Organization(s): Horizon Research, Inc.
Funding agency: National Science Foundation
Program: Discovery Research K-12
HRI Role: Research
Project Description
In the fall of 2014, concern over Ebola was at its highest. Although spread of the virus in the U.S. was unlikely, news headlines at the time suggested there was an epidemic of misinformation. Districts in Ohio and Texas closed schools when they learned that staff, parents, or students had been on the same flight as an infected nurse. A poll by the Pew Research Center at the time suggested that concern over Ebola was growing in the US. Forty-one percent of the 2,000 respondents indicated being “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that they or someone they knew would be exposed to the Ebola virus. In a Gallup poll at the beginning of November 2014, 17 percent of respondents rated Ebola as the nation’s most urgent health-related problem, a much higher percentage than obesity, cancer, and heart disease. A substantial proportion of the population held beliefs about Ebola that were not based on scientific evidence. The U.S. school system, with over 100,000 schools, 3 million teachers (over 1 million of whom teach science), and 50 million students, was uniquely positioned to convey accurate information about Ebola—including how the disease spreads and, just as importantly, how to prevent it from spreading.
In the spring of 2015, Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI) received support from the National Science Foundation to study a critically important phenomenon: how teachers, and in particular science teachers, respond when urgent science-related issues such as Ebola emerge and what guides their responses to these issues. In partnership with the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the National Science Education Leadership Association (NSELA), and the Council of State Science Supervisors (CSSS), HRI developed and administered a survey to K–12 science teachers. HRI also conducted interviews with a portion of the teachers who responded to the survey. The purpose of the interviews was to delve more deeply into issues asked about on the surveys and to illustrate how individual teachers responded to Ebola.
R. Keith Esch
A. Zehra Jaffri
Joan D. Pasley (Co-PI)
P. Sean Smith (PI)
Jennifer A. Torsiglieri
Products:
Technical Report Nov. 2016.pdf
Research to Practice Brief.pdf
Smith, P. S., Torsiglieri, J. A., Esch, R. K., & Pasley, J. D. (2017). When ‘we wish they knew’ meets ‘I want to know.’ International Journal of Science Education, 39(13), 1830–1845. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2017.1353714
Research Purpose
The primary research questions of the study were:
- What do K–12 science teachers know (or think they know) about Ebola?
- Where do K–12 science teachers get their information about Ebola and other emerging and urgent science-related issues, and what types of resources do they find most useful?
- How do teachers adapt their teaching when science-related issues like Ebola emerge, whether the issue is part of their curriculum or not?
- What policies do school districts and states have in place that shape teachers’ response when such issues emerge?
