Effective: 2016-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nong Ye

Institution: Arizona State University

This project targets three significant gaps in the current state of knowledge relevant to engineering retention and success: 1) lack of knowledge on engineering retention and success characteristics based on interactive, concurrent effects of multiple factors, 2) lack of knowledge about engineering retention and success characteristics based on the modeling of variable relations that exist for some but not all values of variables or are different for different value ranges of variables, and 3)...

Effective: 2016-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Julia Aguirre, Mary Q Foote, Amy Roth-McDuffie, Erin Turner

Institutions: University of Washington, CUNY Queens College, Washington State University, University of Arizona

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: 2016-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jessica Andrews Todd

Institution: Educational Testing Service

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 distinguished by its emphasis on the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to (a) understand, (b)...

Effective: 2016-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: William R Penuel

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

The ECR (Education and Human Resources Core Research) program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. As such, the incoherence of state and local science systems is well-documented in the research literature, as are the ways that incoherence makes system-level improvements difficult to attain. This project will investigate the steps state level science educators and policymakers might take to help build coherent systems of science...

Effective: 2016-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Preeti Gupta

Institution: American Museum Natural History

This longitudinal research study will contribute to a broader understanding of the pathways of STEM-interested high school students from underrepresented groups who plan to pursue or complete science studies in their post-high school endeavors. The project will investigate the ways that formative authentic science experiences may support youth's persistence in STEM. The study focuses on approximately 900 urban youth who are high interest, high potential STEM students who participate in, or are...

Effective: 2016-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Mick Cunningham, Jennifer DeBoer, Julie Kmec

Institutions: Western Washington University, Purdue University, Washington State University

Non-technical AbstractWomen's participation in engineering is a crucial national priority. The shortage of engineers in the US weakens the country's position as a leader in the global market and restricts our capacity to solve infrastructural challenges. This project involves research in four countries (Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia) to assess the contextual factors that encourage women's participation in engineering in tertiary education and as a career. In three of the four...

Effective: 2016-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: James F Bowring, Louise Lyon

Institutions: College of Charleston, ETR Associates

ETR Associates and the College of Charleston will conduct a collaborative research project that is designed to increase diversity in computer science by exploring whether boot camps build students' adaptive expertise and how the actual preparation aligns with computing workforce expectations for knowledge and competencies. The study will be conducted in Silicon Valley in California and Silicon Harbor in South Carolina and will yield (1) models of the attributes of effective software developers...

Effective: 2016-2018

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Tamara R Sumner

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

This is an Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research research project to develop automated tools to aid in the development of mathematics teaching expertise in preservice teachers. Current research on preservice mathematics teacher instruction relies on observing preservice teachers interacting with students and recording their mathematical interactions to provide guidance and advice as how the preservice teachers can improve their teaching. This research requires highly trained observers...

Effective: 2016-2018

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Dr. Linda Coats

Institution: Mississippi State University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This conference proposal focuses on developing a research agenda that will explore ways to help African American female faculty at predominantly white institutions navigate the promotion and tenure process. The conference will establish a platform for intergroup discussions about diversity in the workplace, illuminate gaps in existing literature to help target future research,...

Effective: 2016-2017

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Christopher S Green

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

This award to the University of Wisconsin - Madison provides support for a conference on methodological issues surrounding claims about the efficacy of cognitive training interventions. The workshop is scheduled to be held in Boston, Massachusetts, in May, 2016. Much attention has been given to the potential benefits of computer-based learning interventions or games for fundamental aspects of cognition. Indeed, there is great public interest in the question and it has given rise to a growing...

Effective: 2016-2017

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Felice J Levine

Institution: American Educational Research Association

Replication and reproducibility are critically important tenets of the scientific process. Yet, many fields including education research struggle to regularly support and publish results from replication studies. Although important strides have been made to ensure that more scientific data is available, substantive challenges remain with respect to making data from important publications widely available in a timely manner. This conference proposal will bring together journal editors and early...

Effective: 2016-2016

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Nora S Newcombe

Institution: Temple University

This award to Temple University provides partial support to the International, Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) conference, scheduled to be held in Toronto, Canada, in September, 2016. It is a unique opportunity for researchers in educational neuroscience to share the results of their cutting-edge work with educators and receive feedback on the translational opportunities for the research, and for educators to update their understanding of the cognitive and neural bases of learning...

Effective: 2015-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Erin A Cech, Tom J Waidzunas

Institutions: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Temple University

This award is supported the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. ECR emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. This research project is making contributions to the field in the areas of STEM workforce development and broadening participation in STEM. The proposed work is advancing basic understanding about the intersectional mechanisms of disadvantage, at the interpersonal, organizational and professional levels, for underrepresented groups...

Effective: 2015-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Mary C Murphy

Institution: Indiana University

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-wide activity that offers awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Why do women thrive in some STEM classrooms and drop out of others, and how does this impact whether they will continue on in a STEM major? While...

Effective: 2015-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigators: Jennifer Noll, Andee Rubin

Institutions: Portland State University, TERC Inc

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-wide activity that offers awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Statistics and data analysis plays an increasingly important role in modern society. Without the ability to work with data (e.g. organize,...

Effective: 2015-2022

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Megan Wawro

Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Title:CAREER: An Interdisciplinary Study Of Learning: Student Understanding Of Linear Algebra In PhysicsConsistent with the national charge for the advancement of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines, the National Research Council's (NRC's) report (2012) "Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering" describes a need for interdisciplinary studies regarding learning and the transfer of knowledge...

Effective: 2015-2022

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Sarah Ovink

Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-wide activity that offers awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. In a post-recession context of rising income inequality, the importance of a college degree to the attainment of financial stability remains...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Amy E Booth

Institutions: University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt University

It has been increasingly recognized that promoting scientific literacy must begin early while foundational attitudes, knowledge and skills are taking shape. This project, conducted by researchers at the University of Texas and Loyola University of Chicago, will explore preschoolers' attunement to causal information -- referred to as their causal stance -- as a key component of this foundation. For example, the researchers are interested in the degree to which children seek out information about...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David Marx

Institution: San Diego State University Foundation

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 15-509. As part of ECR, this project is funded by the Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) program. GSE seeks to understand and address gender-based differences in STEM education and workforce participation through education and implementation research that will lead to a larger and more diverse domestic STEM workforce. Stereotype threat and feelings of not belonging are suggested as...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Mark Warschauer

Institution: University of California-Irvine

The multi-year project will study 50 flipped, hybrid, and online courses offered in the three major STEM Schools at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Higher education institutions are increasing the number of courses they offer that use elements of virtual instruction in the belief that these courses will lead to better learning, lower costs, greater access, and higher graduation rates. However, recent meta-analyses of virtual learning in higher education all conclude that there is a...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Kimberlee Shauman

Institution: University of California-Davis

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 15-509. As part of ECR, this project is funded by the Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) program. GSE seeks to understand and address gender-based differences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce participation through education and implementation research that will lead to a larger and more diverse domestic STEM workforce. This study will...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Elizabeth A Gunderson

Institution: Temple University

Spatial skills strongly predict STEM achievement in children and adults. This project, led by a researcher at Temple University, aims to understand the relationship between spatial and numerical skills at a more fine-grained level, among pre-k through 4th graders, with the ultimate goal of harnessing this relationship to improve math achievement. This project (1) investigates how, when, and why spatial skills influence numerical skills; (2) examines how spatial and numerical skills develop...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lance C Perez, Sheryl A Sorby

Institutions: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Cincinnati Main Campus, Ohio State University

Engineers are known problem-solvers and the engineer of the future will be tasked with solving traditional problems as well as the ill-defined interdisciplinary problems faced by our society. Engineers will need to be able to think holistically about a myriad of factors and visualize a solution that solves the technical problem while satisfying cultural, environmental, societal, and economic constraints. Spatial visualization skills have been linked to success in engineering and mathematics as...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Chad E Forbes

Institution: University of Delaware

This proposal was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 15-509. As part of ECR, this project is funded by the Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) program. GSE seeks to understand and address gender-based differences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce participation through education and implementation research that will lead to a larger and more diverse domestic STEM workforce. This project will...

Effective: 2015-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Maura J Borrego, David Knight

Institutions: University of Texas at Austin, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University will conduct a mixed methods research project to better understand how various mechanisms of funding - fellowships, research assistantships, teaching assistantships, etc. - influence students' pursuit of doctorates in STEM and subsequent employment. The project will produce empirical evidence and a conceptual framework to inform the improvement of graduate student funding policies and...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Peter Youngs

Institution: University of Virginia Main Campus

Preparing large numbers of elementary teachers to enact high-quality or ambitious mathematics instruction is a central policy challenge in the U.S. While several studies have tried to identify linkages between features of teacher preparation and student achievement outcomes, few large-scale studies have addressed the relationship between teacher preparation and ambitious mathematics instruction, a more proximal outcome. To meet the need for ambitious mathematics instruction, a more robust...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jennifer Wiley

Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago

A majority of people experience illusions of understanding when reading explanations of scientific phenomena. That is, people generally think they understood what they read better than they actually did. This self-assessment skill (referred to as monitoring) is critical in order for students to regulate their own learning and tailor their study behaviors so that they develop deep understanding of science topics. Interestingly, a number of recent studies have demonstrated that illusions of...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Robert M Nosofsky

Institution: Indiana University

A ubiquitous component of science education is learning the key categories of each target domain. This project, a multidisciplinary collaboration of cognitive scientists, geologists, and science education researchers at Indiana University and Washington University, will take basic research findings on human learning and attempt to develop diagnostic tools that can be matched with instructional technique to facilitate the learning of scientific classifications. Rock categorization will be used...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Andrew M Brantlinger, Laurel A Cooley

Institutions: University of Maryland, College Park, CUNY Brooklyn College

The goal of the research project is to describe the features of selective alternative teacher certification programs (ATCPs) that affect selective route mathematics teachers' (SRMT) professional pathways and to make informed recommendations to decrease the current high teacher turnover. While selective ATCPs are intended to address issues of teacher staffing and quality by recruiting high achieving graduates of the nation's most competitive colleges and career changers with impressive resumes,...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jacquelynne Eccles

Institution: University of California-Irvine

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California-Irvine, and the University of Michigan, will examine the underrepresentation of Hispanics in STEM fields. Hispanic youth, the largest minority and fastest growing demographic group, are the most likely to drop out of the STEM pipeline before college and are the least likely to complete college STEM training. Understanding the psychosocial non-cognitive influences on Hispanic youth's educational and occupational decisions is...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Cheryl Cass, Adam Kirn

Institutions: North Carolina State University, Board of Regents, NSHE, obo University of Nevada, Reno

This work is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jodie D Novak, Michael C Oehrtman

Institutions: University of Northern Colorado, Oklahoma State University

The goal of the project is to understand expert secondary mathematics teachers' knowledge for teaching exponential functions. In particular, the study examines how mathematics knowledge for teaching is used by teachers as they are teaching students' and the factors that influence their interactions with students. The project is recruiting teachers in order to observe their teaching of exponential functions units in Algebra II, Pre-Calculus, and College Algebra courses in high schools. They will...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Tim Boerst

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: John D Coley

Institution: Northeastern University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This project will integrate research on STEM learning in developmental cognitive science and science education to investigate how cognitive aspects of informal biology facilitate or impede...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jason Owen-Smith, Bruce A Weinberg

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

Ohio State University and the University of Michigan are investigating factors that affect graduate student pathways to non-academic careers. The interdisciplinary research team examines two research questions: (1) What are the pathways that graduate students take into non-academic careers? and (2) What is the role of their training environments, including faculty sponsors and networks, in guiding those pathways? To investigate these questions, the researchers will develop a data infrastructure...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Ryan Baker, Neil T Heffernan, Philip Vahey

Institutions: Teachers College, Columbia University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, SRI International

The project researches persistence in mathematics learning in a computer-based learning environment (CBLE). The research investigates how a CBLE can provide the supportive help and promote the self-regulatory strategies necessary for students to be not just persistent, but productively persistent math learners. The project will focus on the middle school years, an important and vulnerable point in the school trajectory, as mathematical concepts become increasingly difficult and abstract in the...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Julie C Libarkin

Institution: Michigan State University

Researchers at Michigan State University will investigate the relationship between mentoring and career development in Earth System Science (ESS) with a particular focus on diverse populations. The researchers argue that increasing diversity in ESS can be addressed through 1) an exploration of how relationship development during mentoring impacts career satisfaction and sense of belonging, 2) an analysis of how different groups respond to mentoring, and 3) a synthesis of research findings into...

Effective: 2015-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ebony O McGee

Institution: Vanderbilt University

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. As part of ECR, this project is funded by the Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) program. GSE seeks to understand and address gender-based differences in science,...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Claire W Wladis

Institution: CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College

The EHR Core Research Program funds proposals that will help synthesize, build and/or expand research foundations in the following areas of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education: STEM learning, STEM learning environments, STEM workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. The STEM education pipeline narrows significantly in college. Community colleges serve some of the most diverse audiences, and are increasingly using online learning as a cheaper way...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Tracy Noble, Philip Vahey

Institutions: TERC Inc, SRI International

The goal of the project is to bring together research about English-language learners with the use of dynamic representational technology for middle school quantitative reasoning. Dynamic representation technology allows learners to work with multiple representations of a problem simultaneously. These representations include, for example, graphs of an equation, a table of values and a simulation of the real-world phenomenon to understand concepts such as linear functions and rates of change...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Timothy J Nokes-Malach

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

A critical problem in science education is to understand how students transfer their prior knowledge and experience acquired in one situation to solve novel problems in another. Not only do students struggle with conceptual understanding and transfer, but they also show declines in motivation for science during the middle school years. Prior research suggests there is great potential and opportunity to address these challenges by integrating past work on cognitive and motivational approaches to...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Robert Bozick

Institution: Rand Corporation

The research project will examine an industry-college collaborative model to align workforce development strategies to employment needs in a sector-specific economy. The research team will conduct a mixed-methods research study in the context of the Marcellus ShaleNET Program ? a unique partnership between the energy sector and a consortium of colleges in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia. Through this partnership, local employers have designed sub-baccalaureate credentialing...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Christopher S Hulleman

Institution: University of Virginia Main Campus

The EHR Core Research (ECR) program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This study extends prior theoretical and empirical work on STEM learning and STEM learning environments into community college classrooms in developmental mathematics....

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Russell M Gersten

Institution: RG Research Group

Learning of fractions is a significant barrier for many in further study of mathematics and thus other science, technology, and engineering disciplines. Many students identified as struggling learners of mathematics are provided with interventions that focus on simplifying the complexity and breaking up the task into small discrete pieces, which is counter to the recommendations on supporting students in learning mathematics from the mathematics education community. The rigorous, large-scale...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Melissa E Libertus

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

Current research suggests a relationship between the development of approximate number system (ANS) cognition in children and later mathematics achievement on standardized tests. However, little is known about the role parent-child interactions play with respect to the ANS. This study allows the field to better understand the transmission of cognitive skills like the ANS across generations. It also allows for the exploration of the potential for training for both parents and children to impact...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Richard M Ingersoll

Institution: University of Pennsylvania

The attrition of teachers from teaching is a major public policy issue. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teachers, in particular, leave the profession even when they are making progress toward becoming excellent teachers. The project will identify both causes of teacher attrition and practices that support new teachers and contribute to persistence in the profession. The project will analyze data from the newly released nationally representative large-scale, longitudinal...

Effective: 2015-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Steven T Kalinowski

Institution: Montana State University

Understanding conceptual change in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is critical for helping students develop deep understandings of complex ideas and models, and thus, for supporting undergraduate students' success and persistence in STEM fields. This EHR Core Research (ECR) project in the area of STEM learning will explore how multiple factors influence college biology students' conceptual change regarding evolution by natural selection. The project team will...

Effective: 2015-2018

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Alex J Bowers

Institution: Teachers College, Columbia University

BIGDATA: Using Big Data to Investigate Longitudinal Education Outcomes through Visual AnalyticsData science techniques have revolutionized many academic fields and led to terrific gains in the commercial sector. They have to date been underutilized in solving critical problems in the US educational system, particularly in understanding Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and increasing retention for...

Effective: 2015-2017

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Patrick Shafto

Institution: Rutgers University Newark

Research has shown that both children and adults differentiate between pedagogical and non-pedagogical situations, that pedagogical inferences override factual information and impede discovery learning in children, and that pedagogical demonstrations lead to predictable patterns of inferences in undergraduates. The purpose of this CAREER project is to explore the extent to which social-pedagogical context affects learning with preschool students and undergraduates. The project will contrast...

Effective: 2015-2017

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Erin M Furtak

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

Classroom assessment remains a significant challenge to most school districts that decide to implement the practice standards set forth by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Aurora Public School (APS) district is facing this challenge head-on by engaging in a research-practice partnership (RPP) with researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Through this RPP entitled ASPiRe, the two partners will engage in a long-term collaboration that is intentionally organized to...