ECR Projects

Explore past and current fundamental STEM education research projects across the three research areas that NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program funds, as well as across ECR funding types. Other search filters draw from both NSF's data and the ECR Hub's hand coding of award abstracts.

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Instructional Practices that Enhance Learning for Students Struggling with Rational Numbers: A Meta-Analysis

Effective Years: 2017-2020

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 15-509. The ECR program of fundamental research in STEM education provides funding in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. EHR seeks proposals that will help synthesize, build and/or expand research foundations in the following focal areas: STEM learning, STEM learning environments, STEM workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. The ECR program is distinguished by its emphasis on the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to (a) understand, (b) build theory to explain, and (c) suggest interventions (and innovations) to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning, and participation.

The purpose of the proposed research synthesis is to conduct a statistical summary (a meta-analysis) of rigorous intervention research for students struggling with fractions, ratios, and proportions. The meta-analysis will synthesize instructional intervention research conducted with struggling students in grades 3-9 from 1986 to the present. The research team will carefully analyze the nature of instruction provided in each intervention study. This analysis will go beyond a mere coding of how authors describe their intervention and will probe deeply into the nature of instruction.

The researchers will conduct a meta-analysis focused on rational number to synthesize findings across a wide-range of studies in and identify the most effective practices and the conditions under which those practices are effective for student with learning disabilities. This project takes the field further by (a) including the recent influx of studies on this topic, (b) ensuring included studies meet rigorous evidence standards, (c) focusing on studies of struggling students -- students performing below the 35th percentile and students with learning disabilities, (d) broadening the range of rational number topics beyond fractions, and (e) using state-of-the-art meta-analytic techniques. The research will help meet the demands of relevant stakeholders (teachers, interventionists, administrators) by synthesizing the best practices from prior research.