The ChemAttitudes project has developed hands-on activities to increase public audiences’ feelings of interest in chemistry, their understanding and perception of its relevance, and their feelings of self-efficacy with respect to the subject. These activities were designed to be used in informal education settings by facilitators with a wide range of knowledge and expertise, such as informal science educators, chemists, and chemistry students. Previous research for this National Science Foundation-funded project explored the content areas and formats that appear to increase interest, relevance, and self-efficacy for chemistry when designing hands-on activities. A second phase of research has focused on the facilitation techniques employed by educators that also appear to lead to increases in these areas. To study this, visitor interactions with the activities at two science museums were videotaped and analyzed to understand the facilitator techniques used and how they may contribute to increased feelings of interest, relevance, and self-efficacy around chemistry. The presentation will discuss how both researchers and educators were involved in the analysis process to better understand the approaches that facilitators use to support these areas. This presentation will also highlight specific facilitation strategies that symposium attendees can consider integrating into their own work when supporting hands-on exploration of chemistry topics. Symposium attendees will walk away with a sense of how the ChemAttitudes project is using these findings to help develop training materials as well as make changes to the project’s theoretical framework, which hopes to inform the broader chemistry education field.<br/>

Facilitation techniques for hands-on activities that increase feelings of interest, relevance, and self-efficacy in chemistry

256th National Meeting (2018)

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