Towards competencies and methods to support Responsible Research and Innovation within STEAM secondary education–the case of Spain

Rosina Malagrida*, Pim Klaassen, Isabel Ruiz-Mallén, Jacqueline E.W. Broerse

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Introduction: Under the label of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)’, increasing efforts have been made over the past decade to make research and innovation (R&I) more open and inclusive to improve the way we solve today’s complex challenges. However, no commonly accepted norms or standards on the practical implementation of RRI currently exist. One of today’s challenges is how to facilitate its implementation within science education. This article aims to contribute to the necessary conceptual and practical grounding of RRI in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics) education by developing a framework of RRI competencies and by gaining insight into secondary school STEAM educators’ practices and perspectives on teaching RRI competencies. It adds to an emerging research field in which science education contributes to solving real-world problems by focusing on competencies needed to participate in RRI processes.  Methodology: After developing a Comprehensive Framework of RRI Competencies in STEAM education, we engaged secondary school teachers (n=40) involved in innovation within the education project Xplore Health (XH). Participants were recruited through purposive and homogenous sampling from three cities in Spain (Barcelona, Granada and A Coruña). Through one focus group in each city, we analysed teachers’ perspectives on how well RRI competencies in the Framework were covered using the XH’s educational resources and on how that coverage could be improved. Results: The results show that teachers encounter important limitations in addressing competencies within all the RRI process requirements: reflexivity, anticipation, inclusion and responsiveness. They suggested learning methods and actions for improving that coverage in secondary STEAM education. Discussion and conclusions: We conclude that the Comprehensive Framework of RRI Competencies helps teachers reflect on how to innovate in STEAM education and that Community-Based Participatory Research facilitates the development of most of the competencies teachers considered difficult to apply with the other approaches.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)678-698
Number of pages21
JournalResearch in Science and Technological Education
Volume42
Issue number3
Early online date27 Sept 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

This work has received funding from: the Xplore Health project, which was initiated with funding from the EC and was later supported by the \u2018la Caixa\u2019 Foundation. This work was supported by the European Commission [CONNECT, EU\u2019s Horizon 2020, grant agreement 8728, RRI Tools, FP7, grant agreement no. 612393]; Spanish Research Agency [Ramon y Cajal research fellowship (RYC-2015-17676)]. A special acknowledgement goes to Nidhi Naik for her valuable contribution to the focus groups. The authors also acknowledge the project participants\u2019 contributions to the ideas underpinning this paper. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect those of the EC, which is not responsible for how the information in this article is used.

FundersFunder number
‘la Caixa’ Foundation
European Commission612393
Spanish Research AgencyRYC-2015-17676

    Keywords

    • community based participatory research (CBPR)
    • Competencies
    • inquiry-based science education
    • Responsible Research And Innovation
    • STEAM education

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