Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Kathleen H Corriveau

Institution: Trustees of Boston University

The United States invests over $600 billion on public K-12 education every year to further the Nation's prosperity and welfare. The National Science Foundation's CAREER program supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research. This CAREER project dissects and characterizes science explanations in formal and informal learning settings to uncover best practices for optimizing...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Thomas P Dick

Institution: Oregon State University

Combinatorics problems in mathematics are fundamental to the effective analysis and development of efficient algorithms, and they have invaluable applications in fields such as computer science and probability. This project will contribute towards the national need for basic research related to improving computational thinking and problem solving abilities in the workforce by investigating students' learning and understanding of key topics and ideas from combinatorial mathematics. However,...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lois Weis

Institution: SUNY at Buffalo

Although we have some evidence of the effects of state policy on postsecondary costs, tuition waivers, and earmarked grants for college attendance, we have little evidence of the effects of STEM-specific state policy defined as math and science course requirements for high school graduation, and presence or absence of high-stakes testing on high school opportunities and short and long term outcomes for STEM. Although students interested in STEM pursue varying paths toward STEM degrees and...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Lorraine Males

Institution: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

There are a growing number of curriculum resources available to secondary mathematics teachers and most teachers use curriculum materials in mathematics instruction. This project will investigate how to help pre-service teachers use mathematics curriculum materials purposefully to plan and to teach. A focus of this work is curricular noticing or how teachers interpret and respond to curriculum resources. A component of helping pre-service teachers prepare for the classroom is helping them...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Mary M Atwater

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This project will examine ways to broaden participation in STEM for science education faculty of African ancestry and science education Latino/a faculty. Research shows that science and science education faculty and students from these populations regularly face intentional and unintentional acts of racial microaggressions...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Eric Deemer, Aryn M Dotterer

Institutions: Purdue University, Utah State University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. As such, this study will build on an emerging body of research about ways to broaden the representation of the African American undergraduate students in STEM fields. This type of research is highly important since studies show that racial bias weaken scientific identity in STEM by triggering and perpetuating threatening stereotypes that African Americans do not have the...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Karla K McGregor

Institutions: University of Iowa, Father Flanagan's Boys' Home

The sophisticated language of science can be a barrier to the learning of science, and this is especially true for children whose abilities to produce and comprehend language are deficient, including children at risk for dyslexia. The purpose of this project is to test interventions that have the potential to ameliorate language as a barrier to science learning. To isolate the active ingredient, two separate interventions - one addressing grammar and the other addressing vocabulary - will be...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Gerald R Marschke

Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc

The National Bureau of Economic Research will create a new database to measure the labor market outcomes of STEM PhDs and postdocs. The research will measure flows of STEM graduates into different economic sectors, estimate the returns on educational investments for STEM PhDs and postdocs, and analyze the determinants of STEM labor demand in industry. The study will formulate and estimate new models of labor demand based on state-of-the-art econometric methods and innovative identification...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Benjamin S Clarke

Institution: University of Oregon Eugene

Students who perform poorly in mathematics early in school are at risk for continuing to struggle in mathematics throughout elementary school and beyond. Recent empirical studies of targeted interventions for students at-risk in mathematics indicate overall effectiveness at positively impacting student outcomes. However, a subset of students fail to exhibit a positive response to generally efficacious intervention programs. To date limited research has investigated the behavioral, cognitive,...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Roger Azevedo

Institutions: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees, North Carolina State University

The project is supported by the Education and Human Resource Core Research program, which supports fundamental research in STEM learning and learning environments. It is important to find new ways to support students' ability to construct, analyze, critique, and use models of STEM phenomena. Given that teachers are the main mediator of any educational innovation, it is imperative to support STEM teachers to effectively engage students in critical thinking skills. This project involves the...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jonathan E Cook

Institution: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This study will examine whether stress from psychological threat helps explain why nearly half of doctoral students overall and even higher rates of women and underrepresented minority students leave graduate school before attaining their terminal STEM degrees. The proposed research will be guided by the self-affirmation theory in determining whether social psychological...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Mary Blair-Loy

Institution: University of California-San Diego

The underrepresentation of women faculty in STEM limits the potential for scientific creativity and reduces available role models for female undergraduate and graduate students pursuing STEM careers. Research on implicit bias indicates that women candidates for faculty positions are less likely to be selected than men. It is critical to understand the experiences of hiring committee members, and of candidates for faculty positions, in order to advance STEM academic hiring practices. Having a...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Ebony O McGee

Institution: Vanderbilt University

The EHR Core Research program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This essential research will examine ways to broaden participation in engineering and computing through a multi-tiered research design that studies how race-related bias and microaggressive acts affect the career trajectories of Black, Native American, and Latino/a doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers. The research will examine three main variables in...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Brian Donovan

Institution: BSCS Science Learning

This project draws on the relation between genetics instruction and psychological biases associated with the development of racial stereotyping. Previous research has suggested that when students are taught genetics in particular ways, it increases faulty assumptions. For example, learning about the prevalence of sickle cell anemia in people of African descent and the prevalence of Cystic Fibrosis in people of European descent can cause middle and high school students to infer that racial...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Yi Zhang

Institution: University of Texas at Arlington

The ECR (Education and Human Resources Core Research) program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. As transfer students continue to use community colleges as stepping stones to pursue STEM degrees, it is important to understand the unique challenges these students encounter and the diversity within this important student population. This study will develop a transfer student typology and investigate its relationships with...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Suzanne T Ortega

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

The Council of Graduate Schools will collect and analyze detailed quantitative data of STEM doctoral students and alumni at different phases of their careers to determine if those who pursue academic positions have fundamentally different career progression, values, or work responsibilities compared to those who seek and hold nonacademic jobs. The project will track career pathways for alumni cohorts three, eight, and 15 years from PhD degree award from 15 STEM doctoral granting institutions to...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Diana Franklin, Cathy N Thomas

Institutions: University of Chicago, University of Missouri-Columbia, Texas State University - San Marcos

In order to produce a more competitive, computer-literate domestic workforce ready to be computational innovators, this project seeks to improve computer science instruction at the upper elementary school level. It will create strategies for teaching a diverse set of students, including students with learning disabilities, English language learners, and students with a variety of ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It will draw on decades of research on reading comprehension to drive...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David C Geary

Institution: University of Missouri-Columbia

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 15-509. 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: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David W Shaffer

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

This project was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 15-509. 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: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lucas C Parra

Institution: CUNY City College

When a teacher is presenting new material during class or online, are students actually paying attention? The ambitious goal of this project is to objectively measure students' attentional engagement during learning using electroencephalography (EEG). Specifically, it measures students' brain activity as they watch online educational videos, and then compares their neural activity to how well they perform on traditional measures of learning such as tests and quizzes. If successful, this project...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Nianbo Dong

Institutions: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Missouri-Columbia

This is a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project submitted to the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, responsive to Program Solicitation NSF 15-555. Its purpose is to develop a comprehensive framework to inform and investigate treatment effect variation in teacher professional development (PD) studies using multisite moderation studies focused on the variables that affect the direction and magnitude of the relation between the treatment variable and the outcome variable. The study will...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Gavin R Price

Institution: Vanderbilt University

Math skills are a strong predictor of life success, yet many people struggle to acquire basic numerical and mathematical skills. Being able to fluently process symbolic numbers (i.e. Arabic digits) is a key foundation for the development of basic math skills. However, very little is known about the brain systems which support the processing numerical symbols, how those systems develop in the early school years, and how they are related to math skill development. Understanding the development of...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ala Samarapungavan

Institution: Purdue University

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 15-509. 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: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nora S Newcombe

Institution: Temple University

People with strong spatial skills are more likely to show interest and success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Fortunately, spatial skills are malleable, and improvements in them are durable and generalizable. Increasing spatial skills during educational training may be one route towards increasing the STEM workforce. However, there are two gaps in current knowledge. First, existing research concentrates almost exclusively on small-scale spatial skills such as...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: James C Lester

Institution: North Carolina State University

The project is supported by the Education and Human Resources Core Research program, which supports fundamental research in STEM learning and learning environments. Reflection plays a critical role in student learning and encompasses a broad range of cognitive and metacognitive processes enabling students to (1) think critically about their learning processes, (2) integrate new information with prior knowledge, (3) form and adapt learning strategies, (4) view concepts and knowledge from...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Sidney D'Mello, Nicholas D Duran, Valerie Shute

Institutions: University of Notre Dame, University of Colorado at Boulder, Arizona State University, Florida State University

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is an essential skill in our increasingly connected and globalized world. Yet, there is a paucity of knowledge on how to define, measure, and develop this skill, especially in the context of STEM learning. A team of investigators from Notre Dame University, Florida State University, and Arizona State University will seek to discover how interpersonal interactions arise and influence CPS processes and outcomes in digital STEM learning environments. The...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jennifer H Doherty, Kevin Haudek

Institutions: University of Washington, Michigan State University

The complex societal problems of increasing agricultural production to meet the needs of 9 billion people by 2050, and caring for an aging population with increasingly more complex neurological and cardiovascular health issues require future scientists, physicians, and allied health professionals to develop expertise in organismal physiology. In physiology, as in other disciplines, becoming an expert in a field requires the abilities to recognize, understand and effectively reason using the...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: H. L Swanson

Institution: University of New Mexico

Working memory (WM) difficulties may explain low math performance among Spanish speaking children who are English language learners (ELL). Although math difficulties have been partially attributed to cross-language transfer, oral language, linguistic complexity, and reading skill, other processes, such as WM, may play a significant role in such children's mathematics disabilities. This study will comprehensively assess three models (domain specific knowledge, phonological memory, executive...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Steven L Franconeri, Mary Hegarty, Mike Stieff

Institutions: Northwestern University, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Illinois at Chicago

A team of researchers from Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of California - Santa Barbara will investigate spatial thinking in STEM fields. Students and scientists who are talented in STEM fields also tend to a high capacity for spatial imagination -- they score highly on tasks that ask them to imagine rotations of shapes, or predict how shapes will look when they are folded. But attempts to train these abilities have not translated to...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jennifer G Cromley

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The project is supported by the Education and Human Resources Core Research (ECR) program, which supports fundamental research in STEM learning and learning environments. Learners are increasingly presented with scientific and math information in multiple media, such as narrated educational animations or illustrated hyperlinked websites. Some popular design principles used by developers of educational media are being eclipsed by new research, and new principles are needed to improve design,...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Elizabeth A Phillips

Institution: Michigan State University

The study will contribute knowledge about how to support students' learning and engagement in mathematics using a digital curriculum platform. The goal of the project is to study how the use of open-ended problems and "just-in-time" supports in a digital platform can promote inquiry-based mathematics learning. Increasing numbers of schools are using digital curriculum for mathematics. "Just-in-time" supports will give the students options for seeking help as they are working on an open problem...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Dan Goldhaber

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

There is a shortage of STEM teachers in middle and high schools and a concern about improving the efficacy of STEM teachers. Despite a tremendous investment in interventions targeted to the existing STEM teacher workforce, our nation has made little progress in identifying specific interventions that can improve STEM teacher effectiveness or increase the probability that individuals trained to be STEM teachers actually enter the public teaching workforce. By focusing exclusively on preservice...

Effective: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Ryan Baker, Bruce M McLaren

Institutions: University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie-Mellon University

In this research project, a team from Carnegie Mellow University and a team from the University of Pennsylvania will use data mining techniques to explore how and why interactive erroneous examples can benefit mathematics learners. The project team will iteratively refine existing, computer-based pedagogical materials based on an analysis of log data of hundreds of students who have used those materials to learn. The work will be done with middle school mathematics students, specifically sixth...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Philip J Kellman

Institution: University of California-Los Angeles

Developmental mathematics remains a critical obstacle to college readiness, involving large majorities of community college students and disproportionately impacting groups of students who are underrepresented in STEM - minority, low-income, and first generation college students. This project aims to improve our understanding of important instructional principles emanating from cognitive science that are related to success in community college mathematics. The studies in this project aim both...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David S Knight

Institutions: University of Texas at El Paso, University of Washington

Maintaining U.S. global competitiveness in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) industries requires increasing participation among traditionally underrepresented groups including people of color and women. Studies show creating more equal educational opportunities in the K-12 education system is an effective, socially just approach to expanding STEM participation. This study examines the impact of Texas Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (T-STEM) academies on (a) STEM...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David Poeppel

Institution: New York University

The STEM classroom is a highly dynamic social environment where students and teachers interact face-to-face in real time. These interactions are fundamental to the learning process. Yet our understanding of the brain basis of social interactions in the classroom is very limited. This project will use novel portable electroencephalogram (EEG) technology to record brain activity from a teacher and a group of students in a high school science classroom. The goal is to investigate whether...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David S Knight

Institutions: University of Washington, University of Texas at El Paso

Growth in the demand for workers with math and science skills places competing challenges for K-12 education. Schools are expected to prepare a new and more diverse group of leaders for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) industries, yet teachers with math and science training are increasingly valuable in the private sector. Teacher shortages, primarily in the fields of math and science, often require school leaders to fill positions with under-qualified teachers. Research is...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Julie J Park

Institution: University of Maryland, College Park

In the higher education settings for Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics (STEM), social ties and social capital contain critical resources that students need to understand through college and beyond. Deeper exploration of social capital and its impact on differing populations and how it may hinder equity in STEM education and workforce advancement is needed. The research examines the effect of social ties and social capital on key outcomes such as retention and job placement for STEM...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: P. Wesley Schultz

Institution: California State University San Marcos Corporation

Previous research has demonstrated that a strong Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) identity predicts persistence and success in STEM disciplines. Individuals identify themselves with STEM to varying degrees depending on their perceptions of STEM and their other important identities. This project will add to the tools available to researchers to measure STEM-identity, other identities, and identity balance by developing, piloting and testing a new measurement instrument and...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Andrew N Meltzoff

Institution: University of Washington

The underrepresentation of women in STEM disciplines is a societal problem with economic implications. Despite the narrowing of the gap in math performance between boys and girls in the past two decades, gender disparities still influence students' decisions to enter math-related careers. Young students' math self-concepts have been found to predict future choices in math-related domains. As early as elementary school--and in the absence of gender differences in math achievement--girls have...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Marvin Powell

Institution: George Mason University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. To that end, this research project will collect data about the experiences, beliefs, and praxis of Black mathematics teachers from historical and contemporary perspectives to: (a) inform recruitment and retention efforts; and (b) contribute to theory building. This study is highly important since the number of Black mathematics educators choosing to teach mathematics at the...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jenefer E Husman, Idalis Villanueva

Institutions: University of Oregon Eugene, Utah State University, University of Florida

A strong engineering workforce is critical to maintaining a dynamic and innovative United States economy. Engineering programs present considerable challenges, including the need to motivate students and the need for students to have positive attitudes toward learning. Prior research demonstrates that high motivation and positive attitudes towards learning occur when students feel in control of their own learning, place a high value on what they are studying, can regulate their anxiety, and...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nicole M McNeil

Institution: University of Notre Dame

Individual differences in children's early math understanding are driven, in part, by differences in children's early learning environments. However, it is unclear exactly how early learning environments should be structured to support the development of children's math understanding. Lack of such knowledge is a critical problem because, without it, scientists cannot explain and predict children's understanding of foundational math concepts, and parents and educators are left to rely on their...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Nicholas Giudice, Jenna Gorlewicz, Dr. Derrick Smith, Andreas M Stefik

Institutions: University of Maine, Saint Louis University, University of Alabama in Huntsville, University of Nevada Las Vegas

Students with disabilities often have fewer opportunities for experiential learning, an important component of quality STEM education. With continued shifts toward the use of digital media to supplement instruction in STEM classrooms, much of the content remains inaccessible, particular for students with visual impairments. The promise of technology and use of tactile graphics is an effective, emerging innovation for providing more complete access to important information and materials. Tactile...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jennifer Schmidt

Institution: Michigan State University

The ECR (Education and Human Resources Core Research) program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This study will investigate student engagement in science in the interest of of broadening participation in STEM fields. This will be an important undertaking since research shows that low student engagement is a major challenge for students from subpopulations often underrepresented in STEM fields. The research will help advance...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: James A Middleton

Institution: Arizona State University

The EHR Core Research program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This study will investigate high school students' experiences of engagement with mathematics and their motivation to learn, and the ways that classroom instructional climates do or do not support productive engagement with mathematics. As an important effort to help improve student achievement in mathematics nationally, this study will be grounded in three...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Walter Lee

Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University propose to conduct exploratory research through the EHR Core Research (ECR) program to further develop and validate a survey instrument that can be used by college administrators and student-support practitioners to assess the magnitude of institutional support received by undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). An instrument to do this work does not currently exist. Such an instrument...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Cindy E Hmelo-Silver, Toni K Rogat

Institutions: Indiana University, Purdue University

A team of researchers from Purdue University and Indiana University will look at how students in group settings become engaged in learning the core ideas and practices specific to STEM disciplines. The project team will develop theory and measures for observing collaborative group engagement during complex and meaningful learning tasks in middle school biology and math classes. The project outcomes will be broadly available for examining engagement in science and mathematics practices such as...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Patrick Shafto

Institution: Rutgers University Newark

Asking questions is a common way that families and teachers support children's learning, and different types of questions influence children's exploration and understanding. Yet we still know little about the role of questioning in STEM learning. This project investigates how and why certain types of questions may be better at fostering learning. In particular, in contrast to questions asked by a person seeking to learn something new (information-seeking questions), children may learn better...

Effective: 2017-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: David M Sobel, DEENA S WEISBERG

Institutions: Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, Villanova University

One of the most important processes in scientific thinking is belief revision: the ability to change an initial hypothesis in light of new evidence. In order to do this, children must be able to do two things. First, they must be able to reason about how the world works so that they can understand the causal systems they encounter, such as what causes earthquakes. Second, children must be able to think about their own knowledge and the process of learning so that they will know whether and how...