University of Oulu

Gabriella Tisza, Sofia Papavlasopoulou, Dimitra Christidou, Iro Voulgari, Netta Iivari, Michail N. Giannakos, Marianne Kinnula, and Panos Markopoulos. 2019. The role of age and gender on implementing informal and non-formal science learning activities for children. In Proceedings of the FabLearn Europe 2019 Conference (FabLearn Europe '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 10, 9 pages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3335055.3335065

The role of age and gender on implementing informal and non-formal science learning activities for children

Saved in:
Author: Tisza, Gabriella1; Papavlasopoulou, Sofia2; Christidou, Dimitra2;
Organizations: 1Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2Department of Computer Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
3Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, Malta, Malta
4INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Format: article
Version: published version
Access: open
Online Access: PDF Full Text (PDF, 0.4 MB)
Persistent link: http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fe2019083026215
Language: English
Published: Association for Computing Machinery, 2019
Publish Date: 2019-08-30
Description:

Abstract

There is a growing number of informal and non-formal learning activities worldwide related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subject areas — particularly, those related to coding and making. To understand the general aim and content of such activities, we conducted a survey addressing highly experienced instructional designers and instructors of informal and non-formal science learning activities in nine European countries (N=128). The goal of this paper is to investigate the relation between (1) the targeted age-group and (2) the gender of the participants in these activities, and (3) the gender of the activity leader experts and (I) the content and (II) the main goal of the activity. The results show that the gender and age of the participants and the gender of the activity leader experts are associated with regards to the underlined content and the goal of the activity. We introduce the revealed patterns that describe typical goals and content in association with the participant’s gender and age along with patterns between the activity leader experts’ gender and the content and the main goal of the activity. We discuss the study findings in detail, their implications and their value for the informal and non-formal learning communities.

see all

ISBN: 978-1-4503-6266-5
Article number: 10
DOI: 10.1145/3335055.3335065
OADOI: https://oadoi.org/10.1145/3335055.3335065
Host publication: Proceedings of the FabLearn Europe 2019 Conference, 28-29 May, Oulu, Finland
Conference: FabLearn Europe Conference
Type of Publication: A4 Article in conference proceedings
Field of Science: 113 Computer and information sciences
Subjects:
Age
Funding: This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement NO 787476.
EU Grant Number: (787476) CoM_n_Play-Science - Learning science the fun and creative way: coding, making, and play as vehicles for informal science learning in the 21st century
Copyright information: © 2019 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.