Institutional and organizational influences on collaborations between informal science education organizations and schools

The purpose of this study was to document the school collaboration practices of two natural history informal science education (NISE) organizations and to describe the factors that constrain or promote organizational collaboration. NISE organizations are well-positioned to support the provision of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in the formal education sector, i.e., schools, but little is known about the NISE-school collaboration practices or outcomes. This qualitative comparative case study used a collaboration framework situated within regional organizational ecology and institutional environment contexts. This study’s findings indicate that NISE organizations can provide support to school districts at scale, particularly around the adoption of rigorous news standards like the Next Generation Science Standards and for complex and/or controversial science topics like climate change. NISE organization leaders face two challenges in particular, effectively engaging school leaders and measuring the impact of their work on student achievement. Further, the collaboration practices of NISE organizations are influenced by the education policy environment and the regional organizational ecology in which the collaborations are situated. Findings from this study have practical implications for designing collaborations between NISE organizations and schools.