Me, You & Science Too

We evaluated the MYST project to see how successful it was in meeting its intended aims. The headline findings are:

• Overall, the MYST project can be considered a success. It has made good progress against target deliverables and measures of success.
• The MYST project developed an initial Theory of Change, which was actively refined during the course of the project and adapted to include delivery in remote contexts.
• The MYST project used the East model as best practice guidance for supporting engagement. The Covid pandemic provided the opportunity to test this in two circumstances: face-to-face delivery and remote delivery. It was found to be valuable in both circumstances.
• The project found evidence to support increased access to STEM literacy at home, increased enjoyment with regards family reading of early years texts, improved home-school relations in education, and increased skill and knowledge of techniques to engage harder to reach families.
• Evidence did not show an increase in frequency of shared reading among families but did support a diversification of reading materials used within family homes.
• While parents have added the MYST books into their books at home and use them regularly, we found the STEM activities were not repeated as often.
• We feel that the science could have been drawn out of the stories more overtly from the outset and used more heavily within the marketing of the project without negatively impacting engagement.

The final evaluation report reviewed whether the MYST project met its delivery and audience engagement targets, the value of the behavioural insights model for improving engagements, and whether the project had met its intended aims:

A summary of the final evaluation report can be found here.

The full final evaluation report of the MYST project can be found here.