Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Joshua A Danish, Ravit Golan Duncan

Institutions: Indiana University, Rutgers University New Brunswick

The goal of this project is to help students learn to use different kinds of evidence in thinking about and creating models of complex systems. Thinking about systems is increasingly important for students to understand complex topics in science and engineering. Building models based on evidence is important for helping students think critically in general, and about complex systems ideas in particular. To support students in these efforts, the project develops an easy-to-use software modeling...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: James C Lester

Institution: North Carolina State University

This project is supported by the Education and Human Resources Core Research (ECR) program, which supports fundamental research in STEM learning and learning environments. Self-regulated learning requires learners to set learning goals, plan how to achieve them, monitor the success of their plans, and make needed changes. Critical gaps exist in our understanding of how and to what extent middle school students can engage in self-regulated learning during science inquiry activities. Analogous...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Martha W Alibali

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Biological variation is among the most important ideas in modern science. Variability among members of a species provides the foundation for theories of genetics, natural selection, and evolution. However, people typically underestimate the amount of variability that occurs within a species over the life span of animals and from one generation to the next. Children especially seem to have cognitive biases that members of a species are largely identical. To improve children's learning about...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Andrew S Hanks, Kevin M Kniffin

Institutions: Ohio State University, Cornell University

Researchers at Cornell and Ohio State Universities will apply an economic framework to examine the risks, rewards, and benefits of the choice to pursue interdisciplinary dissertation research among early, mid- and later career Ph.D. students and degree holders. Using data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, Survey of Doctorate Recipients, and the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science, they will compare competing definitions of interdisciplinary research and analyze and map trends...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Kelley Durkin

Institution: Vanderbilt University

This study continues a longitudinal study that began with students in preschool and will follow them into high school in a large, urban school district including a large number of African-American students and low-income students. The study is a unique opportunity to learn about how the students go through school from preschool through the end of high school. This opportunity will examine how their readiness for STEM careers and their beliefs about STEM. Their path through school will...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jennifer M Bekki, Kerrie G Wilkins-Yel

Institutions: Arizona State University, Indiana University, University of Massachusetts Boston

This study will investigate the associations between perceived supports and persistence for both majority (Caucasian) women and underrepresented minority (URM) women in STEM doctoral programs. Women leave doctoral programs in STEM at higher rates than their white male counterparts. Reducing the attrition of these talented individuals from STEM is of particular importance given that diversity at all levels of the STEM workforce has been shown to benefit the outcomes of related scientific...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Tama Leventhal

Institution: Tufts University

This project seeks to broaden the participation of an important underrepresented group in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Mexican-origin children, one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population, often come from disadvantaged circumstances that increase their need to use public education for social mobility while also posing challenges to navigating the public education system. Yet, Mexican-origin families are rich in social resources that can be leveraged to...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Thomas Cook

Institution: George Washington 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: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sandra Simpkins

Institution: University of California-Irvine

High school is a critical turning point in many students' STEM coursework and career trajectories. For example, students' math motivation peaks in high school yet 45% of 10th graders who express interest in pursuing a STEM career lose that interest by the end of high school. Adolescents with minimal math and science high school coursework are extremely unlikely to either try or be able to enter STEM college majors and careers. To change these trends, it is necessary to understand how best to...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lois Joy

Institution: Jobs for the Future, Inc.

Jobs for the Future is conducting a research project in collaboration with Wested that will examine the impact of STEM work-based-learning (WBL) in community colleges. The researchers will use social cognitive career theory (SCCT) as a framework and mixed-methods design to investigate research questions regarding (1) differences in student participants and motivation to participate in community college STEM work-based-learning, (2) structures of community college STEM WBL opportunities and...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David S Yeager

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This study will add to foundational knowledge by building theory about broadening participation of underrepresented minority groups (students of color, young women, students from low SES families, students with disabilities, English language learners), and intersections among them, in STEM education. The study will use data from the National Study of Learning Mindsets (NSLM),...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Julia I Lane, Jason Owen-Smith, Bruce A Weinberg

Institutions: New York University, Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ohio State University

The project is a collaborative effort involving researchers from New York University, Ohio State University, and University of Michigan Ann Arbor who are extending work on a previous project that links multiple data sets to conduct longitudinal analyses of STEM student outcomes. The current project leverages the research infrastructure that was supported by prior awards to examine how peer effects, network connections, and employer demand shape career outcomes for doctoral students. It...

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Sarah J Fick

Institutions: Washington State University, University of Virginia Main Campus

This project will convene a group of scholars in K-12 science education for a workshop that will lay fundamental conceptual groundwork for research on how crosscutting concepts (CCCs) can inform science teaching and learning. CCCs, along with disciplinary core ideas and scientific practices, reflect a new vision of science proficiency expressed in recent national and state science education frameworks and standards. This vision integrates the "knowing" and "doing" of authentic science and...

Effective: 2018-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Odis D Johnson Jr

Institutions: Washington University, Johns Hopkins University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This project will conduct an early stage exploratory study of an untested idea that will address the nation's STEM workforce needs. It will use a radically different approach to uncover barriers that impede broader participation by specific race-gender groups in STEM fields. The study will investigate whether school policies and practices regarding safety, discipline, school...

Effective: 2018-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Kathryn H Shows

Institution: Virginia State University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This project will explore an early-stage, untested intervention aimed at promoting ways to help underrepresented minority students succeed in introductory biology courses and persist in STEM careers. The project will study whether combining team-based geocaching gameplay with near-peer mentoring will help students master content and skills in biology. It will also examine...

Effective: 2018-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Maria Ong

Institution: TERC Inc

This project will review and synthesize existing literature on factors that impact the interest, participation, retention and success of women of color in computing and technology fields. This type of project informs areas for future research and helps to identify promising practices that others can implement. The project will result in a report to help inform those who are practitioners in STEM education, STEM employers, and STEM policy makers. This project is a mixed-methods meta-synthesis...

Effective: 2018-2020

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: William R Penuel

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This conference will provide a venue for state science coordinators from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories and their teams to learn about tools and practices that will help them identify, analyze, and adapt resources that shape educational opportunities in science co-designed through the Advancing Coherent and Equitable Systems of Science Education...

Effective: 2018-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Daniel Kuehn

Institution: Urban Institute

The Urban Institute will conduct an exploratory mixed method study of STEM apprenticeship programs to provide a foundational understanding of the characteristics and performance of STEM apprentices, including the experiences of underrepresented minorities in STEM apprenticeship programs. The proposed research also will investigate the program-level determinants of success, including program design elements that lead to higher completion rates and wage growth for apprentices. Elements of...

Effective: 2018-2019

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Institution: University of Southern California

This award to the University of Southern California will provide partial support for the International, Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) conference to be held in Los Angeles in September 2018. It is a unique opportunity for a broad range of researchers and educators with interest in educational neuroscience to engage with other communities, affording researchers the opportunity to learn nuances of translating their work for other researchers and practitioners, and for educational...

Effective: 2018-2019

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Julie A Luft

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

This two-day conference addresses a thorny issue in K-12 education, out-of-field science teaching, or the reality that science teachers regularly find themselves responsible for teaching content or in contexts that are outside their area of expertise. For example, teachers who have expertise working with students in the upper elementary grades might find themselves responsible for teaching first grade or kindergarten. Or, teachers with expertise in one area of science might find themselves...

Effective: 2018-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Thomas B Hoffer

Institution: National Opinion Research Center

The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago will conduct a spring 2019 conference and related preparatory tasks focused on how doctoral-granting universities and their doctoral programs can collect and utilize data on STEM PhD career pathways. The overarching objective of the project is to help develop widely-shared standards for the kind of career outcomes that should be measured; the methods for collecting the data; and the ways in which data should be analyzed...

Effective: 2018-2019

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: David J Kraemer

Institution: Dartmouth College

Creativity in STEM is the difference between basic competency and innovative advancement. To foster continued innovation, it is essential that we develop new methods to foster students' creative thinking skills in STEM. However, many issues regarding creativity remain unresolved. For example, we know little about how creativity develops, how the brain gives rise to creativity, and what sorts of educational experiences can make a student more creative over time. Indeed, even determining how to...

Effective: 2017-2024

Funding Type: Other

Principal Investigator: Felice J Levine

Institution: American Educational Research Association

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Adam E Green, Robert A Kolvoord, David J Kraemer, David H Uttal

Institutions: Georgetown University, James Madison University, Dartmouth College, Northwestern University

Spatial thinking is a powerful driver of success in the STEM classroom and spatial thinking is a major predictor of future STEM success in the workforce. The brain systems that support spatial thinking have been well mapped by neuroscience to allow clear interpretation of new brain-imaging data. Recent advances in tools used to analyze brain activity allow detection of changes in the brains of students that signify accurate learning of STEM concepts. This advance may open a window onto...

Effective: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Dara Shifrer

Institution: Portland State University

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant will establish an integrated research and education program focused on questions underlying persistent underrepresentation of racial minorities, youth with lower socioeconomic status (SES), and disability classifications in STEM fields. In general, there is a lack of clear direction for addressing these disparities. The project aims to promote understanding of the conditions under which racial minorities, persons with disabilities, and...

Effective: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2024

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: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Mary C Murphy

Institution: Indiana University

This project consists of a large randomized-controlled trial (RCT) of a social psychological intervention with college students. The social-belonging intervention seeks to normalize the students' experience of struggle in the transition to college and provides productive strategies to help students perceive initial challenges with adjustment as relatively commonplace and not indicative of a lack of belonging. The project examines the experimental effects of the belonging intervention on the...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Victoria M Hand, Elizabeth A Van Es

Institutions: University of Colorado at Boulder, University of California-Irvine

The project will examine how teachers can engage a broad range of learners in rigorous mathematical activity. A significant component of this work is designing and investigating a process of mathematics teachers' learning to attend to students' mathematical reasoning and participation in their learning. A particular focus of the work will be investigating how teachers' pay attention to student engagement in their classrooms from an equity perspective. The three goals of the project include...

Effective: 2017-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Eric W Welch

Institution: Arizona State University

A team of researchers from Arizona State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Arkansas will investigate factors affecting the retention of foreign STEM higher education faculty in the US and those factors leading to their being more productive members of the workforce and advancing STEM in this country. In an era of global competition for academic STEM talent, and despite the high representation of foreign STEM faculty in US post-secondary institutions, significant...

Effective: 2017-2023

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: 2017-2023

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 Investigator: Karla K McGregor

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

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: 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: 2017-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Diana Franklin, Cathy N Thomas

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

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: 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...