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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STEM Workforce Development STEM Workforce Development  

Learning to solve problems in context-rich environments: A naturalistic study in STEM workplaces, research labs, project-based courses and lab courses

Effective Years: 2019-2024

This CAREER project investigates learning and assessment of problem-solving in context-rich settings, such as research laboratories, project-based courses, and STEM workplaces. It includes an education plan focused on transferring the research to improve education. Because these context-rich, problem-solving experiences more closely mimic professional work, they offer important venues for STEM workforce development. However, these environments tend to be resource and time-intensive compared to lecture courses, so it is important to understand their unique benefits. The level of "context" refers to the complexity of the goals, tools, and applications for learning. While there is a substantial amount of education research related to lower-context learning, such as active learning in lecture courses emphasizing knowing, concepts, and the acquisition of knowledge, there has been less education research on high context ("context-rich") environments. such as laboratories and actual research experiences that involve practice. The project will support the improvement of context-rich experiences that develop the science and engineering workforce, support retention and diversity, create free and publicly available assessments for STEM faculty, and guide policies on expanding and improving access to research experiences and other context-rich environments. The project addresses a national need for research that can inform the development, testing, validation, and dissemination of assessments of learning in context-rich environments and guide education policy.

This research will examine how context-rich experiences prepare students for STEM workforce careers. The research plan involves describing the experience, observing evidence for learning, comparisons of activities, outcomes, and the development of new assessments. The conceptual framework is based on applying Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to learning in context-rich settings. CHAT provides a perspective that situates cognition within an activity system that relates a subject, an objective, and a community as an activity system that accomplishes practical outcomes. Data collection and analysis will utilize Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), particularly to understand mechanisms and factors within context-rich problem-solving environments that support outcomes such as development of professional identity, self-efficacy, and persistence. The education plan involves a project based first-year physics course, as well as the development of a set of validated tools that could be used for the assessment of learning in context-rich environments. Thus, the education plan is integrated with the research activities and would provide both local (course-specific) and transferable (disseminated) outcomes.

The CAREER program is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-wide activity that offers awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. ECR supports fundamental research that advances knowledge on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM fields, and STEM workforce development.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.