Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Gena Nelson

Institutions: Boise State University, University of Oregon Eugene

This project is designed to explore how adults, including parents and childcare providers, can help children better learn mathematics in informal settings. To do so, this research study will conduct a meta-analysis of mathematics teaching strategies used in informal learning environments, such as museums, libraries, and the home. A meta-analysis examines published research data, paying close attention to differences in findings, and uses statistics to analyze the findings across different...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Lisa B Limeri

Institutions: Texas Tech University, University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

This project aims to develop a rigorous, evidence-based survey to measure the "mindset" of undergraduate STEM students. Mindset is a psychological trait that may influence student success and persistence. The mindset construct refers to whether a student believes that intelligence is a trait that is innate and unchangeable (called a fixed mindset) or malleable and improvable (called a growth mindset). When students struggle academically, it has been shown that those with a growth mindset are...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens

Institution: Clemson University

Society’s reliance on digital technologies has resulted in enormous amounts of data being recorded, sorted, and analyzed. While improving human efficiency and life quality, data analytics can also reproduce inequities and further marginalize those from non-dominant populations, including women, people of color, and those who live in poverty. This two-year Building Capacity in STEM Education Research Individual Investigator Development project addresses this issue by developing a data science...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Christopher S Hulleman

Institution: University of Virginia Main Campus

The transition to online instruction necessitated by the COVID pandemic has created significant uncertainty for the nation’s college faculty, many of whom have not previously taught online. This research would examine how faculty mindsets about themselves and their students, as well as faculty perceptions of their university/college system’s messages about the transition, relate to their responses to the challenge of rapidly transitioning their teaching online, the quality of instruction...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Susan A Gelman

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

In the current COVID-19 crisis, 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. Children play an important role in the transmission of contagious illness, given how frequently they engage in risky behaviors such as touching their faces or making physical contact with caregivers. Public health recommendations include teaching best practice to children to reduce disease spread,...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigators: Chi-Ning Chang, Guan K Saw

Institutions: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc, Claremont Graduate University, University of Texas at San Antonio

Researchers from the University of Texas at San Antonio and University of Kansas will examine how electronic mentoring (e-mentoring) affects student academic, career, and mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an important topic particularly for faculty who are forced to continue mentoring and supporting students through computer-mediated communication technology. The study investigates the life and work challenges for engineering graduate students affected by the COVID-19...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Eric Hamilton

Institution: Pepperdine University

This project 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. ECR supports projects that 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 distinguished...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: David J Purpura

Institution: Purdue University

This award to Purdue University provides partial support for a conference focused on the home numeracy environment (HNE). The conference addresses this critically important topic, drawing on researchers from a range of disciplines and literatures. A robust finding across these literatures is that achievement gaps in math exist at preschool and largely persist through high school. Though it is clear that socio-economic status (SES) plays a significant role in producing these gaps, a better...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: David R Schaefer

Institution: University of California-Irvine

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted universities worldwide to abruptly shift to remote learning. This coincides with a critical social change as students are urged to leave campus, “social distance,” and shelter-in-place; practices that will disrupt social network functioning and could lead to feelings of isolation, reduced motivation, and poorer learning outcomes. Worse, the social and academic consequences could be more severe for less academically prepared students (e.g., underrepresented...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lei Liu

Institution: Educational Testing Service

The goal of this project, led by a team at Educational Testing Services, is to develop automated tools by which assessments aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) can be scored to reveal student reasoning patterns, some of which would reflect particular weaknesses in student reasoning. Reasoning patterns refer to various ways of student thinking when making sense of a natural phenomenon or trying to solve a problem. The investigators will conduct a proof of concept study to...

Effective: 2020-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Matthew T Hora

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions will partner with Parker Dewey to generate a robust mixed-methods dataset about the impact of online internships on student progression. Internships, mandated by many STEM academic programs, are a form of work-based learning that can lead to academic and workforce success for undergraduate and graduate students. Traditional face-to-face internships also can enhance students’ social...

Effective: 2019-2026

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

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

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

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

Effective: 2019-2025

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Laura Stapleton

Institution: University of Maryland, College Park

Despite the persistent under representation of individuals from underserved populations in STEM, there are not enough scholars and early career researchers trained to adequately study the issues. This training institute project will target early career scholars with research foci on issues of access and equity of underrepresented populations in STEM within either K-12 or postsecondary settings. The goal of the training institute is to focus on and improve education research study design,...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sapna Cheryan

Institution: University of Washington

This EHR Core Research award is focused on broadening participation in computer science by investigating whether reframing academic interest as something malleable that must be discovered (i.e., a growth mindset of interest) helps remedy gender gaps in computer science. Despite the overall narrowing of the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the percentage of women computer science majors has remained less than 20% and has even decreased in recent...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: 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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Emily A Dringenberg

Institution: Ohio State University

This EHR Core Research project involves a qualitative, exploratory study that will collect interview data to capture the beliefs and identities of first-year engineering students with respect to intelligence and engineering. Participants will be enrolled in the same introductory engineering courses across six distinct institutionalized pathways. Despite significant efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, those who earn engineering undergraduate degrees...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: 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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Moira R Dillon

Institution: New York University

Only humans are capable of doing formal mathematics, like the geometry in Euclid's Elements. The arguments and proofs of this geometry require one to imagine points so small they have no dimension and lines that extend so far they never end. And yet the points and lines experienced in everyday life have dimension and are finite. Where do the uniquely human ideas of abstract points and lines come from? To what extent does human reasoning work with idealizations and abstractions and to what...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Michael W Giamellaro

Institution: Oregon State University

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: 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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lara C Perez-Felkner

Institution: Florida State University

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: 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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Nathanial P Brown

Institution: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Tessa C Andrews

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

Active-learning instruction refers to teaching methods that engage students during a significant amount of class time in work designed to help them learn. When compared with traditional lecturing, studies have shown that active-learning instruction can enhance students' science learning. Active learning is also associated with increased retention of underrepresented minorities in science courses. However, studies also show that the learning gains achieved in active-learning classrooms vary...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Claire W Wladis

Institution: CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College

This research project will investigate whether online courses provide increased access to college and STEM degrees, particularly for students typically underrepresented in STEM fields. Annually, between 28% and 36% of all post-secondary students in the U.S. enroll in at least one online course. The growth in online course enrollment contrasts with an overall decline in college enrollment. Thus, continued online course growth will have an escalating impact on degree progression and attainment....

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

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

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

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Vanessa Rodriguez

Institutions: New York University, 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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Erin L Dolan

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: 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: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ming-Te Wang

Institutions: University of Pittsburgh, University of Chicago

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Michael Young

Institutions: Iowa State University, Carnegie-Mellon University

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: 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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David I Miller

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sara Cordes

Institution: Boston College

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Teomara Rutherford

Institutions: University of Delaware, North Carolina State University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate fundamental knowledge in the field. This Early Faculty Career Development project supports the generation of knowledge through the building of a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research in STEM disciplines. It will examine ways to address a national concern for strengthening students' mathematics competency by enhancing their content knowledge in and motivation for...

Effective: 2019-2024

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: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Cassandra Guarino

Institution: University of California-Riverside

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

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jonathan D Bostic, Erin E Krupa

Institutions: Bowling Green State University, North Carolina State University

As education has shifted more towards data-driven policy and research initiatives in the last several decades, data for policy-related aspects are often expected to be more quantitative in nature. This has led to the increase in use of more quantitative measures in STEM education, including mathematics education. Unfortunately, evidence regarding the validity and reliability of mathematics education measures is lacking. Furthermore, the evidence for validity for quantitative tools and measures...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Michael N Solem

Institution: Texas State University - San Marcos

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Guan K Saw

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

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

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: 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: 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...