Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Liza J Weinstein

Institution: Northeastern University

Northeastern University will implement an NSF EHR Core Research (ECR) project that uses a multi-method social network analysis to better understand the evolution, operation, and outcomes of a network of grantees from the NSF-funded ADVANCE program. The NSF ADVANCE program has made awards since 2001 to promote systemic change that supports gender equity of the academic science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce. A consequence of the program has been the emergence of a nationwide...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Maria Ong

Institution: TERC Inc

TERC, Inc. will implement an Institute in Research Methods that will build capacity in qualitative meta-synthesis methods, with an emphasis on STEM equity and inclusion literature. The institute responds to the need for greater emphasis on meta-synthesis methods in STEM education research, the lack of preparation among researchers to conduct these studies, and the need to diversify the pool of STEM education researchers broadly. Institute participants are expected to build capacity in...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigators: Scott V Franklin, Mary Bridget Kustusch, Eugene Y Vasserman

Institutions: Rochester Institute of Tech, DePaul University, Kansas State University

This Institute in Research Methods project extends the impact of the Professional Development for Emerging Education Researchers (PEER) field school model to emerging education researchers through a multi-faceted approach, building individual and community capacity for high-quality STEM education research. The institute advances understanding of the effectiveness of professional development for research. Evaluation activities will identify characteristics of successful field schools in STEM...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Philip A Vieira

Institution: California State University-Dominguez Hills Foundation

In this capacity building project, the investigator proposes to investigate the impact of design thinking training combined with established pedagogical strategies in increasing student recruitment, persistence, and retention in STEM at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and a predominantly urban undergraduate institution. In this context, design thinking focuses on the iterative process by which solutions are derived, taking multiple perspectives from various disciplines, and encouraging...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Marjorie Rhodes

Institution: New York University

The roots of gender, racial, and ethnic disparities in science achievement take hold in early childhood, with lifelong implications for educational outcomes. Often, these early roots are in the form of problematic beliefs, including beliefs that science is something in which only a select group of people can succeed. These beliefs are particularly discouraging for children from social groups that are underrepresented in science, including girls and children from certain racial and ethnic...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Roni M Ellington

Institution: Morgan State University

Morgan State University proposes to implement an Institute in Research Methods that will build capacity in mixed-methods, with an emphasis on K-12 STEM education in an urban setting. The institute will be managed by the Maryland Collaborative for Research in Urban STEM Education (MD-CRUSE), a partnership involving the Baltimore Education Research Consortium and Baltimore Public Schools. The goal is to enhance participants’ STEM education research skills and competencies, stimulate research...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens

Institution: Clemson University

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...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lorelle A Meadows, Denise J Sekaquaptewa

Institutions: Michigan Technological University, Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Women have been historically underrepresented in STEM fields, and research evidence suggests that subtle gender bias occurs in many STEM settings, especially those where women continue to be underrepresented. Social psychological research has demonstrated the negative effects of perceived bias or becoming aware that one is the target of stereotyping and discrimination. This project will provide a novel contribution to and extension of the perceived bias research by proposing that simply...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Eli Tucker-Raymond

Institution: Trustees of Boston University

Despite decades-long efforts to broaden STEM participation, the underrepresentation of people from communities of color persists in STEM across many areas, including, for example, laboratory work, engineering, and teaching. Research suggests that more expansive STEM learning opportunities are possible in school and out of school when youth have opportunities to develop and share their experience with others, both in and beyond the classroom. Mentoring is a widely accepted strategy for...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Mala Htun

Institution: University of New Mexico

Researchers from New Mexico State University (NMSU) will implement an EHR Core Research (ECR) program research project. This ECR program supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The study will assess whether and how bystander intervention training - a successful approach in other contexts such as universities and the U.S. military - can be refined, adapted, and delivered to...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: NiCole T Buchanan, Martinque K Jones, Isis H Settles

Institutions: Michigan State University, University of North Texas, Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

This collaborative research project, involving Michigan State University, the University of North Texas and the University of Michigan, will examine whether epistemic exclusion, a form a scholarly devaluation, may create a barrier to the full inclusion and participation of women and faculty of color in STEM. Epistemic exclusion is the devaluation of certain types of scholarship that occurs when invisible biases in systems of evaluation are coupled with prejudice toward, and negative stereotypes...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Kendra S Cheruvelil, Isis H Settles

Institutions: Michigan State University, Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Researchers from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor will collaborate with researchers from Michigan State University to implement an EHR Core Research (ECR) project. The project will study how an inclusive educational and workplace climate can affect academic STEM career outcomes, particularly for early-career individuals from underrepresented groups. The proposers will develop a novel construct of inclusive authorship climate in which intellectual contributions are fully welcomed and valued...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jeremiah A Henning

Institution: University of South Alabama

This capacity building project includes a study to measure a suite of social identities salient in STEM classrooms to understand how identities shape perceptions of in-class, interpersonal relationships with peers and instructors and perceptions of institutional and disciplinary inclusivity and how these factors impact retention of marginalized identities in STEM majors and careers. The project will simultaneously explore multiple student identities and interactions among identities and explore...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Laura W Burrus, John D Coley

Institutions: San Francisco State University, Northeastern University

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate biology education. It will do so by conducting basic research on how the intuitive thinking of biology students helps and/or hinders their learning of biological concepts in STEM learning environments. The project focuses on anthropocentric thinking, a particular kind of intuitive thinking that anchors understanding of the biological world in human terms. Anthropocentric thinking results in a tendency to see humans as...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Geraldine L Cochran

Institution: Rutgers University New Brunswick

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving retention among first-year engineering majors. Research shows that many students who plan to major in engineering leave the field after their first year in college. This attrition is particularly true for women students and students from ethnic or racial groups that are underrepresented in STEM. The low retention rates are disturbing, since the nation has a growing need to increase its engineering workforce. Strategies known to...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Christopher S Hulleman

Institution: University of Virginia Main Campus

The transition to online instruction necessitated by the COVID pandemic has created significant uncertainty for the nation’s college faculty, many of whom have not previously taught online. This research would examine how faculty mindsets about themselves and their students, as well as faculty perceptions of their university/college system’s messages about the transition, relate to their responses to the challenge of rapidly transitioning their teaching online, the quality of instruction...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Jason Owen-Smith

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The project will train and support diverse education and social science researchers to develop the skills necessary to effectively use large scale, privacy-protected administrative data to analyze core questions pertaining to STEM education. The goals are to provide technical training, methodological training, technical support for research project development, and community building for participants. The capacity building efforts leverage a successful research infrastructure, accessible data,...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigators: Chi-Ning Chang, Guan K Saw

Institutions: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc, University of Texas at San Antonio, Claremont Graduate University

Researchers from the University of Texas at San Antonio and University of Kansas will examine how electronic mentoring (e-mentoring) affects student academic, career, and mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an important topic particularly for faculty who are forced to continue mentoring and supporting students through computer-mediated communication technology. The study investigates the life and work challenges for engineering graduate students affected by the COVID-19...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Alexis N Petri

Institution: University of Missouri-Kansas City

The proposed three-day conference "Integrating STEM Education Research Collaboration for Regional Prosperity" will highlight topics relevant to STEM education and workforce development in the greater Kansas City region. STEM education topics will include supporting student success, broadening participation in STEM, and developing partnerships between two- and four-year institutions. Regional prosperity topics will include identifying high-impact practices to retain STEM majors, promoting STEM...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Yolanda Rankin

Institution: Florida State University

The project aims to create a digital archive of the "networked ecosystem" that documents the social capital of Black women in computing to provide resources, information, and access to potential mentors to increase the representation of Black women in this field. The research study will help develop strategies to leverage the social capital of successful Black women in computing to encourage aspiring Black women to pursue and thrive in this profession. The digital archive entitled: Building a...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Cheryl Gomillion

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

The proposal focuses on fundamental STEM education research that examines broadening participation and STEM workforce training in engineering graduate programs. The research will contribute to expanding the current understanding of the characteristics and functioning of STEM research labs (microcultures) that may impact the success of underrepresented graduate students. The Principal Investigator has designed a professional development plan that will support individual capacity building in the...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Mark Dugo

Institutions: Mississippi Valley State University, Johnson C. Smith University

This project explores approaches to increase the participation of African Americans in environmental and ecological sciences. The project aims to achieve this goal by designing and testing an intervention designed to improve the recruitment of African Americans into environmental and ecological sciences programs and careers. The project will support a combination of exploratory research and professional development activities. The professional development plan centers on helping the...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigators: Ezekiel J Dixon-Roman, Odis D Johnson Jr, Ebony O McGee

Institutions: University of Pennsylvania, Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, Vanderbilt University

The project is a collaborative effort lead by Washington University and involving Vanderbilt University, and the University of Pennsylvania to establish an Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, and Mixed Methods Training for Underrepresented Scholars. It is designed to mitigate the disparities in the number of underrepresented scholars that utilize quantitative and computational research methods and techniques. The goals are to enable participants to incorporate quantitative and...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: David R Schaefer

Institution: University of California-Irvine

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted universities worldwide to abruptly shift to remote learning. This coincides with a critical social change as students are urged to leave campus, “social distance,” and shelter-in-place; practices that will disrupt social network functioning and could lead to feelings of isolation, reduced motivation, and poorer learning outcomes. Worse, the social and academic consequences could be more severe for less academically prepared students (e.g., underrepresented...

Effective: 2020-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Suzanne T Ortega

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

This RAPID project aims to empirically examine obstacles to the matriculation, persistence, and completion of underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM graduate programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The underlying assumptions of the project are that URMs may experience greater economic hardship and erosion in motivation to complete a graduate degree during crises. To address this problem, the Council of Graduate Schools will collaborate with the Council for Opportunity in Education and...

Effective: 2019-2025

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Laura Stapleton

Institution: University of Maryland, College Park

Despite the persistent under representation of individuals from underserved populations in STEM, there are not enough scholars and early career researchers trained to adequately study the issues. This training institute project will target early career scholars with research foci on issues of access and equity of underrepresented populations in STEM within either K-12 or postsecondary settings. The goal of the training institute is to focus on and improve education research study design,...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Emily A Dringenberg

Institution: Ohio State University

This EHR Core Research project involves a qualitative, exploratory study that will collect interview data to capture the beliefs and identities of first-year engineering students with respect to intelligence and engineering. Participants will be enrolled in the same introductory engineering courses across six distinct institutionalized pathways. Despite significant efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, those who earn engineering undergraduate degrees...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: P. Wesley Schultz

Institution: California State University San Marcos Corporation

Advancing a diverse and technically competent STEM workforce is critical for contributing to the progress of science and to the health, prosperity and welfare of our nation. While the number of Hispanic students, who are U.S. citizens and permanent residents, earning STEM bachelor's degrees has increased rapidly during the past decade, Hispanic students enrolled in STEM programs are leaving college or switching majors at higher rates than their White peers. This loss may be related to the...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Andrea N Ofori-Boadu

Institution: North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-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 awarded to a CAREER scholar at North Carolina A&T State University has the goal to understand the professional identity development...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Claire W Wladis

Institution: CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College

This research project will investigate whether online courses provide increased access to college and STEM degrees, particularly for students typically underrepresented in STEM fields. Annually, between 28% and 36% of all post-secondary students in the U.S. enroll in at least one online course. The growth in online course enrollment contrasts with an overall decline in college enrollment. Thus, continued online course growth will have an escalating impact on degree progression and attainment....

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sapna Cheryan

Institution: University of Washington

This EHR Core Research award is focused on broadening participation in computer science by investigating whether reframing academic interest as something malleable that must be discovered (i.e., a growth mindset of interest) helps remedy gender gaps in computer science. Despite the overall narrowing of the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the percentage of women computer science majors has remained less than 20% and has even decreased in recent...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Michael N Solem

Institution: Texas State University - San Marcos

This project will allow a mid-career principal investigator to acquire education research expertise needed to successfully conceive and execute fundamental research with the potential to meaningfully advance knowledge about psychometrics and large-scale data analysis as it relates to geography assessment. The principal investigator's individual professional development plan includes a mentor and advisory board members with expertise specific to this topic who will provide guidance and feedback...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Michael W Giamellaro

Institution: Oregon State University

The primary goal of the ECR: BCSER Individual Investigator Development (IID) in STEM education research is to facilitate the acquisition of education research expertise to enable an investigator to successfully conceive and execute fundamental research with the potential to meaningfully advance current knowledge in one of ECR's research domains - learning and learning environments, broadening participation, and workforce development. This project, titled "Building Quantitative Capacity in...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Guan K Saw

Institutions: University of Texas at San Antonio, Claremont Graduate University

This project will allow a mid-career principal investigator to acquire the education research expertise needed to successfully conceive and execute fundamental research with the potential to meaningfully advance knowledge on developing scales to assess social capital as it relates to STEM learning. The investigator's individual development plan includes a mentor and advisory board members with expertise specific to this topic who will provide guidance and feedback throughout the award period....

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

The math skills of children from high income families have grown faster than those of children from middle- or low-income families resulting in a significant and persistent gap. These disparities emerge in preschool and are larger by the start of kindergarten. As children progress through school, the gap in math skills persists or even widens. Importantly, SES-related disparities in math skills have implications for long-term academic achievement and educational attainment, as well as access to...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Melissa Mazmanian

Institution: University of California-Irvine

The project examines whether and how the class ceiling impacts the STEM workforce by focusing on the application and hiring process of elite internships, a key juncture in the path towards careers in Big Tech. By simultaneously studying the hiring process at Big Tech firms from the demand side evaluations of job applicants by employers and supply side choices and preparation of job applicants, the research will illuminate the hidden factors that shape who is offered elite internships. It fills...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ross J Benbow

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Student military service members and veterans, who are undergraduate students, face numerous medical, financial and social obstacles that universities and communities must address to prevent this skilled talent pool from leaving STEM before entering, or re-entering, our nation's workforce. For example, many service members and veterans have family or work...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: David C Geary, Perla L Myers

Institutions: University of Missouri-Columbia, University of San Diego

The United States has a severe shortage of STEM professionals, and this gap is even more pronounced for underrepresented learners. In 2017, the average mathematics score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress for 4th-grade English Language Learner (ELL) students was 26 points lower than the average score for their non-ELL peers. The closing of this gap will require interventions that focus on mathematics and on the visuospatial competencies that support mathematics learning....

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lara C Perez-Felkner

Institution: Florida State University

This EHR Core Research project will conduct research on women's participation in computing fields, with a focus on community college starters using a comprehensive dataset from Florida's educational institutions and national-level comparable data. Despite the growing demand for computer scientists and engineers, women's representation in this industry remains problematically low while their share of degree earners has declined nationally. In 2014, the most recent year for which U.S. national...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: ChangChia J Liu

Institution: New York Hall of Science

Informal learning institutions, such as science centers and museums, are well-positioned to broaden participation in engineering pathways by providing children from underrepresented groups with motivational, self-directed engineering design experiences. Though many informal learning institutions offer opportunities for young visitors to engage in engineering activities, little is known about the specific features of these activities that support children's motivation in engineering design...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Natalia Caporale

Institution: University of California-Davis

The project combines a research project aimed at broadening participation in STEM with a detailed professional development plan focused on facilitating the principal investigator's transition from a subject-specific focus on the cellular and network mechanisms of experience-dependent plasticity to a focus on STEM education research. The research project and professional development plan will launch a long-term research program focused on combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Nathanial P Brown

Institution: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park

This project will support an educational research project to design, implement, and analyze the results of survey that explores inclusive teacher behaviors in first year calculus classes. In addition, it will support professional development to enable the principal investigator, a new STEM education researcher, to develop the skills needed to conduct the project. Research at the K-12 level provides considerable evidence that classroom environment and teacher practice affect the growth mindset,...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Heather Griller Clark, Michael Krezmien

Institutions: Arizona State University, University of Massachusetts Amherst

The project will investigate the impact of a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) App-based curriculum on STEM career knowledge, interests, competencies, and readiness for incarcerated youth. Integrating STEM into Transition Education for Incarcerated Learners (INSITE) will integrate STEM workforce development activities into Merging Worlds, an empirically supported transition program, and deliver it through a UDL App-based framework to prepare and support STEM career readiness and employment...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Roger E Beaty, Adam E Green, Mariale M Hardiman

Institutions: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University

This collaborative award to research teams at Pennsylvania State University, Georgetown University, and Johns Hopkins University will focus on creative thinking in STEM education and research. Creative thinking is critical for success in STEM fields, which often require generating novel hypotheses, flexibly connecting diverse information, and envisioning solutions to ill-defined problems. Creative innovation is a valuable attribute of the U.S. workforce in the global economy, and the ability to...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigators: Therese D Pigott, Joshua R Polanin, Elizabeth Tipton

Institutions: Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University

The project is supported through the EHR Core Research: Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) competition that is designed to build individual 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. The goal of the Modern Meta-Analysis Research Institute (MMARI) is to improve the quality of meta-analyses conducted in STEM education by increasing...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Erin L Dolan

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

A growing number of studies show that participation in undergraduate research experiences (UREs), including course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), may influence a student's persistence in science, that is, whether a student graduates from college with a science degree. However, these research experiences have been widely implemented for many years without much knowledge of the specific characteristics of the experiences that are necessary to positively influence student...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ming-Te Wang

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

Increasing student engagement is an explicit goal of many reform efforts that address problems of student boredom, alienation, and low achievement. To better understand the processes linked to math engagement, it is important to study the trajectories and patterns of student math engagement and differences by race and gender, the associated motivational and classroom factors, and the impact of engagement on achievement. Understanding the conditions under which classroom characteristics are most...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Michael Young

Institutions: Carnegie-Mellon University, Iowa State University

Iowa State University (ISU) in partnership with researchers at the Education Development Center (EDC) and the University of North Carolina Charlotte will implement an NSF EHR Core Research (ECR) project to study the experiences, perspectives, and stories of successful doctoral students and recent PhDs from underrepresented groups in mathematics. The project will develop interview instruments and conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews with four cohorts: newly accepted students, early...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Matthew T Hora

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Internships and other forms of experiential and work-based learning are increasingly a common feature of STEM education in the United States and are all central to the goal of preparing a STEM workforce for the 21st century. In focusing on access and equity related to internship participation, this study will be one of the first to empirically explore these issues, which are of increasing concern to higher education scholars.The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for College-Workforce...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David I Miller

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

This project will study the origins of beliefs and motivational processes that could potentially limit the full participation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Specifically, this synthesis project aims to clarify mixed findings about how gender stereotypes about STEM abilities first develop and how these stereotypes relate to gender gaps in STEM. Some studies of children have found the expected stereotype of superior male ability in...