Introduction to “An Examination of Evaluation Policies and Funding Priorities in Informal STEM Education”
Hand pushes the first in a series of dominoes on a table
This month, we're excited to celebrate the newly confirmed Dr. Sarah Dunifon! Our Founder and Principal Evaluator successfully defended her dissertation, An Examination of Evaluation Policies and Funding Priorities in Informal STEM Education, on June 11, 2024, to obtain her Doctor of Education in Learning Sciences and Policy, emphasizing out-of-school learning. Dr. Dunifon’s dissertation focuses on evaluation policies and funding priorities within ISE funding organizations.
In a series of posts over the next few months, we’ll explore:
Evaluation policies and their influence on informal STEM education
Funding organizations serving informal STEM education
How language conveys values and impacts our field
Funding trends regarding audiences served, outcomes, and key terms used
And so much more
To kick us off, let’s discuss some framing for this work.
With support from my advisor, Dr. Kevin Crowley, and Evaluation Assistant, Emily Neill, I conducted a landscape analysis and content analysis of informal STEM education funding (ISE) organizations. This study aimed to examine the funding priorities and evaluation policies of funders like corporate philanthropies, private foundations, government agencies, and other organizations serving ISE through their grantmaking.
The goal of this work was to make these policies and priorities more transparent and accessible to the field, opening avenues for advocacy and for practitioners, evaluators, and funders to improve their practices.
Slide reading: “Problem of Practice: Informal STEM education funding priorities and evaluation policies must be more transparent and accessible, opening avenues for advocacy and for practitioners, evaluators, and funders to improve their practices.”
Through a literature review exploring issues of equity in ISE evaluation policies, I discovered the extent to which the interests and values of funding organizations can steer the direction of our field. I also found that many evaluation policies were not clearly communicated or transparent, at least in the early stages of the grantmaking process and to the general public.
Slide with background photo in black and white of a boy on a paddle board. Slide reads: “Framing the Problem: Informal STEM education (ISE) funders, (including private foundations, corporate philanthropies, government agencies, and other grantmakers) have heavy programmatic and evaluation influence on the work they support. Through their funding priorities and evaluation policies, these organizations may also steer the direction of the ISE field as a whole.”
Many scholars have recognized the importance of examining evaluation policies in service of equity. Others have conducted evaluation policy examinations in other fields, but a comprehensive look at ISE funder evaluation policies was missing. Therefore, we got to work.
My research questions were structured around two main ideas: Who is funding ISE? and What are they communicating about their funding priorities and evaluation policies?
To answer these questions, I first conducted a landscape analysis to identify funders who explicitly supported ISE in their grantmaking priorities. Next, I conducted a content analysis of public-facing materials about their funding programs (e.g., website copy, FAQ documents, calls for proposals) to examine the language they use to communicate their funding priorities (i.e., what they seek to fund) and their evaluation policies (i.e., how this work will be evaluated). The study unveiled some interesting findings regarding the language used and values held by ISE funders.
In future work, we’ll explore the study and dive deeper into our research questions, the findings, and implications for the field. I’m looking forward to sharing this important work!
Thanks for taking the time to celebrate Dr. Dunifon’s success with us! We will continue to explore Sarah’s research in August, after her return from a short sabbatical (and some well-earned R&R) in July.
References:
Dunifon, S. M. (2024). An examination of evaluation policies and funding priorities in informal STEM education funding organizations (Doctoral dissertation). University of Pittsburgh.
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