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: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Suzanne T Ortega

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

The Council of Graduate Schools examines the role of master’s education in STEM education workforce development. The project will contribute to the development of a data infrastructure for future research on master’s education while providing more nuanced insights into labor market outcomes of master’s degrees in STEM by various fields of study, gender, race/ethnicity, and career stages. Investigators will investigate the upskilling/reskilling pathways into master’s education and how...

Effective: 2021-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jennifer L Wessel

Institution: University of Maryland, College Park

This study aims to increase diversity in STEM academic workplaces by testing “nudge” interventions to help diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work matter in promotion and tenure decision-making. Nudges refer to deliberate changes to the decision-making context aimed at guiding people toward a particular behavior, which in this case is valuing DEI work. Many institutions have tried to reform the tenure process to reward DEI work, but there is little concrete evidence that any of these...

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: David F Feldon, Jason Owen-Smith

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

The study will assess the skills held by individuals at the time of PhD attainment and the measurable impacts that such skills may have on individual career trajectory. Investigators will conduct a longitudinal study that links individual-level data, academic program data, professional attainment data, and employer profile data. These data will enable an empirical assessment of the role that communication, leadership, and management skills play in shaping the career trajectories of PhD...

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 Investigators: Lisa Y Flores, Rachel L Navarro

Institutions: University of Missouri-Columbia, University of North Dakota Main Campus

Slow progress has been made over the past several years to broaden the involvement of groups who are underrepresented in engineering disciplines. The number of Latinxs in particular continues to decrease at each transition point along the pathway to becoming a practicing engineer (i.e., declaring a engineering major, graduating with an engineering degree, working in the engineering field). Increased efforts across the engineering ecosystem, but specifically during the college-to-work...

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...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Steven T Piantadosi

Institution: University of California-Berkeley

The project, led by a team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, aims to understand the relationship between attention and early mathematical development. Children’s first mathematical skills, like counting and number estimation, are typically measured using tasks that require children to sustain attention. In some cases their knowledge of mathematics is intrinsically linked to attentional processes. For example, in counting, children must learn to attend selectively to...

Effective: 2020-2025

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Michael K Scullin

Institution: Baylor 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 award to a scientist at Baylor University has the goal of improving STEM education at the undergraduate level by bridging the gap between...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nianbo Dong

Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

This research project is supported 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.There continues to be increasing demand for more comprehensive assessments of the impacts of STEM education programs, policies, and practices. In general, cost-effectiveness studies are designed to address this demand by evaluating the comparative performance...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigators: Ken Frank, Guanglei Hong

Institutions: Michigan State University, University of Chicago

The goals of this capacity building institute are (a) to introduce participants to rigorous and novel applications of advanced methods to STEM education research, (b) to provide them with continuous methodological support in research planning, data analysis, and publication, and (c) to create a community that prepares emerging scholars for taking leadership in advancing STEM education research. This capacity building award initiates an institute in quantitative and computational methods for...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Mary D Beisiegel, Irene Duranczyk, Vilma Mesa, Laura L Watkins

Institutions: Oregon State University, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Maricopa County Community College District

This STEM Learning and Learning Environments project seeks to advance understanding of algebra education at community colleges. It will build on prior work to explore further the relationship between the quality of instruction in college algebra classes and teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching. This “knowledge for teaching” is the mathematical understanding that teachers need in order to be effective teachers of mathematics. For example, this knowledge enables teachers to explore...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Gladis Kersaint

Institution: University of Connecticut

Despite efforts to broaden their participation in STEM, African Americans continue to be underrepresented in the STEM disciplines. Even after enrolling to major in STEM degrees, African Americans are more likely to switch to non-STEM majors or leave college compared to other ethnic groups. The purpose of this project through the University of Connecticut is to examine the lived experiences of African American engineering undergraduates at three predominately white institutions (PWI). The...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Joi-Lynn Mondisa

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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 discover and understand effective, evidence-based mentoring practices and strategies that...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jennifer L Osterhage

Institution: University of Kentucky Research Foundation

Nearly half of undergraduate students who pursue STEM disciplines ultimately change fields. Many who leave STEM majors do so after taking introductory courses that serve as “gatekeepers” to degree progression. Low grades and interest in introductory courses are important barriers to retention. A preliminary study shows that undergraduates who complete Introductory Biology I later in their college career earn lower grades and are more likely to fail than students who complete the course...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jenny M Dauer

Institution: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

It is essential for citizens to develop the science literacy that empowers them to make informed decisions about challenging real-world issues. Science literacy is a complex process that involves learning to make sense of information from multiple sources, to consider social, cultural and economic values, and to evaluate options for action. To effectively enhance the scientific literacy of their students, science instructors also need to integrate results of psychology research that may help...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sarah L Ferguson

Institution: Rowan University

The project will examine the efficacy of an intervention designed to increase self-efficacy and motivation to pursue STEM careers among rural high school students. Researchers will use a design-based approach to partner with rural school districts tointroduce students to high-need STEM career fields using virtual reality technology and career exploration modules. They will also guide students in assessing their potential fit for these fields. The researchers hypothesize that student career...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Xinnian Chen, Mark J Graham

Institutions: University of Connecticut, Yale University

This project aims to serve the national interest by conducting basic research to characterize key components of student trust in college STEM instructors and how that trust contributes to desired student outcomes. The project is an EHR Core Research (ECR) Level 1 award, focused on STEM Learning and Learning Environments. A consensus is emerging about the benefits of student-centered pedagogies, like active learning, for students in college classrooms. However, less is known about how...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Joe Dauer, Tammy M Long

Institutions: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Michigan State University

This project aims to serve the national interest by conducting basic research about the neurobiology of learning in undergraduate life sciences education. This Level 1 STEM learning and learning environments project aims to broaden understanding of who is affected by modeling-based instruction in undergraduate life sciences, and how they are affected. Modeling is vital to STEM professions and national standards call for modeling instruction at all levels of STEM education. Despite behavioral...

Effective: 2020-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Julia St Goar

Institution: Merrimack College

This award will support the development of research to investigate key developmental mathematics understandings of undergraduates who are intending to become teachers. Many secondary teachers learned geometry through proving theorems. Current secondary standards and guidelines favor a vastly different approach that focuses on geometric transformations, such as reflection of a shape against an axis. This difference in learning approaches provides an important STEM education question: how do...