Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Chad Dorsey

Institution: Concord Consortium

Many of society’s biggest dilemmas and grandest opportunities involve extensive interpretation of complex data that vary across both space and time. Such spatio-temporal (ST) data stand at the forefront of the most critical decisions across practically all sectors of society, from making sense of changes in the climate and responses to the causes of socioeconomic differences to the understanding of global economic changes. Over the past few decades, analyzing and interpreting ST data has...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David S Yeager

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Recently, psychological research on broadening participation in STEM has shifted from student-focused interventions (e.g., belonging or growth mindset interventions given to students) to context-focused interventions (aimed at instructors to create cultures of belonging or growth). Tools for evaluating the changes in instructors’ practices induced by these programs have been lacking, however. Popular self-report methods for instructors can be biased due to faulty recall or social desirability...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Virginia J Flood

Institution: SUNY at Buffalo

Active, collaborative learning approaches are widely seen as effective ways for students to learn undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, learning outcomes are highly contingent on the quality of the interactional processes in which students engage. There is a great deal of research on successful verbal communicational practices in group work, but little is known about how nonverbal communicational practices like gesture contribute to successful...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Kathleen Lynch

Institution: University of Connecticut

Sociodemographic inequities in children's science skills are already evident in the early school grades, and early disparities may contribute to long-run gaps in children's persistence and outcomes in STEM. To disrupt the nation’s long- standing and substantial inequities in science education and careers, interventions to strengthen early science learning are critical. This research synthesizes the cumulative impact of science, technology and engineering innovations on early childhood...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Dina Verdin

Institution: Arizona State University

The project aims to build the investigator’s capacity to conduct robust fundamental STEM education research by implementing a small-scale research project and a professional development plan. The research investigates how culturally responsive gamified activities impact STEM identity development and promote STEM pathways among students of migratory families. The project extends the efforts of the Migratory Student Summer Academy at Arizona State University that provides summer enrichment...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Nicole C Kelp

Institution: Colorado State University

Broadening participation in STEM is critical on many levels, from the equity perspective of removing barriers for success for people from historically excluded groups and from the perspective of increasing knowledge in the field of STEM. Both people and scientific endeavors benefit from increasing inclusion. However, evidence indicates that students who experience marginalization due to their socioeconomic status, first generation college attendance, or race and ethnicity are underrepresented...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Colleen Ganley

Institution: Florida State University

Many children, adolescents, and adults experience math anxiety. Research has shown that math-anxious children typically continue to experience math anxiety as they get older. People with math anxiety tend to perform more poorly in math and are less likely to take advanced math courses or pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. Thus, tackling math anxiety early on is important for mitigating negative impacts later in life. This project will develop and test a...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jennifer G Cromley

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

To better support college students in learning about science, it is important to understand how they make connections among the concepts and ideas as they are learning. Network Analysis (NA) has potential to enable new ways of analyzing student learning data to reveal such connections. This project seeks to serve the national interest by developing a researcher’s skills to apply the statistical techniques of NA to real-time data about students’ science learning. The principal investigator...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Marcos D Caballero, Noah D Finkelstein, Charles R Henderson, Scott P Simkins

Institutions: Michigan State University, University of Colorado at Boulder, Western Michigan University, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University

Research has shown that the use of evidence-based, student-centered instructional strategies helps to increase learning, retention, and equity in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses. However, it is also clear that commonly used change efforts have not made research-based instruction the norm in U.S. institutions of higher education. Outcomes from this synthetic research will be used to guide efforts to improve undergraduate STEM instruction to generate and...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Steve Bennoun

Institution: University of California-Los Angeles

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing student learning in calculus with a teaching method called interleaving. Unlike the common practice of studying and practicing one topic at a time and them moving to the next topic, interleaving consists in intermixing the study and practice of different topics together. Research conducted in middle school mathematics classrooms shows evidence that interleaving can help improve student learning. Yet, it is currently unknown if...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Karen Nylund-Gibson

Institution: University of California-Santa Barbara

The goal of the Institute on Equity-Oriented Mixture Modeling for Discipline-Based Education Research Scholars is to train Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) scholars in the use of mixture modeling to address pressing issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in STEM education. Mixture modeling is a powerful tool for uncovering heterogeneity in student experiences and providing a richer way of understanding the experiences of students typically underrepresented in STEM...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Wendy M DuBow

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

This study addresses the longstanding problem of the lack of diversity among persons studying and working in the field of computer science (CS). The statistics describing the gender and race/ethnicity of those who earn CS degrees tell a story of a discipline that has been slow to change. The percentage of CS undergraduate degrees that have been earned by women has barely risen in nearly two decades. The lack of representation of Hispanic, African American, and Native American students in...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Julianne Wenner

Institution: Clemson University

Families are children’s first teachers and significantly influence children’s interest, engagement, and aspirations (IEA) in science. Family attitudes, conversations about science, expectations for their children, and family science/STEM career role models can be influential, particularly for people who identify with populations that are underrepresented in science. However, what families from these populations provide in terms of support for IEA in science is often framed as inadequate or...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Ryan Baker, Nicole Else-Quest, Bruce M McLaren, Timothy J Nokes-Malach, Jon R Star

Institutions: University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carnegie-Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, Harvard University

Despite evidence that gender differences in math achievement have narrowed or disappeared in recent decades, stereotypes about men being better than women at math emerge early in childhood and persist through adulthood. These perceptions appear to influence female students’ interest and performance in math, as well as their pursuit of STEM careers. Given the potential motivational benefits of digital learning games, games might provide a pathway for reducing math anxiety for female students...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lauren Barth-Cohen, Sarah Braden

Institutions: University of Utah, Utah State University

Scientific observation is a ubiquitous discipline-specific skill that has been overlooked in contemporary science instruction. Instructional materials often treat scientific observation as a simple skill or a minor pedagogical challenge to be overcome. For secondary science teachers, challenges compound as they themselves are often emergent learners of this skill. Furthermore, the field has yet to develop explanatory frameworks for the development of expertise in observation. Existing research...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Ryan Stowe

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

To prepare learners to productively use scientific knowledge as they navigate life, science courses must develop students’ understandings of what it means to know and learn science (i.e., their epistemologies). This project aims to serve the national interest by developing a researcher’s skills to conduct fundamental chemistry education research that investigates both instructors’ and students’ epistemologies in the context of organic chemistry courses. Studies indicates that...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lucas C Parra

Institution: CUNY City College

Education is moving online. During the global pandemic, this ongoing process accelerated and educators increasingly leveraged existing online video content to supplement synchronous remote instruction. One problem with this approach is that passive viewing of video content is not a particularly effective form of instruction. Many students struggle to sustain their attention to online video, and this is reflected in poor performance in subsequent tests of learning. This project will explore a...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Bailey Brown, Rebecca Zarch

Institutions: Spelman College, SageFox Consulting Group, LLC

This research project seeks to examine longstanding inequities in access to and participation in computer science (CS) education. Decades of research have shown that certain subgroups (e.g., women, students with disabilities, underrepresented minority students) tend to face substantial barriers to participating in CS courses and programs. As computing education continues to expand in K-12 education systems, it is important to understand how early experiences in computing education relate to...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: EDU Racial Equity

Principal Investigator: Tabbye M Chavous

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Persistent racial disparities are notable across STEM fields from who receives undergraduate degrees to the unequal opportunities and outcomes that hamper scientists’ careers later in life. Past research shows that contact with faculty, advising, and undergraduate research can reduce racial inequities, but it is not clear whether and how these work in all STEM fields. This project will explore how experiences like these create “STEM microclimates” for undergraduates with intersecting...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lynn Stephens

Institution: Concord Consortium

It is increasingly vital that people be able to make sense of scientific data and extract information from public datasets in order to inform their decisions about everything from ballot initiatives on climate policy to personal choices about vaccines. The project has a long-term goal of broadening participation in STEM by making data literacy attainable by more students. The project will develop instructional design supports for high school students that build on their novice intuitions for...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Mohammad Amin Alipour

Institution: University of Houston

This project aims to serve the national interest by understanding the impact on computer science education of using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate computer code. Artificial intelligence tools can generate computer code from the description of a problem written in natural language, and it may lead to faster and easier development of high-quality software programs. While these “code intelligence” (CI) systems may positively improve workflow for professional developers in industry,...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Sara Hooshangi

Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Participation in computer science by women is a significant goal for NSF and benefits the nation’s workforce in emerging technologies. Academic and career path decisions are made by individuals and understanding barriers that contribute to student selection of computer science careers may reduce the gender gap in this field. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University seeks to understand personal, social, and institutional constraints that influence the decision-making of first-year...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Fashina Alade

Institution: Michigan State University

Advancing participation in STEM is significant for meeting NSF’s goals and benefits the nation. Michigan State University aims to improve understanding of the impacts of STEM-focused children’s media programming by identifying children’s understanding of racial diversity cures in educational television shows. The professional development plan will build research capacity by exploring children's attention to and interpretations of diversity cues and then building a multi-method study that...

Effective: 2022-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Roger E Beaty, Mark Fuge, Dan R Johnson

Institutions: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park, University of Maryland, College Park, Washington and Lee University

This collaborative project from research teams at Pennsylvania State University, University of Maryland, and Washington and Lee University focuses on measuring creativity in undergraduate engineering education. The ability to think creatively is essential for success in STEM fields, particularly engineering, which requires designing solutions to complex problems that often have no single or "correct" solution. The Next Generation Science Standards identify creative thinking skills, such as...

Effective: 2022-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Kristen N Bieda, Megan E Staples

Institutions: Michigan State University, University of Connecticut

Creating and justifying mathematical claims is an essential learning goal and valued outcome of a mathematics education. To advance equitable learning outcomes, it is essential that teachers pursue this goal in ways that ensure every student has opportunities to develop and share justifications in their classrooms. The intended outcomes of this pilot study are: (1) practice-grounded, foundational knowledge about how students’ participation in mathematical justification can advance equity...

Effective: 2022-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: James R Neumeister

Institution: National Opinion Research Center

This research project focuses on understanding the experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups in STEM fields. Three aims frame the project team's research plan. First is to examine factors that influence and predict career trajectories of subgroups of STEM doctoral students and graduates based on their career motivations and aspirations. Second is to develop and integrate culturally responsive student and context-level measures to investigate the career pathways of STEM PhD students....

Effective: 2022-2024

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Erin M Lynch

Institutions: Winston-Salem State University, QUALITY EDUCATION FOR MINORITIES NETWORK

Pipelines to Pathways: Humanizing Diversity in STEM, is proposed to improve mentorship and training in emerging research designed to improve STEM student outcomes, particularly for those students coming from underserved and underrepresented populations in STEM. This two-day workshop is designed to attract STEM faculty, both K-12 and post-secondary, and research scholars in STEM teaching and student learning to present and learn about evidence-based practices and methodology design to implement...

Effective: 2022-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Christopher A Randles

Institution: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees

To meaningfully understand a discipline, students not only need to remember concepts but also understand how those concepts connect to one another. Understanding connections between concepts requires students to engage with their discipline in ways such as using visual representations (e.g. diagrams and graphs), experimental activities (e.g. testing hypotheses), societal influences (e.g. the nature of science and society), and information literacy (e.g. how information is presented and used)....

Effective: 2022-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Tim McEldowney

Institution: West Virginia University Research Corporation

This project aims to illuminate how undergraduate student knowledge about the graduate school application and admissions processes acts as a barrier to earning advanced degrees in mathematics for students historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines. The project will consist of a combination of exploratory research and professional development activities to advance the PI’s expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methods. The project will survey undergraduate mathematics...

Effective: 2022-2022

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Lori Andersen

Institution: University of Hawaii

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2), and by the EHR Core Research program. The project will investigate the use of science curriculum features to develop culturally diverse fifth-grade students’ abilities to use scientific thinking tools. Thinking tools will include crosscutting concepts such as systems and system models, patterns, and cause and effect, as well as cultural concepts, such as reciprocity, human-nature relations,...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Kerrie G Wilkins-Yel

Institution: University of Massachusetts Boston

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. This project aims to serve the national interest by addressing the inequitable representation of graduate Women of Color (WoC) (i.e., Black/African American, Latina, Indigenous, and Asian...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Ginger Shultz

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

This project aims to increase the support students from non-dominant groups receive in schools by understanding better how teacher training and curricular resources can make curricula relevant and compelling to those students. Culturally relevant education makes visible the value of students’ diverse perspectives and experiences and may better support underserved students in STEM. While culturally relevant educational approaches are powerful, they rely on the teachers' competence in the...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Higinio Dominguez, Gladys H Krause, Carlos A LopezLeiva

Institutions: Michigan State University, College of William and Mary, University of New Mexico

This project will advance theory for understanding teacher learning as it relates to mathematics teacher knowledge and student knowledge. The research team theorizes that teacher knowledge and student knowledge are not distinct. Specifically, this work challenges the longstanding idea in teacher education that a knowledge base for teaching pre-exists as a static body of knowledge awaiting to be discovered by teachers. Instead, this project examines what happens when teacher and student...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Shetay Ashford-Hanserd

Institution: Texas State University - San Marcos

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization, and to build a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. This project will examine the effects of community cultural wealth on the persistence of Black and...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Valerie J Taylor

Institution: Lehigh 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 CAREER award supports experimental and longitudinal studies that aim to increase diversity and inclusion in higher education STEM culture. The...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Allyson Mackey

Institution: University of Pennsylvania

It is critically important that all U.S. children, regardless of socioeconomic background, are prepared to join the scientific workforce of the future. Prior research shows that having a strong early start in science and math is crucial to later academic success. This study combines innovative approaches in neuroscience, psychology, and education to predict and improve science learning in early elementary school, when foundational scientific knowledge and skills are beginning to be built. This...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Kirstin C Busch

Institution: North Carolina State University

Developing solutions to large-scale collective problems -- such as resilience to environmental challenges -- requires scientifically literate communities. However, the predominant conception of scientific literacy has focused on individuals, and there is not consensus as to what community level scientific literacy is or how to measure it. Thus, a 2016 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, “Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences,” stated that...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Preeti Gupta

Institution: American Museum Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History plans to investigate the relationship between mentored research and youths’ STEM trajectory from high school to early college. The study builds on a previously funded project that examined the experiences of 733 high school youth who participated in an out-of-school, in-depth science research and mentoring program through the New York City Science Research Mentoring Consortium. The current study will examine how 380 of the initial participants navigate...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David W Shaffer

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

This project will advance research in an important area needed for contributing to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians through the creation and validation of a process designed to effectively and fairly code educational data. Over its five-year duration, this project will develop and test an approach to coding data on learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). It will do so in a manner that takes into account...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Ian M Lyons

Institution: Georgetown University

Numeracy and math skills among adults and children in the United States routinely rank poorly relative to those from comparable nations. Progress in mathematics education can be facilitated by identification and removal of factors that impede math engagement and learning. One such factor is anxiety about mathematics. Math anxiety predicts avoidance of math and poor math achievement, and disproportionately affects individuals with math learning disabilities, women, minorities, and those from...

Effective: 2021-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Susan J Goldin-Meadow

Institution: University of Chicago

All speakers gesture when they talk. Gestures are a type of action––an action done in the air that does not directly affect objects. Both gestures and actions-on-objects can promote learning, but having gesture as part of a math lesson makes it easier to remember and extend that lesson than having action as part of the lesson. This program of research uses neural data to figure out why. Two hypotheses, both of which might be correct, are possible: (1) Gesture promotes learning by helping...

Effective: 2021-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Marcia Barnes

Institution: Vanderbilt University

Low math skills significantly limit access to post-secondary education, employment, and lifetime earnings. Because math difficulties can be detected early in schooling, early intervention is key for preventing the negative consequences of persistent low math achievement. Kindergarten is a particularly important developmental time-window within which to intervene given that children who enter and exit kindergarten with low math knowledge are at high risk for having long-term difficulties in...

Effective: 2021-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Sara E Grineski, Danielle Morales

Institutions: University of Utah, Worcester State University, University of Texas at El Paso

Understanding mentoring relationships is critical to increasing diversity in STEM fields. Researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Utah propose to study the effects of mentor relationship mismatch on student outcomes during NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs. This project aims to employ a novel approach to studying mentoring by examining multilevel mentoring and demographics of students and the mentor team. The project aims to collect data...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Monica C Vroman

Institution: Rutgers University New Brunswick

This project, administered by Rutgers University New Brunswick, builds capacity in STEM Education Research (SER) through the investigator’s participation in intensive professional growth experiences and application of their new knowledge in the design and implementation of a SER study. The investigator will build proficiency in mixed methods research by engaging in focused coursework, professional conferences, and mentoring by SER experts over the life of the project. In tandem with...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Logan Fiorella

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

With support from NSF’s EHR Core Research (ECR) program, this project seeks to serve the national interest by identifying effective instructional methods to support student understanding of core science concepts. This project will study learning in the biological sciences among introductory and advanced undergraduates. Science educators and policy makers aim to facilitate students’ development of deep conceptual understanding and the ability to solve novel problems in the classroom and the...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: John Fife

Institutions: Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia State University

Interest in STEM is often shaped in middle school and understanding the STEM attitude and interest of African American middle school students would be significant in reducing barriers to STEM careers. Virginia State University aims to advance knowledge on the impacts of holistic contextual factors, such as race/ethnicity, school quality, family dynamics, gender, social supports, daily danger exposure, social status, and interpersonal competence, on STEM interest and attitudes. The project...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Sammy L Steen Jr

Institution: George Mason University

This project aims to increase the number of Black male youth who can be successful in advanced mathematics while in public schools. The researcher will use a mixed-methods design to gain a comprehensive and culturally appropriate student perspective. The project includes the implementation of a group counseling program for Black male students beginning in seventh grade and following them through eighth grade. The researcher will gain the knowledge and skills necessary to integrate quantitative...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Dustin B Thoman

Institution: San Diego State University Foundation

It is critically important that the United States create and maintain a thriving scientific workforce that propels future discoveries and innovations. The academic research laboratory is an essential context where students learn what science is, what is expected of a scientist, and decide whether they will pursue or persist within the scientific community. This project investigates the transmission of norms, expectations, and values between and among scientists, their students, and their...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Alexander J Stokes

Institution: University of Hawaii

This capacity-building project, administered by the University of Hawaii, is designed to develop the investigator’s knowledge and skills in STEM Education research (SER) through participation in intensive professional growth activities including mentoring by a team of experts in STEM Education research, workshops in research methods and cultural competence, and participation in SER professional conferences. In tandem with the project’s professional development activities, the investigator...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Angela Calabrese Barton

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The primary objective of this study is to develop, test and refine a model to describe how youth develop knowledge within their communities using critical data practices. Critical data practices include what youth do with, in relation to, and oriented around data to learn about their world and solve new problems. For example, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, youth have engaged with data such as local COVID-19 dashboards for their schools and cities, visualizations of viral spread, and social...