Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Christina Krist

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 19-508. The ECR program of fundamental research in STEM education provides funding in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. EHR seeks proposals that will help synthesize, build and/or expand research foundations in the following focal areas: STEM learning, STEM learning environments, STEM workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. The ECR program is...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Brian Nosek

Institution: Center for Open Science

The Center for Open Science (COS) will create an EHR Core Research (ECR) Data Resource Hub to facilitate rigorous and reproducible research practices such as data sharing and study registration across the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education research community. The Hub will integrate training materials, infrastructure, community engagement, and innovation in research to advance rigorous research skills and behavior. In addition, the Hub will foster innovation in...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Min Li

Institution: University of Washington

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 19-508. The ECR program of fundamental research in STEM education provides funding in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. EHR seeks proposals that will help synthesize, build and/or expand research foundations in the following focal areas: STEM learning, STEM learning environments, STEM workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. The ECR program is...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Michael N Solem

Institution: Texas State University - San Marcos

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Michael W Giamellaro

Institution: Oregon State University

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Guan K Saw

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

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Alena C Moon

Institution: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Robust understandings of light and how it interacts with matter are essential across many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. To design more effective instruction about these concepts, we need to better understand how students' ideas about light develop. Of notable importance is helping students' move from an intuitive view of light based on everyday experiences to a more scientific understanding of light and its interactions with matter, including interactions at...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Hilary C Barth

Institution: Wesleyan University

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 19-508. The ECR program of fundamental research in STEM education provides funding in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. EHR seeks proposals that will help synthesize, build and/or expand research foundations in the following focal areas: STEM learning, STEM learning environments, STEM workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. The ECR program is...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Melissa Mazmanian

Institution: University of California-Irvine

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ross J Benbow

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: David C Geary, Perla L Myers

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

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lara C Perez-Felkner

Institution: Florida State University

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Amy B Ellis

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

With funding from the EHR Core Research Program, this project will investigate how productive mathematical generalization can be supported in whole-classroom settings. Generalization is the ability to recognize patterns in relationships between numbers. An example of generalization is recognizing that 2 + 3 = 5, and generalizing that adding any even number to any odd number will produce an odd number. Generalization is a critical component of mathematical reasoning. As a result, researchers and...

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 Investigator: Ilaria Berteletti

Institution: Gallaudet University

Early proficiency in math is related to later math performance, and more general academic achievement, as well as employment success. Deaf children already lag behind in math upon entrance in kindergarten. At the socio-economic level, this means these children are not entering STEM-related fields which are seen as a growing part of the workforce and an engine for continued economic development. In this project, the team will investigate how early language experiences can impact the acquisition...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Michael K Scullin

Institution: Baylor University

More than half of all college students are habitually sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation is known to have powerful, detrimental effects generally on brain functioning, yet the extent of its specific effects on mental activity is unknown. This project, led by researchers at Baylor University, will bring together a collaborative team of sleep scientists, educators, cognitive neuroscientists, and statisticians to address theoretical and applied issues at the nexus of sleep, creativity, and STEM...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Joseph E Dunsmoor Jr

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

The goal of this project, led by a new investigator at the University of Texas, is to understand the conditions by which poor learning can be transformed into a durable memory, with the ultimate goal of improving educational outcomes. The project leverages groundbreaking behavioral neuroscience research in rodents showing that weak memories can be enhanced through exposure to novelty around the time of learning. It is known that novelty exposure stimulates the molecular and cellular processes...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Larry V Hedges

Institution: Northwestern University

The primary goal of this set of workshops is to provide STEM education researchers with the framework, skills, and community they need to implement new developments in causal inference methods into their research. These methods will be immediately implementable in their current (or near future) studies and will result in stronger causal findings, providing higher-quality evidence regarding the potential of new innovations to improve STEM education broadly. Additionally, a secondary goal is to...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Nathanial P Brown

Institution: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Heather Griller Clark, Michael Krezmien

Institutions: Arizona State University, University of Massachusetts Amherst

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

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

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

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Vanessa Rodriguez

Institution: New York University Medical Center

This award to New York University will provide support for a workshop on Mind, Brain, and Education scheduled to be held in New York City in January 2020. It will bring researchers from multiple fields (e.g., education research, cognitive science, neuroscience) together with education practitioners (e.g., teachers, district leaders, parents) to share ideas about brain research and STEM learning in both formal and informal contexts. It will be an opportunity for researchers to share the results...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sidney D'Mello

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

The project, based at the University of Colorado, will advance fundamental knowledge on learning from complex STEM texts. This is a critical skill for success in an increasingly information-driven world and workforce, but it is also an area where students consistently struggle. Scores on standardized assessments are stubbornly stagnant, troublesome achievement gaps remain, and the U.S. continues to lag behind its international peers. This is especially relevant to the reading of complex STEM...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

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

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

The project is supported through the EHR Core Research: Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) competition that is designed to build individual capacity to carry out high quality fundamental STEM education research in STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM fields, and STEM workforce development. The goal of the Modern Meta-Analysis Research Institute (MMARI) is to improve the quality of meta-analyses conducted in STEM education by increasing...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Erin L Dolan

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heather Hill

Institution: Harvard University

The long-term goal of this project, funded by EHR's Core Research Program, is to guide and support teacher education programs. Significant research work is currently available about how to best train STEM K-12 teachers. As a result, it is an appropriate time to reflect on what educational researchers have already learned and plan for new research designs and methods that can sustain and extend improvements in STEM teacher education. This project will work with STEM teacher educators to study...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Megan Franke

Institution: University of California-Los Angeles

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Funded by the EHR Core Research Program, this project addresses the need for the development of and research about a near real-time observation tool to improve mathematics classrooms. The observation tool will provide information about the kinds of student interactions in mathematics classrooms that are known to predict student outcomes. The level of detail obtained...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Nadia Chernyak, Sara Cordes

Institutions: University of California-Irvine, Boston College

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 19-508. The ECR program of fundamental research in STEM education provides funding in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. EHR seeks proposals that will help synthesize, build and/or expand research foundations in the following focal areas: STEM learning, STEM learning environments, STEM workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. The ECR program is...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ming-Te Wang

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Michael Young

Institutions: Carnegie-Mellon University, Iowa State University

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: Other

Principal Investigator: Philip L Bell

Institution: University of Washington

This project will examine how partnerships among state science leaders, education researchers and education practitioners cultivate vertical coherence and equity in state science education. This is an important study because in most states, the student population is becoming more diverse, and states need help in finding ways to better serve schools and districts within their jurisdictions. Through this effort, state science leaders will participate in a networked improvement community model...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Matthew T Hora

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David I Miller

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

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

Effective: 2019-2023

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: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Matthew L Bernacki

Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

This project, based at the University of North Carolina, will seek to advance fundamental knowledge about self-regulated learning (SRL) and, critically, how to assess it. SRL is a rough construct that includes cognitive strategy choice, metacognitive monitoring, motivation, and affect. SRL has been associated with STEM learning success; students benefit most from innovative instructional envirionments -- such as online learning -- when they are adept at regulating their own learning by actively...

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: 2019-2023

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: 2019-2022

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Erin Lynch

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

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: 2019-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Olusola O Adesope, Erika Patall

Institutions: Washington State University, University of Southern California

Individuals can develop misconceptions from many sources, ranging from incorrect information in online searches to experiences of everyday life. An example is the persistence of thinking that winter happens because the earth is further away from the sun and summer happens because it is closer. (The earth is about the same distance away in both seasons, but the earth's tilt affects the angle at which the sun's rays hit the surface of the northern versus southern hemispheres.) Misconceptions can...

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: Guinevere Eden

Institution: Georgetown University

Math and reading disabilities (MD and RD) are prevalent learning disabilities (LDs) that often interfere with academic, social, and vocational success. Children with these LDs often struggle in STEM related subjects due to the importance of numerical and written materials in these fields. These LDs often co-occur together (MD+RD), and even children with RD-only show impaired performance on some aspects of mathematics. To date, it is unclear how these disorders are related to each other and...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Elizabeth A Gunderson

Institution: Temple University

STEM learning is crucial for a well-prepared workforce, yet many students do not reach their potential in STEM. The roots of these individual differences can be traced back to school entry. Spatial skills - mentally representing and manipulating spatial information - strongly predict STEM achievement, course-taking, and careers. By 1st grade, children vary widely in spatial skills, pointing to the home environment's crucial role. The proposed research, led by a team of researchers at Temple...

Effective: 2018-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Zhe Wang

Institutions: Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University

This project will examine the role that mathematics anxiety plays in impeding the development of mathematical competency. Mathematics anxiety describes the feeling of fear and apprehension experienced prior to or during math related activities. It is a highly prevalent emotion in the student population. Highly math anxious students, compared to their low math anxiety counterparts, exhibit lower math achievement and less interest in math-related career paths. To understand more precisely why and...

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: Jennifer Czocher

Institution: Texas State University - San Marcos

Maintaining an effective pipeline of students into STEM careers depends upon their ability to learn mathematical modeling. Mathematical modeling involves creating a mathematical representation that can describe a nonmathematical problem. This CAREER: Scaffolding Strategies for Undergraduate Mathematics Modeling Skills project is designed to increase understanding about how students learn mathematical modeling, and then to use that information to improve teaching of mathematical modeling....

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: John L Nietfeld

Institution: North Carolina State University

The goal of this Education and Human Resources Core Research project is to better understand how technology-based learning environments impact students' scientific literacy. The project will address the need to equip students with the skills to read and interpret scientific texts in a manner that facilitates solving real-world scientific problems. The learning environment will deliver "missions" related to three essential curricular units pertinent to 5th grade built in a framework potentially...