Northern Illinois University
Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment
College of Education

Research Objectives

To carry out the study goals, the following working research objectives are proposed:

• Investigate how the social participation education component of Taiwan's Twelve-year curriculum and how the competencies of social justice, civic consciousness and multiculturalism, are integrated with content of language, social science and science.
• Seek to identify factors that influence development of civic knowledge and skills, and attitude, toward civic literacy and efficacy.
• Explore how various Taiwanese ethnic groups (e.g., Hoklo, Hakka, mainland Chinese, indigenous Taiwanese) perceive social justice, education equity and diversity, and how these perceptions influence feelings of civic literacy and civic efficacy.
• Examine how Taiwanese teachers cultivate social justice, education equity and diversity through the social participation education curriculum, and how U.S. educators also pursue such aims.

Methodology

Qualitative

In preparation (pre-departure phase) for the three-month research in the host country, learning will occur in both synchronous and asynchronous settings, faculty/guest lectures, student presentations and discussion, covering behavioral expectations, cultural competencies and awareness, language acquisition, research methodologies and curriculum development skills. 

During the next phase (host country research – three months) of implementation, activities (e.g., content and knowledge workshops relevant to the data to be collected, panel discussions), field visits and data collection at schools and communities will occur (e.g., classroom observation, teacher/school administrator focus groups and/or interviews).

Quantitative

Large-scale national civic literacy survey (NCLS) about civic engagement among the Taiwanese citizenry (ages 18 to 70) had been gathered by the RCPCL, funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Education. New data using the NCLS survey currently are in the process of being collected from samples of Taiwanese pre-service teachers and corresponding sample of pre-service teachers at NIU.

Existing 2018 NCLS data from Taiwanese citizens is used to examine how personal factors might predict attitudes toward the role of science/scientists in public policy decisions. Current and forthcoming data collected using the NCLS from the U.S. and Taiwan will allow for parallel examination of factors predicting such attitudes about the role of science/scientists among K-12 pre-service educators and cross-cultural analysis of differences in both the nature of these attitudes and their predictors.

NIU team will partner with the RCPCL to develop a new instrument, tentatively titled the Civic Learning Assessment (CLA), that assesses civic learning in alignment with the "Next Generation" framework for this construct outlined by Torney-Purta et al. (2015). In this framework, civic learning is viewed as a multidimensional construct consisting of two primary sub-domains—civic competency and civic engagement. The items will be generated by the joint NIU/RCPCL research team, with content validation carried out by Taiwanese and U.S. experts in the area of civics/sociology review, and evaluate the items for alignment with the framework.

Evaluation

Evaluation of this project will be conducted from three perspectives: process, formative and outcome.

The primary objectives of the process evaluation will be to assess the operation processes, monitor the daily activities and provide feedback to the project. The purpose of the formative evaluation is to

• Determine the validity and appropriateness of the principles and guidelines upon which the program is designed and the validity of their proposed components and structure.
• Determine the likelihood that the program will work as intended
• Identify aspects of the program activities are incomplete or too difficult for successful adoption into a real-world setting.

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