Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education (한국과학교육학회지)

The Korean Association for Science Education (한국과학교육학회)
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Multiple Paths to a Successful After-School Science Program for Middle School Girls

  • Published : 2005.10.31
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Abstract

Eyes to the Future (ETF) is a year-long, multi-age mentoring program that supports middle-school girls as they make the transition to high school and make informed choices about the opportunities available to them in high school and beyond, particularly in the field of science and technology. In this study, we explore the tension between fidelity and adaptiveness of an educational innovation by examining how teachers in several different schools used a common set of materials and technology to create "native" implementations of an innovative after-school program, adapted to their local setting. First, we found that the implementation of the program varied across the nine clubs. For example, some clubs put a heavy emphasis on science while others emphasized technology. Then, we identified four different profiles of the variations in implementation based on how close the implementation was to the original program and how much clubs were able to customize the implementation to meet their needs and interests. The results showed that some clubs could be regarded as successful because they were faithful to the original program and others were successful because they could adapt the program for their own context. This implies that the measure for success can be and should be multi dimensional.

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