Effective: 2026-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Fei Dai

Institution: West Virginia University

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are new to STEM education research to develop foundational skills and gain practical experience to advance STEM education knowledge through mentored professional development and...

Effective: 2025-2030

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Virginia J Flood

Institution: University at Buffalo

In STEM education, students' learning outcomes are highly contingent on the quality of instruction they receive. Previous research has shown that responsive teaching – instructors' efforts to elicit, attend, and respond to the substance of students' ideas and to connect those ideas with the discipline – has profound impacts on students' STEM learning. Despite the well-established role that gesture and other nonverbal forms of communication play in how students convey their ideas about STEM...

Effective: 2025-2030

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ordene Edwards

Institution: Kennesaw State University

Cultivating a more academically successful engineering student body will not only produce more and better engineers but it will also broaden the talent pool in support of our nation’s STEM innovation ecosystem. Two significant challenges that engineering programs face though are student retention and career readiness. Expectancy-value theory offers a relevant motivational grounding to understand these challenges faced by engineering students. The project will assess the effectiveness of a...

Effective: 2025-2030

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Jenna Finch

Institution: University of Nebraska Lincoln

The third-grade year marks a significant shift in children's educational experiences, with increased behavioral expectations, more complex math curricula, and the onset of high-stakes standardized testing. Many children demonstrate challenges learning fractions, multiplication, and division, which can be exacerbated in high-poverty schools. At the same time, declines in math attitudes and school engagement emerge in upper elementary school and persist throughout children's schooling. Since...

Effective: 2025-2030

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Ira Caspari-Gnann

Institution: Tufts University

NSF CAREER: The Impact of Power on Active Learning in Learning Assistant-supported General and Organic Chemistry Lectures The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide initiative that supports early-career faculty in advancing research and education. The U.S. STEM workforce plays a critical role in driving innovation and economic growth, to ensure that these goals are met, additional initiatives must be implemented in courses within STEM curricula...

Effective: 2025-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David H Uttal

Institution: Northwestern University

The impact of spatial ability on STEM achievement has gained significant attention from researchers, yet progress remains limited by inadequacies in available spatial assessment tools. Current spatial tests present numerous challenges: limited accessibility, questionable psychometric properties, theoretical inconsistencies, and gaps in STEM-relevant skill measurement. In fact, there is a lack of consensus about what a taxonomy of spatial skills would look like and how those skills should be...

Effective: 2025-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ana C Stephens

Institution: University of Wisconsin Madison

Algebra is a fundamental mathematics topic. A key part of algebra is understanding mathematical equations (e.g., 2+5=7). This project will explore how middle school learners make sense of mathematical expressions (e.g., 2+5) within an equation. More specifically, the project will explore how children think about the ways those expressions can be transformed into an alternate, but equivalent form (e.g., 7-2). This study has potential to inform mathematics teaching and learning as well as...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nancy Jordan

Institution: University of Delaware

Mathematics learning is often viewed as a sequential and cumulative process, where each stage builds upon the previous one. A crucial part of this progression is the development of formal fraction knowledge. Previous studies indicate that students develop understanding of fraction concepts as early as first grade. The project aims to help schools integrate fractions more effectively into the primary mathematics curricula, before formal fraction instruction occurs. The work aims to bridge the...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Brendan R Eagan

Institution: University of Wisconsin Madison

A key challenge in STEM education research involves analyzing large amounts of learning process data from classroom interactions, collaborative problem solving in lab settings, and interactions with AI pedagogical agents and other learning technologies. To make informed decisions about curricula, teaching, and personalized instruction, educators working in technologically rich environments need learning analytic models that leverage teachers' qualitative insights as well as the large amounts of...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Dina Zohrabi Alaee, Benjamin Zwickl

Institutions: Coastal Carolina University, Rochester Institute of Technology

This project aims to develop a Career Interests and Decisions Assessment (CIDA) in the context of undergraduate physics education. In the United States, over 8000 students earn an undergraduate degree in physics each year. These students pursue a variety of careers in areas such as research, software development, engineering, and teaching. Many physics majors pursue careers in areas of strategic national importance, such as quantum technology, nuclear physics, semiconductor physics, and...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jonathan K Foster

Institution: University Albany

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are experienced STEM education researchers to develop expertise in new areas that will contribute to advancing STEM education knowledge. STEM education research generates the...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Meng-Yang Wu

Institution: Ohio State University

This BCSER Individual Investigator Development (IID) project will investigate course, department and institutional variables that influence teaching assistants (TA) instructional behavior in undergraduate chemistry laboratory courses. The PI will conduct think-aloud interviews with chemistry laboratory TAs that would be used to design a survey to unpack systems that affect TA instructional behavior. The survey will be implemented nationally across various institutional types. The findings from...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: George Veletsianos

Institution: University of Minnesota Twin Cities

While generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools and methods could help researchers discover new insights about STEM teaching and learning, researchers face three major problems: First, they haven't been trained how to use these technologies in their research. Second, the training that exists is often too technical or not specific to STEM education research. Third, researchers at resource-limited colleges and universities have even fewer opportunities and resources to learn about GenAI...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Tania Lombrozo

Institution: Princeton University

Scientific explanations are central to scientific understanding. Their generation and evaluation play correspondingly central roles in scientific practice and education. The motivating idea behind the proposed research is that there is value to having more than one explanation. Explanations for the same phenomenon that take different forms or come from different domains. Having multiple explanations can promote deeper understanding and can in turn promote better learning. For example, suppose a...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Victor R Lee

Institution: Stanford University

Despite popular discourse about how generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools might increase efficiencies in education, it is yet to be determined how--or even if--AI tools for teachers are having that envisioned effect. There is currently a baseline assumption that AI should increase teacher efficiency through offloading. However, there is limited research to support such claims, and there is reason to believe that AI could increase workload or cause unexpected shifts in teacher...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Cedrick A Kwuimy

Institution: University of Cincinnati

The STEM workforce needs to be well-equipped with knowledge and competencies to ensure our nation’s global competitiveness. Experiential learning experiences like cooperative education (co-op) offer an apprentice-style approach to preparing the next generation of engineers and STEM professionals. Understanding how these authentic learning experiences fundamentally shape students’ learning and professional development is essential. This project will investigate how cooperative education...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jonte A Myers

Institution: Georgia State University

Many students across the country face ongoing challenges in learning mathematics, which can significantly limit their academic progress and restrict future opportunities in higher education and careers, particularly in high-demand fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). To address these difficulties, schools frequently implement supplemental instructional programs, such as tutoring, small group interventions, or specialized curricula, aimed at helping struggling...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Cynthia Passmore, Christopher D Wilson

Institutions: University of California Davis, BSCS Science Learning

This research project explores how high school teachers' comfort with ambiguity in instructional situations--called Tolerance for Ambiguity (T4A)--affects science teaching and learning. Building on previous work showing that open-ended, model-based lessons help students better understand science, the researchers found that teachers who were more comfortable with uncertain or open-ended situations were most successful in supporting student learning. The new study will examine how classroom...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Janis Louie

Institution: University of Utah

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are new to STEM education research to develop foundational skills and gain practical experience to advance STEM education knowledge through mentored professional development and...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Catherine S Tamis-LeMonda

Institution: New York University

Young children begin learning math long before they enter school. Between ages 1 and 3, toddlers develop early understandings of number, shape, size, and location through everyday conversations and interacting with materials in their home environment. But not all children are exposed to the same math talk and objects, and early differences in home experiences may contribute to later gaps in math achievement. This project explores how toddlers' daily interactions with caregivers--including the...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Nicholas Young

Institution: University of Georgia

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are experienced STEM education researchers to develop expertise in new areas that will contribute to advancing STEM education knowledge. STEM education research generates the...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Samantha A Meenach

Institution: University of Rhode Island

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are new to STEM education research to develop foundational skills and gain practical experience to advance STEM education knowledge through mentored professional development and...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Andrea Goering

Institution: University of Oregon

The NSF ECR Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission (42 U.S. Code Chapter 16) by building the U.S. workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are new to STEM education research to develop foundational skills and gain practical experience to advance STEM education knowledge through mentored professional development and...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Monica Palomo

Institution: California Polytechnic Pomona

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are new to STEM education research to develop foundational skills and gain practical experience to advance STEM education knowledge through mentored professional development and...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jeffrey M Zacks

Institution: Washington University Saint Louis

The goal of the proposed research is to advance knowledge of how to apply cognitive principles about the understanding of temporally structured concepts to the design of animated STEM instructional materials. The focus of this research will be on STEM concepts that involve processes and transformations that unfold over time, such as photosynthesis and earthquakes. Relatively little is known about how students learn STEM concepts that involve a sequence of steps or phases compared to how they...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ryan Stowe

Institution: University of Wisconsin Madison

Some undergraduate students approach science learning as memorizing facts and formulas so they can pass examinations and courses. However, research shows that students' learning is deeper and more meaningful when science is approached as making sense of the world using broader concepts and practices of science. As such, improving student learning can involve changing students' understandings of what science learning entails. This project will seek to identify how different aspects of college...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Logan Fiorella

Institution: University of Georgia

Students often learn better when instructors draw diagrams by hand during STEM lessons, particularly in video-based instruction. This finding has potentially far-reaching implications for STEM teaching, particularly given the ubiquity of instructional visuals in STEM and the increasing use of video tutorials and online instruction. However, it is not known why observing the instructor draw is effective in instructional contexts. Previous research suggests that watching the instructor draw...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David A Barner

Institution: University of California San Diego

Children learn about numbers through their senses and by learning to count before starting school. Learning about numbers is critically important as a foundation for future achievement in the mathematics classroom. Most research on early number learning focuses on visual learning, even though children interact with objects and numbers through vision, touch, and sound. In this project, researchers will investigate how children learn about numbers through different senses, including in situations...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Alexandra C Strong

Institution: Cornell University

As a field, engineering education has focused significant effort on overcoming barriers to change, often through solutions requiring high levels of administrative and financial support. While achieving impact, these solutions have the potential to miss the hundreds of departments and institutions that do not have access to these same resources. Further, the field’s focus on specific barriers has overshadowed existing change approaches among educators in resource-limited contexts. The stories...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jayson M Nissen

Institution: Montana State University

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are experienced STEM education researchers to develop expertise in new areas that will contribute to advancing STEM education knowledge. STEM education research generates the...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Ning Sui

Institution: North Carolina State University Raleigh

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are experienced STEM education researchers to develop expertise in new areas that will contribute to advancing STEM education knowledge. STEM education research generates the...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Megan Wawro

Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Research in quantum information sciences (QIS) across a spectrum of forefronts, including education, is important for the advancement and national security of the United States. With the necessary rise of QIS, an important challenge in undergraduate STEM education is understanding how university students make sense of the foundational interconnectedness of mathematics in quantum, and how professors can best facilitate both deep physical and mathematical understanding in quantum instruction to...

Effective: 2025-2028

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Satabdi Basu, Jessica L Vandenberg

Institutions: Sri International, North Carolina State University Raleigh

In K-12 computer science (CS) education, collaboration is a key practice for all grade levels in CS standards, but there are still significant gaps in understanding how students can be supported in collaborating. In addition to being a central workforce skill, collaboration also supports students' sense of agency, sustained engagement, and conceptual understanding of CS. This project advances the field's understanding of student collaboration in CS education, focusing on upper elementary...

Effective: 2025-2027

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Aramati A Casper

Institution: Colorado State University Fort Collins

The project will support the goals of a) advancing the field of STEM education through helping to identify factors that support or hinder the persistence of undergraduate students in STEM and b) building the PI’s research capacity in statistical modeling. To achieve these goals, the PI will complete statistical courses and work with a mentor team to be able to build complex statistical models that explicitly incorporate, rather than ignore, variables related to individuals’ experiences and...

Effective: 2025-2027

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Gabriel LeBlanc

Institution: University of Tulsa

This proposal, “Developing Skills in Qualitative Analysis for a New STEM Education Researcher through the Evaluation of Science Identity in Student-Workers,” submitted by the University of Tulsa, focuses on developing the skills of the PI in qualitative research methods. The goal is to investigate differences in science identity development between STEM undergraduate students participating in research opportunities, student work involving lab skills, and student work not involving lab...

Effective: 2025-2027

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Javen S Weston

Institution: University of Tulsa

While science fairs can support engagement in STEM learning and promote STEM career exploration, students from economically disadvantaged and racially diverse communities in the Tulsa, Oklahoma region often face barriers to their participation. Specifically, students from both Tulsa Public Schools (a diverse urban school district) and small districts located in Creek County, OK (a rural county in the region) are typically underrepresented at the Tulsa Regional Science Fair, with most...

Effective: 2025-2027

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Deeksha Seth

Institution: Villanova University

Integrated STEM learning experiences can support students in making connections across disciplines, fostering a more holistic understanding of STEM concepts and how these concepts co-exist in the real world. Different emerging technologies, including educational robots, hold promise in supporting integrated STEM learning. Despite this promise, however, there has been limited attention towards examining the impact of educational robots in the context of integrated STEM learning. To address this...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Xu Qin

Institution: University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh

Interventions aimed at improving mathematics performance are frequently implemented in school settings. Multisite randomized trials, or studies in which individuals are randomized to condition within schools, are frequently used to assess the effect of these interventions. The most common question in these studies is whether or not the intervention is effective. While determining whether an intervention is effective is an important question, it does not provide a comprehensive picture of the...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Roger E Beaty, Adam E Green, Dan R Johnson, Indre Viskontas

Institutions: Pennsylvania State University, Georgetown University, Washington and Lee University, University of San Francisco

Creativity is a fundamentally interesting and important aspect of cognition. It is already among the most valuable attributes of the STEM workforce, especially in engineering which requires generating and evaluating novel solutions to complex problems. It is projected to become even more vital in the innovation economy of the near future. Nonetheless, creativity is not generally integrated into engineering coursework nor is the explicit assessment of it a common part of student evaluation....

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Holly O Okonkwo

Institution: University of California San Diego

Solving for today's grand societal challenges requires cutting-edge, transdisciplinary research. At the same time, the underrepresentation of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) in STEM fields continues to be a top challenge impacting our ability to solve for the aforementioned grand societal challenges, which disproportionately impact BIPOC communities. This project places these two priorities in conversation with each other, 1) addressing racial inequity and broadening participation in...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Pablo Alejandro Duran Oliva, Nancy E Kress

Institutions: Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Colorado Boulder

The implementation of active learning approaches in STEM undergraduate courses has significantly increased over the past few decades. Classrooms traditionally dominated by lectures have been reworked into environments where students actively participate in discussions, problem-solving, group work, and hands-on projects. Improvement in students' overall academic achievement in these environments has consistently been reported, but researchers have found that some students encounter barriers that...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Karin Jensen, Justin C Major

Institutions: University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Rowan University

The well-being of engineering students is critical to understand given the mental health crisis that is accelerating on college campuses across the country. Engineering is known for its culture of hardship which negatively impacts the well-being of its students. Engineering students must navigate that culture of hardship as they examine and determine what types of careers they will pursue in the future. Given these connections, this project explores how engineers think about their well-being...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Kyle Mahowald

Institution: University of Texas Austin

Math word problem solving is a major stepping stone in childhood education. An intellectual challenge in studying word problem solving is separating out and modeling the different cognitive skills that word problems draw on, such as mathematical reasoning, verbal reasoning, linguistic knowledge, world knowledge, and commonsense reasoning. All of these can contribute to the difficulty that children face when solving word problems but it has traditionally been difficult to identify the role that...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heather J Bachman

Institution: University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh

A growing body of research has examined parents’ efforts to support young children’s number and spatial math skill development in the home. Past research typically examines home math activities or parent talk about math and spatial concepts during the preschool years. However, during elementary school, it is unclear how parents balance greater academic rigor and homework assistance, increasing digital media use, and home math activities to support children’s continued math learning. This...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Wei Li

Institution: University of Florida

STEM education programs often utilize a longitudinal design to evaluate multiple treatment effects of interests, including the effect at a particular time, the average effect over time, and the change of the effect over time. A critical consideration when designing longitudinal studies is a power analysis that outlines the sample sizes needed to ensure a high probability of detecting important effects of interest. However, there are no guidelines or tutorials to help applied researchers conduct...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Lujie K Chen

Institution: University of Maryland Baltimore County

CAREER: Teaching to Empower with Learning Analytics for College Students by College Students This project will explore an innovative approach to empower students to become productive users and creators of “learning analytics,” tools that use educational data to enhance learning. Despite being the primary beneficiaries, students have yet to be involved in the development of learning analytics. This project adopts a student-centered framework called TEEM (Teaching to Empower) by integrating...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: LIla Davachi

Institution: Columbia University

Instructional design features are known to affect learning and memory in STEM classrooms. Past research in education, psychology, and marketing has shown that the addition of visuospatial information alongside verbal information can lead to overall memory retention benefits. This project will examine underlying mechanisms and explore the differential impacts of visuospatial versus verbal presentations of information and how to optimize memory consolidation of learned material. Despite some...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Kathryn Leech

Institution: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Because children’s first experiences with science often occur with parents, optimizing parent-child interactions is one approach to building an early foundation in science. The central goal of this CAREER project is to promote 4- to 6-year-old children’s scientific learning through parent-child conversations during book reading interactions. The project will focus specifically on the use of scientific process language in science books and on conversation surrounding those books in...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Steven T Piantadosi

Institution: University of California Berkeley

Learning mathematical concepts is an essential STEM skill. Although the capability to learn mathematics is found across human cultures, how mathematical skills depend on universal, underlying cognitive processes is still not understood. This project seeks to uncover the core cognitive underpinnings of children’s ability to learn and reason about arithmetic and probability by examining mathematics acquisition across cultures with differential exposure to pedagogical practices targeting early...

Effective: 2024-2029

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Jordan A Conwell

Institution: University of Texas Austin

Whether individuals have science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills has become increasingly consequential for their life chances in today's knowledge economy. Using statewide administrative data from Texas, this study will investigate high school students' utilization of the state's "STEM endorsement" - an optional credential passed into state law in 2013 indicating a student has completed additional STEM coursework beyond minimum graduation requirements - and their pathways...