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

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: 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: 2019-2026

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

Improving the education of America’s youth in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a well-documented, widely endorsed federal policy priority. Several public and private initiatives have emerged to address this economic reality, including developing more rigorous standards, curricula, and assessments for prekindergarten through grade 12 education in science and mathematics. Addressing this problem requires a multi-pronged approach. The first part of...

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: 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: 2019-2024

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: Paul W Schultz

Institutions: California State University San Marcos Corporation, Claremont Graduate University

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: 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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Erin M Lynch

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

The proposed project will lay the foundation for a clearinghouse of broadening participation STEM education research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The clearinghouse is envisioned as an online platform that will be populated with data collected through a systematic literature review during this initial phase. The investigator used the Vitae Researcher Development Framework to identify the STEM education research skills gaps that will be the focus of a comprehensive...

Effective: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ming-Te Wang

Institutions: University of Pittsburgh, University of Chicago

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Michael Young

Institutions: Iowa State University, Carnegie-Mellon 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: 2019-2024

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...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sara Cordes

Institution: Boston College

There is currently a gender gap in STEM fields, such that females participate at lower rates and have lower career attainment than their male counterparts. While much research has focused on gender differences in math attitudes, little work has explored how attitudes in a closely related STEM domain, spatial reasoning, may also contribute to the observed gender gap. The proposed research will characterize the acquisition of gender stereotypes in childhood in two key domains critical to success...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Cassandra Guarino

Institution: University of California-Riverside

This EHR Core Research project will investigate K-12 learning in mathematics within the broader context of the impact of student mobility on an interrelated set of student outcomes. The researchers will focus specifically on how student mobility influences and interacts with the following student outcomes - mathematics achievement, behavior, social-emotional learning and other forms of development, such as language acquisition and disability status ? for vulnerable populations in California....

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: Guan K Saw

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

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: 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: 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: 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 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: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Joshua Rosenberg

Institution: University of Tennessee Knoxville

This project explores STEM interest development at the undergraduate level in computer science. It is a study of national importance that will focus on substantial differences in who pursues an interest, a major, or an occupation in computer science. The pilot study will look at what drives these differences at a level where policymakers and educators seeking to support and sustain a more representative population of computer science experts can most effectively act. To address this problem,...

Effective: 2019-2021

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Yolanda K Bogan

Institution: Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

The project examines factors that influence the persistence of African American women in STEM that graduated from an Historically Black College or University (HBCU) by exploring National Center for Education Statistics datasets. The research project will use an intersectionality approach to study gender and race to better understand the experiences of underrepresented minorities in STEM disciplines at HBCUs. The investigator used the National Postdoctoral Association guidelines to identify gaps...

Effective: 2019-2021

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Ramon Goings

Institutions: University of Maryland Baltimore County, Loyola University Maryland, Inc.

This project will support fundamental STEM education research that examines broadening participation within the STEM teacher workforce. By investigating the factors that influence undergraduate student persistence in STEM and teacher education, it has the potential to contribute new knowledge about the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority pre-service STEM teachers. The investigator has designed a professional development plan that will support building his capacity to do...

Effective: 2019-2021

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Melo-Jean Yap

Institution: San Diego State University Foundation

This project examines STEM trajectories of women of color who start their STEM education at two-year public institutions. The goal is to use national and social network data: to 1) understand the integration of mobility patterns, student characteristics, college experiences, and institutions to support career persistence in STEM women of color; and 2) identify what influential networks at the student- and institutional-level have affected their scientific thinking, and persistence and success...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: IVORY A TOLDSON

Institution: QUALITY EDUCATION FOR MINORITIES NETWORK

The Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network, in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), is studying a model aligned with the successful graduation of undergraduate STEM students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) who go on to earn doctoral degrees. The primary objective of this research is to advance understanding about the characteristics of HBCUs that enable STEM undergraduate students to thrive and prepare them to subsequently pursue and...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Deborah L Ball

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The fundamental demand of teaching is to see, hear, interpret, and extend students' current ideas and understanding. Students differ from their teachers--in age and gender identity, as well as racial identity, language, social class, and experience. These differences compound the complexity of communicating because implicit racial and gender biases affect teachers' orientations to seeing students' capabilities. This project will focus on (1) understanding what it is involved in communicating...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Claire W Wladis

Institution: CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College

This EHR Core Research Project at Manhattan Community College aims to contribute new knowledge and build new theory about students' understanding of the concepts traditionally learned in a college algebra course. College algebra has consistently been identified as a barrier to student degree progress and completion, particularly for groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields. One part of the barrier to student progress is the lack of validated assessments to measure understanding of...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Jacquelyn Chini

Institution: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees

In U.S. colleges and universities about 25% of undergraduate students and 20% of graduate students with a disability enroll in science and engineering fields. Surprisingly, the economic well-being of persons with disabilities has decreased since the passage of anti-discrimination laws such as the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. However, STEM careers offer better financial outcomes for individuals with disabilities. Additionally, economic projections suggest an increasing need to recruit...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Sepehr Vakil

Institutions: Northwestern University, University of Texas at Austin

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 has the goal to investigate how undergraduate learning contexts may constrain or facilitate productive interactions between ethical,...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Natasha J Cabrera, Melissa E Libertus, Catherine S Tamis-LeMonda

Institutions: University of Maryland, College Park, University of Pittsburgh, New York University

The proposed research, led by a team of investigators from New York University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Maryland, will address the persistent problem of low representation of particular US minorities in STEM fields. Already by school entry, children display striking individual differences in math skills that can set them on a path for high or low math performance and participation in STEM disciplines. Latino children, who are disproportionately from low-SES...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Paul T Cirino

Institution: University of Houston

Many more students are enrolled in community college (CC) than in four-year colleges and universities, and many more students take developmental (remedial) math at CC than at four-year institutions. However, failure rates in these courses are high, and failure of developmental math is a significant barrier to STEM participation. There is surprisingly little data about the specific skill deficits and sociodemographic and personal barriers that contribute to this situation. It is likely that...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Samantha Daley

Institution: University of Rochester

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project will pursue integrated research and education efforts to broaden participation, persistence, and success in advanced science coursework and career progression for students with learning disabilities, the largest disability category in United States' public education. Despite the potential for academic and career success in STEM, students with learning disabilities participate in advanced science courses and pursue STEM careers at much lower...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Donald Peurach, James P Spillane

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

To generate foundational knowledge, this project will examine the development of school-level and system-level STEM learning environments that support the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) through high-quality science instruction at the classroom level. This study is significant since the NGSS depend on local discretion in operationalizing foundational ideals in classroom instruction, yet few systems and schools are organized to support teachers in doing so. As...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nadya A Fouad

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

The study examines how the interaction of diversity and engineering team dynamics impact innovation in the workplace. The investigators apply the Categorization Elaboration Model (CEM) to investigate why simply including women or racial/ethnic minorities on engineering teams does not lead automatically to greater innovation. The model reconciles the inconsistent literature on team diversity and team performance and addresses the fundamental question of when and how team diversity can have a...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heather L Thiry

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

Given their accessibility and affordability, community colleges attract high numbers of minority, low-income, and first-generation students. Despite their potential to diversify the STEM workforce, few studies have sought to capture how community colleges serve underrepresented students in STEM courses and degree programs. Further, there is a limited understanding of what leads underrepresented community college students to transfer to and attain STEM degrees from four-year institutions. Taking...