Perspectives on informal programs: How site visits can help us learn more

Abstract

We are continuing a nationwide effort to develop a systemic understanding of the landscape of informal physics using an organizational theory perspective. We have collected surveys and interviews with informal physics program facilitators, but this information is only from the perspective of the faculty or physics student leaders and does not tell us about the social dynamics within each program. Thus, to complement these data, we need to observe informal physics events as they occur. In this paper, we will discuss our strategy for visits to program sites to observe social interactions between program participants as well as programmatic details in action. We report on an initial site visit to a physics open house event, where we took field-notes and conducted interviews with participating personnel members. Here, we compare the types of data we are able to collect from site visits and interviews/surveys with lead program facilitators.

You pick my brain and I'll pick yours: a pilot case study of research-practice partnership in an informal physics space

“…al. [28][29][30][31]. Our analysis started with initial coding of the survey data by a single coder, using the 'audience' theme subcategories (satisfaction, interactions, motivation & attitudes, attendance, needs, and impact on the audience) [28,29].…”