Earlier this year, we received a grant from the National Science Foundation to hold a conference dedicated to improving equity in informal science learning (ISL) research. The goal of the conference is to determine the components of a research infrastructure that can support the work of equity in research and development in informal STEM learning.

In preparation for this convening, we spoke with 21 individuals active in varied ISL contexts — including universities, nonprofits, funding agencies, informal learning institutions, and community groups. All had experience conducting or contributing to studies that brought together researchers, practitioners, and community organizations, and their roles frequently straddled both research and practice. Interviewees also shared a commitment to expanding equity, and highlighted ways their work sought to disrupt patterns of inequity within the ISL field.

The goal of our conversations was to gather input on how a new research infrastructure could support participants' work to promote greater equity in informal science learning. We asked about their experiences with research-practice partnerships and the various barriers to equity they’d confronted in their work. We also inquired about existing resources and practices that could be scaled up into a national research infrastructure, and sought insights into how new tools and technologies might enable a broader coalition of researchers, practitioners, and community members to strengthen equity in ISL.

What Did We Find?

Several themes emerged from our discussions. Many participants spoke about the barriers they encounter in their work — in connection with both equitable ISL research and equity in ISL more broadly. Participants also talked about current strategies for connecting with others across the ISL landscape, about effective practices for bringing researchers, practitioners, and community organizations together, about specific tools that help them do this, and about the need to create new tools for connecting, collaborating, sharing information, and learning. They also put forward questions they’d like to discuss at the RIISE conference and spoke about different ways in which a new ISL research infrastructure could strengthen equity in ISL. This blog post highlights what we learned in connection with each of these topics.

Barriers to Equity

When discussing barriers to equity, many interviewees drew attention to broad historical patterns of exclusion in STEM. They pointed out how the culture of STEM has not always created a welcoming, inclusive, and accessible environment for all, and noted that STEM researchers have not always prioritized authentic partnership-building or projects that equally benefit all participants. Their comments on this topic underscore the need to examine the extent to which the current context of ISL research is contributing to inequities in STEM.

Along with these general societal barriers, interviewees also described a number of barriers more directly related to their work. These included resource and capacity constraints, relationship-building challenges, and weaknesses in the existing ISL research infrastructure. Below we highlight the key difficulties participants identified in connection with each of these topics.

Resource and Capacity Constraints

• Insufficient time for building relationships;
• Insufficient staffing (which makes it difficult to allocate personnel to grant writing);
• Imposter syndrome (specifically, the belief that organizations lack the qualifications to successfully compete for research dollars); and
• Socioeconomic disparities that make it difficult for individuals in under-resourced communities to participate in research, and for youth to pursue STEM-related careers.

Relationship-Building Challenges

• Identifying other individuals or organizations to work with;
• Presenting and summarizing work in a way that makes sense to people in different organizational contexts;
• Lacking a clear roadmap for reaching out beyond existing networks; and
• Building trust among researchers, practitioners, and community organizations, especially in cases where this has been lacking in the past.

Weaknesses in Research Infrastructure

• Need for more support in connecting and building rapport with new partners;
• Lack of resources for helping researchers, practitioners, and community organizations understand each other’s work — along with their interests, needs, and goals; and
• Difficulties accessing findings from existing research that are specific to the needs of practitioners and community organizations.

Strategies for Connecting

Interviewees identified existing effective practices for helping researchers, practitioners, and community organizations connect with each other. Yet while these practices are being applied in a number of specific contexts, they are not widespread, and may not be generally scalable across the entire ISL field. One of RIISE’s key objectives is to figure out how to build upon these practices by developing an infrastructure that supports others in making connections and forging relationships that support research on equity and ISL. Some examples are included below.

Professional Gatherings

• Community organizations inviting researchers to professional gatherings so their work can be better informed by the perspectives and lived experiences of those they’re studying;
• Funders hosting “speed dating” sessions that help researchers and community organizations determine whether they’re a “good fit” for each other;
• Informal learning organizations holding monthly meetings at which guest researchers are invited to give presentations to practitioners interested in making use of their work; and
• Informal learning organizations creating STEM hubs that bring researchers and practitioners together to collaborate and identify gaps in existing research and programs.

Community Engagement

• Community organizations convening “town hall” meetings in which members of the public have an opportunity to openly discuss the most pressing issues they’re confronting;
• Community organizations inviting researchers to give public presentations in which they discuss their work and how they overcame barriers to participation in the STEM workforce;
• Informal learning organizations creating and distributing newsletters to make existing research “digestible for the general public”; and
• Researchers reaching out to parents, teachers, and local leaders to build on-the-ground, community-based relationships.

Targeted Outreach

• Product developers conducting targeted email marketing to select researchers and practitioners;
• Funders putting out RFPs that allow them to build connections with researchers, practitioners, and community organizations working on topics of shared interest; and
• Researchers and community organizations engaging with local leaders (including elected officials) to identify prospective partners and determine strategies for adapting existing studies or programs to specific contexts.

Existing Tools

In addition to discussing practices that help them make cross-sector connections, interviewees also shared information about particular tools that help them build and sustain relationships with partners. These tools hold great potential for advancing equity in ISL, though it is at present unclear as to how universally they can be adopted across the field. As is the case with regard to strategies for connecting, one of RIISE’s central aims is to determine the scalability of these tools, which are described below.

Communication Tools

• Informal learning organizations creating closed social networks as a space where practitioners pose questions to their colleagues, reflect on their experiences, and share relevant resources;
• Informal learning organizations using virtual platforms to build online communities of practice with researchers, practitioners, and community members; and
• Informal learning organizations sending out surveys to obtain feedback on information shared through listservs.

Capacity-Building Tools

• Researchers creating resources that help others increase the reach and relevance of research to the widest variety of communities; and
• Researchers building “starter kits” to help non-researchers structure their ideas with frameworks that help them overcome steep initial learning curves.

Research Tools

• Researchers creating online scrapbooks that allow users to upload photos, stories, and other kinds of resources;
• Researchers creating online portals that pull together public data from multiple sources, and which users can download and analyze with customizable tools; and
• Informal learning organizations using virtual platforms to crowdsource ideas and insights, and to build online communities of practice with researchers, practitioners, and community members.

Existing Practices for Promoting Equity

Interviewees discussed a number of practices for working with partners to promote equity. While effective, the extent to which these are broadly applicable is unclear. One of RIISE’s key priorities is to determine how a new ISL research infrastructure could help scale these practices in ways that help others within the field collaborate to advance their shared equity aims. Examples of some of these practices are listed below.

Translational Work

• Making existing research accessible to lay audiences through newsletters and other communication channels;
• “Knowledge mobilization” (for example, presenting synthesized research findings to practitioners in ways that help them develop new programs and exhibits); and
• Building resource libraries that contain tailor-made research descriptions highlighting specific implications for practitioners.

Community Mapping

Using mapping and tracking techniques to:

• Identify potential research partners;
• Discover new audiences and new programming directions;
• Create “affinity groups” among community members who have shared interests or whose work intersects in ways previously unknown; and
• Identify resources that community members can make use of to address issues of local importance.

Questions

During our conversations, interviewees raised a number of pressing, unanswered questions about their equity-related work. These questions point to unmet needs across the ISL field, and will thus serve as useful discussion prompts at the RIISE conference. Key issues raised by the interviewees are listed below.

Connecting and Collaborating

• How to determine if a potential partner has the right expertise;
• How to pitch something to another organization;
• How to determine if a particular organization or community would be interested in participating in a research study or program;
• How to identify new potential audiences and effectively engage them;
• How to identify practitioner needs and interests in ways that make sense to researchers (and vice versa);
• How to identify community organizations addressing issues of interest to researchers;
• How to build partnerships that don’t start and end with a single funded project; and
• How to present information in ways that on-the-ground practitioners can understand.

Building Trust

• How to build trusting relationships with communities that are often excluded;
• How to avoid having a “transactional mindset” when doing research with community organizations; and
• How to protect communities from entering into potentially “predatory” relationships with researchers.

Using the Research Infrastructure

• How people will be made aware of the research infrastructure, and how use of it will be incentivized;
• How individuals will articulate their interests, and signal whether they’re more interested in conducting research or making use of existing research;
• How the research infrastructure can change the mindset of on-the-ground practitioners so that research is a daily activity; and
• How the research infrastructure will “build up more opportunities” for users by helping them connect with people outside of their own settings who have the right expertise.

Creating New Tools

Many interviewees voiced a need for new tools. Their comments here serve as an inspiration for how a new research infrastructure might go beyond existing technologies to enable continued progress toward the ISL field’s equity goals. The following bullets list the kinds of tools interviewees were interested in exploring during the convening.

Relationship-Building Tools

• Tools that help organizations articulate their interests and needs in ways that make sense to potential partners outside their own settings;
• Tools for helping partners assess and/or deepen their relationships;
• Tools for helping organizations decide if a given partnership would meet their needs; and
• Tools to facilitate the at-times difficult conversations required to build trust among partners — and that help prospective partners move past the uncomfortable feelings that might otherwise inhibit collaborations.

Capacity-Building Tools

• Tools that help practitioners overcome the “imposter syndrome” that sometimes prevents them from launching or contributing to research initiatives;
• Tools that help organizations discover new funding opportunities and build their internal research capacities; and
• Tools that help historically and persistently excluded groups safely voice their opinions to those more powerful than they are.

Research Tools

• Tools that make it easier for practitioners to quickly identify and understand the existing research on a topic (e.g., a “super smart search engine” that makes it possible to conduct targeted searches of resource libraries and obtain materials that speak exactly to users’ needs).

The Benefits of Creating a New Research Infrastructure

Throughout our conversations, participants identified a need for tools and technologies that can better support organizations on their journey toward ISL equity. Much of the existing research infrastructure in ISL, they observed, is ad hoc. While useful, it has not been designed to coordinate activities among researchers, practitioners, and community organizations.

Building an infrastructure with this intent in mind, they agreed, would have numerous benefits — both for the field and more broadly. But in order to increase equity, they cautioned, the tools and technologies that are part of this infrastructure need to actively bring people together to build community. If successful in accomplishing this goal, they agreed, research infrastructure can strengthen research-practice partnerships, ensure that these partnerships speak to everyone’s highest priorities, and open the door to research with deeper, more lasting impacts — helping organizations leave behind a legacy that benefits ISL for generations to come.

Let’s Put it to Work!

Findings from our conversations will inform the agenda for a conference we’re hosting in late October. The above themes are also informing the development of a questionnaire which we’re planning to distribute in September to gather more input from the multiple fields that support ISL.

About this Article

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation's ECR-EDU Core Research program (award number 2335009). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Photo by Alina Grubnyak @ Unsplash