Abstract
Student-scientist partnerships (SSPs) can be beneficial collaborations for both students and researchers. Students learn scientific processes through direct involvement in research, while scientists gain access to data otherwise unobtainable due to the human resources necessary for its collection or analysis. Students are highly motivated to participate in SSPs by the knowledge that they are collaborators in authentic research. Thus, failure to use student data, resulting from concerns about the accuracy of student observations, may undermine student science experiences. A lack of confidence in student data may also make it difficult to leverage scientific support for, and interest in, these types of partnerships. The Paleontological Research Institution is developing and pilot testing an SSP that involves 4th–9th grade students in paleontological research on Devonian marine fossil assemblages. Formative data assessment shows that, despite numerous misidentifications, rank order of fossil taxonomic abundance may be documented by students. Correlation tests between student abundance data and data generated by project scientists are statistically significant for most comparisons. Assessments of data quality allow project staff to tailor research questions and classroom materials to better fit the educational needs and abilities of students while contributing data of sufficient accuracy to partnering scientists.
Published Version
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