Abstract
Informal education can be a vital part of a person’s learning
experience, thus it is important to continue studying its effectiveness
and consider improvements. To that end, we studied participants who
built their own AM radio at three School of Earth and Space Exploration
open house events at Arizona State University. For this qualitative
research study, we audio recorded and transcribed interviews of 41
adults after they completed the activity. Median duration of interviews
was 3 minutes. Based on their responses, we categorized participants as
either a parent who brought their children (Np = 23) or an individual
(Ni = 18). This is consistent with previous studies since over 50% of
participants are typically parents. We further grouped each category
based on their Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM)
background: No STEM Background (NSB), Some STEM Background (SSB) and
Expert Electronics Background (EEB). STEM backgrounds of parents were
evenly distributed, with each group (i.e., NSB, SSB & EEB) accounting
for about 30%. In contrast, about 60% of individuals were in the SSB
group. Regardless of STEM background, the vast majority of parents
stated that they came to the activity because of their children.
Additionally, a majority of participants stated that they learned
something from the activity, with only 4 of 41 participants saying they
did not learn anything. Thus, this activity provides learning
opportunities for people of all STEM backgrounds. As an example, one
individual in the EEB group stated, “The design of the transmitter and
the receiver itself is completely complicated based on me studying for
10 years trying to understand what a transmitter and receiver is. But
just in five minutes I found that I could really built [sic] it by
myself.” Yet, individuals who are either in the NSB or the EEB group
may be overlooking certain informal education opportunities, since
together they accounted for only 40% of individuals. To improve public
understanding of science, informal learning centers should continue to
consider ways to make events more accessible and more enticing for
people who may not be experiencing these valuable learning
opportunities.