Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nicole M McNeil

Institution: University of Notre Dame

One goal of mathematics curricular and instructional reforms in the United States is to help students build “mature number sense,” which involves making sense of numbers and operations, using reasoning to notice patterns, and flexibly selecting the most effective and efficient problem-solving strategies. In support of this goal, mathematics educators have developed a variety of instructional practices designed to move students beyond seeing mathematics as a set of disconnected procedures...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Paul Asunda

Institution: Purdue University

This STEM education research capacity building project combines a research project aimed at examining teachers as agents of change in STEM education and a professional development plan focused on facilitating the principal investigator’s acquisition of competencies in conceptual frameworks and research designs for exploring integrated STEM (iSTEM) learning environments in middle school settings. The research project will investigate teachers’ conceptions of iSTEM teaching and learning and...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Satabdi Basu, Gautam Biswas

Institutions: SRI International, Vanderbilt University

Computational Modeling for Integrating Science and Engineering Design (CMISE) will conduct a series of experiments to systematically compare different computational modeling activities on 5th and 6th grade students’ engineering design processes, their understanding of engineering, science and computational thinking concepts, as well as science teachers’ confidence and ability to implement integrated STEM and computing curricula. Computational modeling involves a high cognitive load, and...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Amy J Ko, Mo Zhang

Institutions: University of Washington, Educational Testing Service

This project aims to promote equitable design of Computer Science (CS) assessment in secondary and post-secondary education in the United States and globally, increasing the diversity of students engaging in CS learning through reduced test bias. In this study, we aim to address difficulties in assessing computer programming by investigating critical characteristics of programming tasks using both response process and product data. Findings will have direct practical implications for developing...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heidi Schweingruber

Institution: National Academy of Sciences

Inequity in education is a critical issue in the United States with well-documented evidence that many students receive substantially lower quality educations due to structural inequity in public schooling. These inequities are particularly pronounced in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education where issues of access to high quality instruction and advanced coursework are intertwined with stereotypes and biases about which students can succeed in STEM. Using the...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Aleata K Hubbard

Institution: WestEd

This project will explore the significance of race and equity in secondary computer science (CS) education. Despite the importance of CS across all aspects of life, there is little racial diversity in the field along the pipeline from elementary school to industry. At the secondary level, even students who are highly interested and confident in CS remain underrepresented in the field. To address this problem, researchers have created culturally responsive computing approaches to effectively...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Zerrin Ondin

Institution: Georgia Tech Research Corporation

The importance of removing barriers to accessing STEM instructional materials is paramount to broadening the representation of students with visual impairments in STEM careers. Tactile graphics are important STEM instructional aids, but they are often difficult to understand or have limited content compared to the original. This project aims to conduct a synthesis of the existing body of knowledge of student experiences with tactile graphics to develop a set of best practices and establish...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Garth V Crosby

Institution: Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station

This capacity-building project is designed to develop the investigator's knowledge and skills as a STEM education researcher through intensive training followed by the design and implementation of a study to investigate the perceptions and self-efficacy of engineering faculty members who teach lab-intensive STEM courses online. The multifaceted professional development plan comprises coursework in educational research, workshops, and mentoring by a team of education researchers. The research is...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigators: Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens, David W Shaffer

Institutions: Clemson University, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This project was submitted in response to NSF 22-1 - Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide and was then directed to the Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 21-588. The ECR program of fundamental research in STEM education provides funding in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. ECR supports projects that help synthesize, build and/or expand research foundations in the following focal areas: STEM learning, STEM learning environments, STEM...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Daniel Klasik

Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

While course grades are a primary way instructors communicate with students about their academic performance, there is less research on how grades are interpreted differently by college students. As a result, differential responses to grades may affect which students pursue STEM degrees and may therefore be an important contributing factor in the well documented gender and race/ethnicity gaps in STEM degrees. Prior studies examining this hypothesis, however, have been largely limited to...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David I Miller

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

This project will integrate high-quality experimental evidence on the existence of, and strategies to reduce, gender bias in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including how gender bias may intersect with other identities such as race and ethnicity. Biases favoring men could thwart women’s training and careers in STEM fields in many ways, but research also suggests promising interventions for changing biased cultures and structures. This project will synthesize...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Matthew Irvin

Institution: University of South Carolina at Columbia

The goal of the Institute for Measurement MEthodology in Rural STEM Education (IMMERSE) is to increase the capacity of researchers to measure and study key concepts central to rural STEM education research. Drawing on measurement science and a unified validity framework, the IMMERSE training will enable rural researchers in STEM, social sciences, and education to undertake empirical studies that attend to rurality. Specifically, participants in the IMMERSE experience will obtain the skills to...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Qingxia Li

Institution: Fisk University

The project is designed to enable the principal investigator to conduct an exploratory research project while acquiring skills and competencies to conduct robust STEM education research. The research component will examine factors and experiences that impact African American students’ decision to pursue careers that require quantitative and computational skills. The mentored professional development component will provide the investigator with expertise in qualitative research design and...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Ashish Amresh

Institutions: Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University

Advancing participation in computer science is significant for meeting NSF’s goals and benefits the nation. Arizona State University aims to improve pathways in computer science for Native American tribal school students through co-developed culturally relevant computer science programming. Teachers in tribal high schools on the Navajo Nation will use real-world coding exercises that focus on communities, nature, and the arts to provide a richer understanding of computing and its...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Brian M Galla, Eric Kuo

Institutions: University of Pittsburgh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing and testing a novel theoretical framework to understand and mitigate sources of disengagement and promote sources of engagement in undergraduate introductory physics courses. A premise of this project is that students under psychological threat—those who appraise demands of physics as exceeding coping resources—are more likely to disengage from physics. Critically, reducing psychological threat is suggested to boost engagement,...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nicole M Becker

Institution: University of Iowa

A key learning outcome in undergraduate chemistry courses is the ability to understand and predict the behavior of atoms and molecules. The types, amounts, and other characteristics of atoms or molecules determine whether and how they interact. With support from NSF’s EHR Core Research (ECR) program, this project seeks to serve the national interest by examining the development of students’ ability to interpret and use graphical representations about atoms and molecules and their...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Maureen A Callanan, Catherine A Haden, Gigliana Melzi

Institutions: University of California-Santa Cruz, Loyola University of Chicago, New York University

This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. It responds to continuing concerns about racial and social inequities in STEM fields that begin to emerge in the early childhood years. The overarching goal of the project is to identify cultural strengths that support early science learning opportunities among...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Evangelia G Chrysikou, John S Gero

Institutions: Drexel University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Learning to design in formal engineering and design education often involves the study of existing designs as examples. Research has shown that the use of pictorial examples during the presentation of design problems can support the learning of engineering principles and design constraints. But it can also bias designers and engineering design students toward replicating the examples they were shown, even in the presence of explicit instructions not to do so, rather than seeking innovative...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: Mid-Career Advancement (MCA)

Principal Investigator: Arash Esmaili Zaghi

Institution: University of Connecticut

This project is funded by the Mid-Career Advancement program that supports opportunities for scientists and engineers to substantively enhance their research program through synergistic and mutually beneficial partnerships. This MCA project embraces a transformative approach to address the critical national need for a creative professional workforce by increasing the participation of neurodiverse students in STEM disciplines. Scientific and technological breakthroughs are crucial to address the...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lester C Loschky, Minh Hoai Nguyen, N. Sanjay Rebello

Institutions: Kansas State University, SUNY at Stony Brook, Purdue University

Online multimedia instruction is expected to grow. Yet, given the tendency for students’ minds to wander and to be distracted especially during online instruction, it is important for researchers and educators to understand how to help students to stay focused on the important information while ignoring the unimportant information. This project addresses two fundamental issues: How does the online Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) instructor or educational materials...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: Mid-Career Advancement (MCA)

Principal Investigator: Karla Eitel

Institution: Regents of the University of Idaho

The goal of the project is to explore Land education pedagogy and its curriculum and pedagogical innovations in the preparation of Native and non-Native educators to engage Native and non-Native students in environmental STEM education on Indigenous lands. The investigator will implement a professional development plan focused on pedagogical innovations within various teacher education and environmental STEM learning programs to (a) understand the tools and technologies that can support these...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Matthew A Kraft

Institution: Brown University

This project will identify the most cost-effective and scalable methods of delivering mathematics tutoring to K-12 public school students for the purpose of accelerating learning. While there is a notably large body of rigorous research documenting that high-dosage tutoring produces large academic gains for children who have fallen behind academically, less is known about the features of effective programs needed to guide program design. Additionally, the widespread adoption of tutoring...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Kylie A Peppler

Institution: University of California-Irvine

This project aims to serve the national interest by paving the way to creating a technical workforce that is able to function effectively in highly collaborative, diverse environments. Enhanced ability to nurture these skills and abilities will occur through development of measurement instruments, a novel curriculum, and research into the impacts of the curriculum. The project seeks to align with the EHR Core Research (ECR) program's intent by reflecting the interdisciplinarity of computational...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: David H Uttal

Institution: Northwestern University

This award will support a series of workshops focused on spatial abilities and tests related to STEM education. Individual difference in spatial thinking has been tied to differences in STEM learning, but advances in applying these research findings to practice have been impeded by the lack of an organizing theory and related measurement protocols. The team of investigators from Northwestern University, Temple University, and the University of California at Santa Barbara propose to address this...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Susan A Gelman

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Developing effective means of educating children about disease transmission is a matter of vital concern, not only for scientific literacy, but also for public health. This project, conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan, will map out what children at different ages and their guardians understand about viral contagion, such as the transmission of COVID-19, and, based on the findings, will develop and test the effectiveness of a home-based educational intervention delivered by...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Leigh E McLean

Institutions: Arizona State University, University of Delaware

In the pre-service preparation stage, future teachers gain critical skills and knowledge for teaching mathematics. Supervised field experiences, where student teachers apply their skills and knowledge in classrooms under the mentorship of cooperating teachers, have been shown to be particularly important in preparing effective future teachers. However, there is still much to be clarified about how supervised field experiences impact student achievement and important teacher outcomes such as...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Shanna R Daly

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

As part of an undergraduate education in engineering, students typically encounter courses that emphasize core engineering technical skills but neglect the "comprehensive engineering skills" such as the ability to collaborate, to be creative, and to exhibit ethical thinking that are needed to address complex societal problems. Engineering education plays a major role in shaping students' understanding of the nature of engineering work which includes such "comprehensive skills." Thus, it is...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: Mid-Career Advancement (MCA)

Principal Investigator: Jamaal S Matthews

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The project examines how teachers’ culturally supportive mathematics instructional practices engage and shape adolescents’ brain networks in ways that predict their math identity, achievement, and sense of purpose over time. The investigator also will assess the neurophysiology of how critical consciousness develops in mathematics teachers. The project synthesizes neurobiological, developmental, and culturally situated perspectives to explore adolescents’ and teachers’ socio-emotional...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: Mid-Career Advancement (MCA)

Principal Investigator: Rajashi Ghosh

Institution: Drexel University

The project aims to advance the principal investigator’s research agenda on developmental relationships as mechanisms for career advancement of women and people of color. The investigator will undertake a new area of research by exploring imposter syndrome among women and minoritized students and intersectionality in STEM while also gaining expertise in latent growth curve analysis. The project aims to develop a theory on the relationship between minoritized students’ developmental networks...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: John Paul Cook

Institution: Oklahoma State University

Equivalence, the idea that two objects can be considered “the same” in some way, is one of the most important concepts in mathematics. Learners from elementary through graduate school encounter equivalence in many ways across many mathematical topics. Unfortunately, students can have difficulties in understanding ideas of equivalence in more advanced mathematics courses. One possible challenge is that equivalence is often treated as a new concept each time it is introduced within or across...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Erin A Henslee

Institution: Wake Forest University

This is a STEM education research capacity building project that incorporates a study to investigate the effect(s) of Making activities by examining domains of self-efficacy and character development and a professional development plan to build the investigator's subject matter expertise in self-efficacy and character virtue development and qualitative research design and methods. The research project aims to (1) develop Making activities that represent technical, conceptual, or dispositional...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Kathryn Leech

Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

This STEM education research capacity building project combines a research project that investigates whether parents transmit gender stereotypes about STEM to pre-school children in everyday conversations and a detailed professional development plan that enables the principal investigator to develop competencies in computational research methodologies, skill in mentoring junior colleagues, and knowledge of research on the underrepresentation of women in STEM. The research will examine whether...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Katharine Johanesen

Institution: Juniata College

Spatial reasoning skills include the abilities to visualize, interpret, and manipulate information in two dimensions (2D) and three dimensions (3D). These skills predict students’ persistence and success in STEM fields and are recognized as crucial aspects of geoscience education. Thus, teaching undergraduate students spatial reasoning skills is expected to enhance their retention in STEM fields and ultimately increase the number and diversity of STEM professionals nationally. This project...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Karen B Chen

Institution: North Carolina State University

This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This project will investigate how students’ understanding of scale and number sense (numeracy) can be improved in virtual reality (VR). Research shows that students of all ages hold inaccurate ideas about the size of scientifically relevant entities. For instance,...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Brooke C Coley, Kerrie G Wilkins-Yel

Institutions: Arizona State University, University of Massachusetts Boston

To increase the diversity of the PhD-prepared workforce, understanding underlying issues affecting retention and completion of doctoral degrees is essential. Researchers at Arizona State University and University of Massachusetts Boston, propose to study the expressed needs of Black doctoral students in relation to faculty perceptions of what they are providing during advising relationships. Understanding the mental health impacts of cumulative experiences that marginalize Black graduate...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sandra Simpkins

Institution: University of California-Irvine

The road to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers is composed of a series of choices and achievements that begin in childhood and continue throughout life (i.e., the STEM pipeline). To understand the STEM pipeline, the field needs studies that examine educational experiences from grade school to college/occupational choices and that document what processes support or undermine the STEM pipeline during multiple developmental periods. Moreover, historical changes in...

Effective: 2021-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Wes Maciejewski

Institution: San Jose State University Foundation

Investigating mathematical flexibility, where a user of mathematics recognizes that a problem can be solved in multiple ways and chooses an approach that is most appropriate to the given task, is the focus of this proposal. The importance of the mathematical sciences to the global economy has increased dramatically in recent years, due in part to the big data revolution and the continued rapid expansion of the Internet and related technologies. Flexible knowledge of mathematical procedures is...

Effective: 2021-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: John G Kelly

Institution: Tennessee State University

In this capacity building project, the investigator proposes to replicate a research project to investigate dual process reasoning in an undergraduate physics classroom at a Historically Black College and University. Dual process theories state that when faced with a decision, students may use both an autonomous system of cognition (T1S) and a reflective system (T2S) that relies on working memory and mental simulations. The current project builds on prior research that applied the...

Effective: 2021-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Anne M Ho

Institution: University of Tennessee Knoxville

This project investigates the significance of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) in an understudied population of instructors who fall between traditional divisions of high school and college teaching. Past research has typically assumed that an instructor is either a high school or college instructor, but not both. Degree and certification programs also make this assumption. However, many educators teach both secondary (high school) and tertiary (college) classes throughout the course...

Effective: 2021-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Tiffany A Wild

Institution: Ohio State University

The conference will convene researchers and other stakeholders to develop a STEM education research plan that will focus on STEM education of students with visual impairments. The goal is to identity and prioritize agenda topics that address the needs of this population, and to build capacity to conduct robust research focused on those needs. The conference agenda will include an analysis of gaps in the research, appropriate methodologies for this type of research, and strategies for...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Natalie S King

Institution: Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc.

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 has the goal to explore the ways in which Black girls develop positive science, technology, engineering, and...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Sharon Lynn Chu

Institution: University of Florida

A significant problem in science learning is that students do not always see the relevance of the concepts they are learning. This lack of perceived relevance may then lead to less student engagement in science. This project will investigate how to connect 4th to 6th grade students’ out-of-classroom, everyday experiences with formal in-classroom science instruction through the use of wearable and visualization technologies. Students will use wearable technologies to capture their everyday...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Julie Stanton

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

Metacognition refers to awareness and control of one's own thinking. Previous research shows that supporting students' development and use of their metacognitive skills can enhance their success in STEM courses. For example, by using their metacognitive skills as they learn about new ideas, students can better identify concepts they do not understand. This knowledge allows them to select, implement, reflect upon, and adjust their learning strategies to build better understanding over time....

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Luc Paquette

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Debugging, the process of identifying and resolving defects in computer programs, is an important skill to acquire while learning to program. However, many novice programmers, with good understanding of programming, struggle with the debugging process. Despite this, debugging is rarely explicitly taught. This project will use data-driven approaches to study the debugging processes of novice programmers enrolled in a college level introductory computer science course, identify the meaningful...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Daniel L Reinholz

Institution: San Diego State University Foundation

This project will study how data visualizations may help university faculty recognize their implicit biases and promote equitable participation in their classrooms. Participation is a key part of learning, but implicit biases can result in different opportunities for different groups of students to participate in STEM classrooms. Such differences can cause inequities in learning outcomes that may lead to underrepresentation of women, students of color, and other groups in the STEM workforce. By...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: David A Barner, Roman Feiman

Institutions: University of California-San Diego, Brown University

The concept of exact numerical equality is central to mathematical reasoning, and learning it in early childhood is a strong predictor of later academic success. Unfortunately, it remains a persistent source of difficulty for many students, with implications for the understanding of number words by preschoolers and even the learning of algebra in middle school. The main goal of this project, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Brown University, is to understand...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Marijel C Melo

Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Makerspaces are places for hands on application of STEM concepts and skills. They are stocked with high-tech tools, supplies, and equipment, such as 3D printers, to support collaborative, creative work to build things. Given their potential to support STEM learning, makerspaces are increasingly integrated into universities across the country. However, if observers watched to see who decides to take advantage of a makerspace, they would see many students stick their heads in the door, look...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Jacqueline M Chen

Institutions: University of Utah, University of Connecticut

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 has the goal to increase our understanding of effective faculty mentoring and its connection to STEM graduate...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Andrei Cimpian, Brian Donovan, Catherine Riegle-Crumb

Institutions: New York University, BSCS Science Learning, University of Texas at Austin

Recent research suggests that learning about genetics during high school biology can lead to a belief that inherent differences in the genes and brains of men and women are the main causes of gender differences in behavior and intellectual abilities (a belief known as neurogenetic essentialism). This belief is implicated in lowering girls’ sense of their own STEM abilities, their feelings of belonging in STEM classes, and their interest in pursuing further education in STEM fields. The goal...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Deborah L Ball

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Growing evidence about the powerful effects of skillful teaching on students’ learning creates a need for professional development that impacts teachers’ actual practice. Teaching practices have been shown to play a crucial role in the reproduction or disruption of injustice. This project aims to create opportunities for teachers to notice and understand how normalized practice often reproduces inequity and learn ways to disrupt typical patterns of inequity in their classroom. The project...