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.

Ninth-grade biology students create cell models using clay.

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STEM Workforce Development STEM Workforce Development  STEM Learning and Learning Environments STEM Learning and Learning Environments  
Broadening Participation in STEM Broadening Participation in STEM

Modeling and measuring critical data literacies in informal learning environments

Effective Years: 2020-2023

Society’s reliance on digital technologies has resulted in enormous amounts of data being recorded, sorted, and analyzed. While improving human efficiency and life quality, data analytics can also reproduce inequities and further marginalize those from non-dominant populations, including women, people of color, and those who live in poverty. This two-year Building Capacity in STEM Education Research Individual Investigator Development project addresses this issue by developing a data science education program for middle school students that examines the social and ethical dimensions of digital technologies. By engaging over 100 counselors, parents, students, and researchers as co-designers of the data science education program at an after-school community-based program, the project has potential to educate a range of stakeholders in computing education. Moreover, it has potential to broaden participation in STEM by providing youth who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM with rich and culturally relevant experiences that may motivate them to pursue STEM majors and careers.

Specific project research objectives are to: (1) measure and model youth’s data science knowledge and practices in the context of social, ethical, and political issues related to digital technologies; and (2) measure youth’s sense of empowerment to enact change in their communities in terms of the ethical use of digital technologies. The project integrates data science education research and sociocultural learning theories to build new theoretical understandings about the nature of data science learning in the context of social/ethical/political issues. This approach can advance knowledge and understanding of how middle school aged youth engage in data practices in ways that are valued within their own cultures and within broader STEM communities. The project also supports the long-term goal of developing theories of critical data science learning and how to engage youth in community programs that promote ethical, culturally responsive, and critical STEM learning opportunities. The professional development objectives are to develop the Principal Investigator’s understanding of participatory design, ability to design for youth in informal learning environments and access to quantitative ethnography tools and methods.

The project is supported through the EHR Core Research: Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) competition that is designed to build individuals’ capacity to carry out high quality fundamental STEM education research in 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.