The dataset results from data collection and analysis led by ZSI, which was supported by all practice partners and third parties of the SySTEM 2020 project. Participants were sampled by SySTEM 2020 practice partners and third parties through convenience sampling which targeted their diverse pools of young learners aged between 8 and 21 participating in non-formal science learning. 

Data collection was organised in two waves with 736 respondents answering the same questionnaire twice within the period of one year, and 732 respondents only answering one of the questionnaires either at wave 1 or wave 2. 

The survey is designed as a quantitative self-administered pen and paper survey, which was also extended with an online survey version for wave 2. The survey design builds on work in the science education literature, and most specifically on the data collection instruments of the SYNERGIES (Falk et al., 2016) and Aspires projects (Archer et al. 2013).