Chapter 5: Results
5.3 Research Question 2: Program Interpretation Over Time
5.3.1 Section Overview
The themes explored in this section relate to Research Question 2; How do stakeholder interpretations of a non-formal science education program vary over time? As staff members’ interpretations were consistent over the study period there are only two themes discussed; the change in student interpretation (5.3.2) and the change in teacher interpretations (5.3.3) of their non-formal experiences at KIOSC over time. With time teachers became more familiar with the non-formal programs and built relationships with the KIOSC staff. This led to teachers developing a more positive and hopeful interpretation of the program over time. Students however tended to form more negative
interpretations of the non-formal programs over time as the novelty of the experiences wore off. After a few visits students seemed to interpret the program as irrelevant to them and were disinclined to attend. The interpretations of teachers and students were strongly consistent across schools.
5.3.2 Change in student response over time
Staff interpretation of the role of KIOSC remained relatively constant over the year they were interviewed and in their recollections of previous years. The interpretations of
teachers and students however was revealed to change over the years as they became more familiar with the centre and as the partnership with schools developed.
A few students in year 8 also felt that their visits to KIOSC were getting better over time. Some felt that the activities were more interactive and enjoyable. Others suggested that their KIOSC experiences got better because they became more familiar with KIOSC, making it easier to participate in the activities.
Student: Before like the first time I went thought it was like a bit hard but then it got easier because I was more used to it[.] [Be]cause usually at school we usually don't do hands on things.
From the students’ perspective it is hard to discern whether this improvement is actually due to changes in the KIOSC programs, or reflective of the students’ perspective changing as they grew and develop over the years. Insight into students’ responses over a more extended period of time came from the teachers’ observations who were able to observe their students over several years. Teachers reported that year 7s on their first visit tended to be excited about KIOSC, attracted by the novelty of the experience.
Steve (Science Specialist): Year 7’s really get into it because it is something new for them… so for them science is something new, something terrific and taking them to KIOSC is really good.
However while the novelty of KIOSC did appeal to students, it also risked setting up unrealistic expectations. Fun based expectations were at risk of being unrealistic given that the activities also had to meet learning outcomes and align with the science curriculum. Some students thought that KIOSC would be like Scienceworks, an informal science centre with many hands on exhibits. This risked disappointing student
expectations if the experience didn’t live up to their idea of a ‘fun’ time.
Leslie (Non-Science): He wasn't engaged in the second activity because he thought it was going to be something different. He also was referring back to, he thought it was going to be more like Scienceworks, and that was disappointing for him.
Teachers were also unable to moderate student expectations for the visit when they were unfamiliar themselves with the program.
Adrian (Non-Science): Generally yeah, pretty excited. Most of them didn't know what [the program] was so they kinda went in not knowing. I guess they knew it was this science
excursion so [they were asking] “Is this like Scienceworks?” And I just said to them, “I don't actually know, I've never been there either. So we'll be discovering it together.”
Over time, students’ interpretations of KIOSC programs were primarily shaped by their own experiences there and through sharing opinions with their peers.
Teachers in both schools saw that over time students’ initial attitude changed as the novelty of the experience wore off. They reported that negative opinions were shared between students of different year levels which they felt affected students’ attitude to subsequent KIOSC visits.
Steve (Science Specialist): But then they get to year eight and the year eight’s talk to the year seven’s “Oh, you know it's pretty boring, you know, you do this this and this.” So then later on in the year some of the [students] are like “Look I don't really want to go now”. In contrast, in the interviews students reported sharing positive opinions about KIOSC, indicating that they were encouraging their peers to attend.
Student: Some of our friends didn't go so we told them what we did and stuff … some of them I guess kinda regretted that they didn't go.
However according to the teachers this was not common and instead teachers suspected that pressure from peers to ‘look cool’ resulted in students spreading dismissive opinions of their KIOSC experience.
Steve (Science Specialist): You see them during the day, “Oh this is really good.” But they'll come back to school and say, “Oh that was boring.” They don't want to be seen as actually enjoying [the programs] in front of their friends.
If students felt that they had had a boring experience at KIOSC, they expected more of the same in the future and didn’t want to visit again.
Student: We weren't very excited coming this year because last year was a bit boring. Teachers found it quite difficult to challenge this negative perception, especially when in previous years students were required to pay for the travel cost as well.
Brian (Science Specialist): We try to talk it up as much as we possible, we want it to work, we want them to come and be like this is awesome, [it’s] a day off classes. And some years we maybe struggle to get maybe 14 kids because we had to pay for the buses, other
schools can walk but we're too far away. So we had to charge them about 23, 25 dollars to go, and they weren't really enjoying it that much, so once they did it once they were like, “Not doing that again.”
The senior science teachers from each school offered almost identical observations on students’ enthusiasm for KIOSC decreasing from years 7 to 10.
Brian (Science Specialist): Year seven’s no problem, year eight gets a bit more difficult. Pretty much by year ten they don't want to go even though it's free, even though everything is paid for, even though it's a day out of school, they don't want to go. Teachers attributed this decline in enthusiasm to students perceiving the visits as irrelevant and boring, perceptions they believed arose from the programs not using the unique features of KIOSC and not connecting to students’ learning at school.
Brian (Science Specialist): There's all these things that like if you could come up with the right tasks that they could access, but they tend to save it for the year nine’s, tens or twelves. By that point as a teacher I'm struggling so far to get the kids to want to come back because they've been so bored by the first two years.
However teachers also felt that declines in attendance over time were not solely attributed to students’ experiences at KIOSC but also reflective of student attitudes towards excursions more generally. This will be discussed further in section 5.5.
5.3.3 Change in teacher perceptions of non-formal programs over time
The responses of teachers to KIOSC from both schools changed over time as the program was developed from its conception and establishment in 2013. Teachers were
disappointed in their initial expectations for KIOSC where a more flexible usage of KIOSC was initially proposed.
Steve (Science Specialist): The whole idea behind it was that it was meant to be stuff that we couldn't do at school and you know we'd go to KIOSC and utilize their facilities but it hasn't actually come that way. A lot of, some of the stuff and you would have seen that as well, you could actually do at school.
Over time in light of curriculum connection issues and concern over declining student enthusiasm teachers adjusted how they approached KIOSC experiences.
Steve (Science Specialist): I think getting the permission slips done earlier in the year has helped with that because we're not then chasing round permission slips the week before the excursion.
Teachers from School 2 also described how in light of declining student interest as they became more senior, they were choosing programs specifically to address student engagement.
Steve (Science Specialist): By the time you get to year nine, they feel that they've already done all the programs, and as I said there's no benefit to them. [This] is why now with the year nine’s we're trying to do things like [program x] or a day long program like [program y] or something like that where they're not actually going to have done that before[.] We've got to try and keep that motivation up.
However a comment from staff revealed that this approach also made things a bit difficult as students were not necessarily matched to the right learning level.
Anne (Staff): When the school selected this activity it was strongly advised that it was not appropriate as the material covered was too complex. The staff booking the excursion said they understood but just wanted the kids to have fun [doing the program] and weren’t too concerned with the theory behind it. This did make teaching and engaging the students at the start difficult.
The interviews with the teachers revealed that a shift from disappointment to hope. Over time they reported observing adaptation and improvement of their programs as well as a growing relationship with staff. As a result of the ongoing nature of the KIOSC partnership, teachers and staff were able to exchange ideas about the programs and increasingly work together to resolve issues.
Brian (Science Specialist): Looks like it's becoming better, it looks like they're really focused on improving it specially[in] the last six months. There's now more constant emails
between us, so that seems to have improved. And the thing with the government putting that money [in], there's free bus costs now… and they are trying new things.
Teachers from both schools were positive about the programs going into the future and hopeful that their desires for flexible usage would be met.
Brian (Science Specialist): The last meeting with Helen (Staff) was really positive. She was just saying if you want to run stuff at KIOSC, like book a lab out for two weeks and actually
do your stuff at KIOSC for two weeks.
Staff strongly emphasized their commitment to refining and improving the KISOC
programs over time to accommodate the needs of schools. They reflected that as they got to know the schools, they were better able to understand the KIOSC role and improve the KIOSC experience for teachers and students.
Helen (Staff): [KIOSC programs are] a really unique opportunity and it's one that's going to get better and better the more that we understand what our role is within the schools. And that's starting to play in the last couple of years and this year we're trying to look at getting the VCE components in there as well. So it'll be a really interesting process I think. Further findings on the difficulties and benefits of collaboration will be discussed in more depth in the next section.