STEM Workforce Development 
STEM Learning and Learning Environments 
Broadening Participation in STEMModern Meta-Analysis Research Institute
Effective Years: 2019-2026
Improving the education of America’s youth in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a well-documented, widely endorsed federal policy priority. Several public and private initiatives have emerged to address this economic reality, including developing more rigorous standards, curricula, and assessments for prekindergarten through grade 12 education in science and mathematics. Addressing this problem requires a multi-pronged approach. The first part of this approach is to examine the extensive number of STEM education interventions that have been developed and evaluated in recent decades. It is important to understand which interventions work, for whom, and under what conditions. Modern meta-analytic methods can examine intervention impacts on learning outcomes and explore how intervention effects vary across studies. This project seeks to deliver a 9-month-long training Institute, with online preworkshop activities, 5 days of an in-person, intensive workshop, and multiple postworkshop opportunities as participants develop a STEM education research meta-analysis project. Through this schedule of activities, the project aims to improve the methodological skill sets of STEM education researchers for conducting modern meta-analyses, resulting in a richer understanding of how STEM education interventions affect learning outcomes.
This project will enable participants to conduct meta-analyses that explore which STEM interventions work, for whom, and under what conditions through methods to explore effect size heterogeneity. The Institute will support participants to develop meta-analysis research questions aimed at heterogeneity, to expand their skills for using modern meta-analytic software applications including MetaReviewer and R, to conduct meta-analytic analyses that explore and interpret heterogeneity in effect sizes using meta-regression models, and to interpret and communicate the results of a meta-analysis appropriately. Pre-Institute workshop activities will familiarize participants with the steps of a systematic review and the use of R for statistical analysis. The five-day in-person workshop will focus on how to conduct the preliminary stages of a systematic review and meta-analysis, drawing on the experiences of the instructor team in conducting large-scale reviews. The workshop schedule will also devote significant time to teaching the use of R programs to conduct meta-analysis and meta-regression, with methods to explore effect heterogeneity across studies. The Institute aims to provide participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to lead and conduct basic meta-analyses and to critically evaluate published meta-analyses in the context of STEM education research. The project is supported by NSF's EDU Core Research Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) program, which is designed to build investigators’ capacity to carry out high-quality STEM education research.
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.
