learning. The content in the activities is important as well as spectacular features. To have the opportunity to learn something new in an environment that is conducive to learning is also of importance for children.

摘要

背景：以前的研究已经调查了校外STEM活动的效果，这些活动旨在激发儿童对科学的兴趣并取得积极成果。但是，研究尚未讨论此类活动成功的原因。

目的：在这项研究中，我们通过调查儿童在一次名为“儿童大学”的校外活动中参观活动时发现哪些有趣的因素，来解决这一差距。

样本：8-12岁的儿童参加了这项研究。总共有353名儿童参与了数据收集。

设计和方法：采用混合方法设计，包括问卷调查和半结构化访谈，收集儿童的自我报告经验。基于描述性统计分析问卷中的李克特量表问题。访谈中的开放式问题和数据通过内容分析进行分类，并通过“了解跨地点学习的生态框架”进行分析解释。

结果：儿童对他们的来访持积极态度，这些话语可能主要与生态学框架下个人兴趣和知识的发展有关。我们发现了两个新的因素会影响学生在校外活动中对STEM的兴趣：欣赏壮观的事物和学习；验证先前文献中提出的两个重要因素：欣赏内容和学习环境。

结论：该研究突出了孩子们从访问校外活动中真正体会到的具体因素，利益相关者可能会感兴趣，他们安排了各种STEM活动来促进非正式学习。活动中的内容既重要，又具有壮观的功能。在有利于学习的环境中有机会学习新事物对儿童也很重要。