La Fuerza de Creer: Amplifying the voices of Latinx families in informal science through a Telenovela

Abstract Information: Our project – a collaboration between Education Development Center, Literacy Partners, and Univision – supports informal science (IS) learning in Spanish-speaking families using a culturally relevant approach. We developed a telenovela, IS workshops, and transmedia connections to encourage Spanish-speaking caregivers in low-income and immigrant communities to find new ways to pass positive IS skills and beliefs to their young children (ages 3-8). We then evaluated the impact of both the telenovela and the workshops on caregivers' science self-efficacy, career awareness, and IS practices, comparing caregivers in an alternative literacy group to those in the IS group using responses to pre-, post- and delayed-post-intervention surveys. This roundtable will use our project as a jumping-off point for a robust discussion about how best to incorporate culturally relevant practices in every phase of our evaluations. By reflecting on how we used a culturally relevant evaluation approach within a randomized controlled trial (RCT), we hope to generate a rich conversation with evaluators using different perspectives about how best to ensure we listen to and amplify the voices of participants, particularly when working with marginalized communities, finding ways to engage as equal partners even within the most quantitative of evaluation methodologies. Our partnership was a fluid collaboration between bicultural and bilingual producers, content creators, and researchers. Our Parent and Scientific Advisory Boards, composed primarily of Hispanic caregivers, provided input throughout the project on our foundational frameworks and assumptions, study design, and instruments and protocols. The goal was to incorporate the perspectives of Spanish-speaking caregivers from the beginning, to build on existing strengths and perspectives to craft a telenovela that represented authentic and meaningful IS interactions between caregivers and their children. It was also critical to the team to represent the wide range of Hispanic backgrounds in the telenovela in terms of language, appearance, and customs and to acknowledge the multigenerational context of many Hispanic families. We began the project with formative research, conducting focus groups with Spanish-speaking caregivers to explore their beliefs and practices around IS with their young children. We then used these findings to create an “anchor document” to guide the project, including learning objectives, definitions of science and informal science, our vision for how to model authentic IS practices in the telenovela, key messaging strategies, and specific language to promote cultural relevance. To ensure that our research instruments were appropriate for the participating population, we conducted a second round of focus groups to gather feedback from caregivers on the survey instructions and the clarity and cultural relevance of the items. This process thus incorporated the perspectives of Spanish-speaking caregivers both in the creation of a culturally relevant intervention – the telenovela and the workshops – and our evaluation. In this roundtable, we will use our experiences during this project to jumpstart a conversation about common challenges – and potential solutions – in culturally relevant evaluation. Discussion will center around how to ensure linguistic and cultural authenticity, how to negotiate partnerships across languages, and how to center participant voices in the evaluation process.