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Big Idea #5: Parents
July 4th, 2007 by Frank LaBanca, Ed.D.

It’s amazing to see where your “filters” on data come from. At my daughter’s 5th birthday party, I was talking with my uncle and we were briefly speaking about my dissertation. I gave my stock explanation for what I was doing . . . “I’m looking at how students come up with their ideas for their science fair projects.” He responded with a sarcastic “Their parents and their teachers,” to which I said that the students I was working with did not do that.

But then I realized, that this idea is BIG, especially in the context of overall continued improvement of authentic research projects. Students with good projects don’t get their ideas from their parents. Often those ideas will be too unsophisticated; they will lack novelty; they don’t reflect extended engagement in a topic area.

If there is to be transferability in this study, it is important to demonstrate the role that parents should and should not play in the science research process. I must look closely at the demographics to see what students wrote about their parents. My general recollection was more in line with “putting the poster together,” “listening to me practice my presentation,” “checking my research paper for grammar.”
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