The effects of a university/secondary school partnership on the communication skills of STEM graduate students

ABSTRACT

A postsecondary institution partnered with several high schools in a large, urban and highly diverse school district in the southeast U.S. through a GK-12 program funded by the National Science Foundation. The main goal of the project was to investigate the potential impact of the GK-12 program on the ability of graduate students to communicate their scientific research and expertise to a non-technical audience comprised of high school chemistry, biotechnology, and environmental science students and teachers. The graduate student presentations about their research were videotaped before, during, and after their participation in the program. Applying a standardized communications rubric, analysis of the video presentations indicated significant improvement in the graduate students’ communication skills during their participation in the program. In addition, graduate student perception of their improvement in communication skills was demonstrated through a qualitative survey. Implications for the training of graduate students in communication skills are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• GK-12
• scientific communication
• graduate students
• classroom discourse

Acknowledgements

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DGE-0638662. All authors contributed equally to this publication. The authors also thank Dr. Rick Tankersley, the NSF GK-12 fellows, teachers and students for their participation in the program, as well as our external evaluators and statisticians.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Jerome E. Haky http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0389-1892

Deborah W. Louda http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4423-7969

Ashley B. C. Goode http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6515-3954

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DGE-0638662; . Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.