Effective: 2015-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jody Bintz

Institution: BSCS Science Learning

This ECR synthesis project will build consensus on the key attributes of high-quality math/science teacher leadership development programs. 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...

Effective: 2015-2017

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigators: David A Barner, Michael C Frank

Institutions: University of California-San Diego, Stanford University

Mental Abacus is a popular mathematics technique practices primarily in Asian countries in elementary school contexts. Mental abacus students begin by learning to make rapid arithmetic computations on a physical abacus and then learn to imagine moving the beads without the physical device. Young children can then rapidly add, subtract, multiply and divide large numbers. This project will compare mental abacus teaching to two other teaching methods in order to understand how it helps first and...

Effective: 2015-2017

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Zoran Popovic

Institution: University of Washington

This award is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. 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...

Effective: 2015-2017

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: David A Beck

Institution: University of Washington

The University of Washington will host a national workshop where graduate students in data science disciplines will interact to explore data science grand challenges in a collaborative environment. The project will implement a novel idea and advance the understanding of how to develop data science communities by engaging graduate students, academia, and industry. It also addresses an important national need for researchers with cross-disciplinary training in data science and serves as a...

Effective: 2015-2017

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Andrew Bernat

Institution: Computing Research Association

While data analytics for business and entertainment have become well established, the application of data analytics to education needs research and development. Educational innovation does not have the driving force of economics generating evolutionary responses to societal and technological change, yet data-informed instructional methods offer tremendous promise for transforming American teaching, learning, and schooling. Beyond the potential to enhance student outcomes through just-in-time,...

Effective: 2015-2016

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Stephen M Fiore

Institution: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees

This award is for a workshop to take place just prior to the Science of Team Science annual meeting in 2015. The workshop, led by a team from the University of Central Florida, is to serve as a high-level review of the state of this interdisciplinary area of study. A synthesis of the field especially important given the advances currently being made. The interdisciplinary nature of the field is both an advantage and a challenge, for work is currently being conducted in a range of different...

Effective: 2015-2016

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Andrew Bernat

Institution: Computing Research Association

Data intensive research for many scientific disciplines has changed the basic research methods for those disciplines. For example large plant genomic data bases have changed how research is done in plant biology where analyzing the genes in the data base becomes a critical component of plant genetics research. This workshop addresses the emerging discipline of data intensive research in education through case studies of how data intensive research emerged in other disciplines. The workshop is a...

Effective: 2015-2016

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Suzanne T Ortega

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) will plan and host an intensive workshop to design an instrument for universities to be able to collect and disaggregate information on the career pathways of STEM PhD students and alumni. The project includes two preparatory meetings with key stakeholders (one focused on disciplinary societies and the other focused on graduate deans and provosts), and a workshop where participants will develop a survey instrument and a framework document to guide...

Effective: 2014-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Elizabeth S Spelke

Institution: Harvard University

Although human infants readily develop some capacities for representing number and geometry, children's thinking extends far beyond these capacities when they learn school mathematics. The basic concepts and skills of arithmetic and geometry that children learn in elementary school are critical for all subsequent learning and practicing of mathematics and science, but their acquisition, in relation to younger children's preexisting numerical and geometrical concepts, is not well understood. The...

Effective: 2014-2021

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nilanjana Dasgupta

Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst

In the past thirty years a national debate has been brewing about the scarcity of women and racial/ethnic minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and its grave implications for the American workforce in the 21st century. From middle school through college, girls and women have performed less well on standardized tests in science and mathematics than their male peers and express less confidence and aspirations in these fields. Similar findings emerge for Black and...

Effective: 2014-2021

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Paula P Lemons

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

This CAREER project focuses on understanding problem-solving skills among biology undergraduates. The goals are to: (1) Investigate the problem solving steps of beginning and advanced biology students in the domains of protein structure and function and metabolism; (2) Determine the extent to which the use of particular problem-solving steps by biology students predicts their success and persistence in science; and (3) Apply the findings to enhance problem solving skills.Longitudinal data are...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lisa Y Flores, Rachel L Navarro

Institutions: University of Missouri-Columbia, University of North Dakota Main Campus

The project aims to investigate the longitudinal effects of social cognitive, cultural, personality and contextual factors on engineering students and workers satisfaction, engagement, and persistence as posited by Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). The longstanding underrepresentation of White women and Latina/os in engineering majors and jobs provides the rationale for this investigation of psychological factors leading to their academic and career satisfaction, engagement, and...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo

Institutions: University of Colorado at Denver-Downtown Campus, Stanford University

AbstractThis collaborative project involving the University of Colorado at Denver and the University of Washington at Seattle in conjunction with Facet Innovations, will build a framework for addressing the use of contextualized items in the assessment of STEM learning. The primary goal is to systematically investigate the effects of characteristics of contextualized items on student performance to strengthen practices in science assessments, ensure fairness in science testing, and increase...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Ying Cheng

Institution: University of Notre Dame

This project, carried out by the University of Notre Dame, seeks to contribute to statistics education by developing improved methods for computerized adaptive testing. These methods use modern versions of item response theory, going beyond older versions that are commonly used in adaptive tests. Hence, the project has the potential to lead to tests that more successfully measure student knowledge and provide diagnostic feedback, as computerized testing increasing comes into wide use.The...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jennifer L Glass, Sharon Sassler

Institutions: University of Texas at Austin, Cornell University

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Cornell University are implementing a project to understand large gender differences in occupational retention among STEM graduates in early career, with a particular emphasis on investigating the roles played by employment conditions, alternative job opportunities, and workplace climate in retaining recent graduates or propelling them into non-STEM fields. Various studies report considerable attrition within the first few years of...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Joseph S Krajcik

Institution: Michigan State University

Energy is a critical concept in every branch of science, yet relatively little is known about how to best build students conceptions of energy over time so that their understanding becomes more integrated and more useful for making sense of phenomena. Some of the most pressing social and environmental issues that face the nation (e.g., energy conservation, climate change, biodiversity loss, and natural resource economics) are fundamentally related to energy. Recent work has shown that effective...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Jamaal S Matthews

Institution: Montclair State University

In this CAREER award, the investigator will study how African American and Latino middle and high school students construct their sense of self-identity with and in mathematics and the role that teachers play in helping to shape those self-opinions. This is important because many students, particularly in urban settings, have a poor sense of their own potential in mathematics learning which restricts their attainment in high school and future college studies. If researchers can better...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jill V Hamm, Daniel J Heck

Institutions: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Horizon Research Inc

Ongoing efforts to strengthen mathematics education in the United States have emphasized the need for students to engage and persevere with meaningful and challenging mathematics problems, and to take active and collaborative roles in problem solving. Teachers often use small group instruction to work toward these goals: small group work occurs in 70% of middle grades mathematics classrooms at least once a week, and on average, accounts for 25% of instructional time in middle grades mathematics...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Aroutis N Foster

Institution: Drexel University

AbstractEducation stakeholders from advocates to developers are increasingly recognizing the potential of science games in advancing student academic motivation for and interest in science and science careers. To maximize this potential, the project will use science games (e.g. Land Science, River City, and EcoMUVE), shown to be enjoyable to students and proven to promote student learning in science at the middle school level. Through a two-phase process, games will be used as vehicles for...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sadhana Puntambekar

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Both physical labs and virtual labs are often used in science teaching, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. With each providing different affordances for learning, it is often feasible to combine the two in a multitude of ways. This project will conduct a series of studies to: (1) Uncover the differential benefits of physical versus virtual labs, for learners with a range of abilities and prior knowledge, and for content of different difficulty levels; (2) Understand the...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Gladis Kersaint

Institutions: University of South Florida, University of Connecticut

The purpose of this study is to broaden understanding about how social capital and cultural models of engineering success (CMES) contribute to the retention and degree attainment of women and minority engineering undergraduates, traditionally under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Social capital refers to the social connections of students and the resources available through those connections. CMES refer to beliefs about how to succeed in an engineering...

Effective: 2014-2020

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Catherine Riegle-Crumb

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

This study makes a major contribution to the literature on disparities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by providing new information about the STEM trajectories of boys and girls from various racial/ethnic subgroups from middle school through the end of college. Using five comprehensive, large-scale and longitudinal datasets, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin will examine differences between subgroups in intended as well as actual STEM...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Steven A Schneider

Institution: WestEd

WestEd proposes to study the Technical Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) program. TEALS, a pioneering work-place intervention of the non-profit Microsoft YouthSpark program, provides multi-year, on-the-job computer science education professional development to high school teachers. The project will identify an effective learning model to prepare in-service teachers to teach computer science. To ensure the model meets workplace requirements, all research will take place in an authentic...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Robb W Lindgren

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The project will research how student body movements support their reasoning and understanding about scientific concepts that involve hidden structures or unobservable mechanisms. Student and scientist descriptions and explanations often involve embodied expressions, such as body movements used to represent or symbolically manipulate components of scientific systems (e.g., turning the hands to an object's rotation, tilting the upper torso to demonstrate some type of imbalance, etc.). Exploring...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: George E DeBoer

Institution: American Association for the Advancement of Science

This project, conducted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), seeks to improve assessment of science understanding in K-12 students. The project will cover a wide range of 16 topics within science education. When a student takes a science test, performance will depend on cognitive factors, what the student knows, and linguistic factors, related to language. This project aims to distinguish cognitive and linguistic factors, with a focus on English language learners....

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Senay Purzer, Charles Xie

Institutions: Purdue University, Concord Consortium

PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS: Concord Consortium (Lead)Purdue UniversityCORE AREA(s): STEM Learning/STEM Learning EnvironmentsPROJECT DESCRIPTION Practicing science is one of the most important goals of K-12 engineering education, which is now part of the Next Generation Science Standards. Although previous research suggests that engineering design is an effective pedagogical approach to promoting science learning, there are concerns about the "design-science gap" that fails science learning in...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: David F Feldon, Josipa Roksa

Institutions: Utah State University, University of Virginia Main Campus

The University of Utah will conduct a collaborative project with the University of Virginia to determine how research skills are developed in graduate students. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the goal of graduate education is to prepare a highly-skilled workforce, not just a credentialed one. Skills are, thus, central to both the process of graduate education and the value of degrees in the labor market. However, skill development is a poorly understood aspect of graduate...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ms. Jessica Young

Institution: Education Development Center

This project testing a theoretical model of child development that examines the relation of a preschool teacher intervention to children's mathematics learning. Specifically, the project investigates a two-step causal model that examines one aspect of children's school readiness skills "mastery motivation" as a mediating variable of teacher practice to children's mathematics learning. Mastery motivation is a child's independent persistence to accomplish moderately challenging tasks, which has...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Kevin J Crowley, Rena Dorph

Institutions: University of Pittsburgh, University of California-Berkeley

This project, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Berkeley, seeks to discover what makes middle school students engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The researchers have developed a concept known as science learning activation, including dispositions, practices, and knowledge leading to successful STEM learning and engagement. The project is intended to develop and validate a method of measuring science learning...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Benjamin Zwickl

Institution: Rochester Institute of Tech

The Rochester Institute of Technology will implement a small focused research project that is designed to provide a better understanding of how academic content and communication skills transfer into the entry-level workforce. It is adapting foundational research on learning in an academic setting to the workplace and provides multiple perspectives of the "skills gap" between higher education and the workplace. Specifically, the researchers propose to examine the use of mathematics, optics, and...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ellen Schiller

Institution: SRI International

Students with learning disabilities and those with autism spectrum disorder represent the largest and fastest growing groups of students with disabilities in U.S. public schools. These students are underperforming in STEM achievement as compared to their non-disabled peers, and these students are underprepared for college entry and success. This capacity building project will contribute to foundational knowledge about what is already known, and what needs to be studied, about K-12 online STEM...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heather Hill

Institution: Harvard University

This project develops and field-tests a mathematics-specific coaching protocol centered on the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) instrument, a Common Core-aligned observational tool. The coaching model will consist of three elements: a summer training workshop, personalized web-based coaching, and access to a library of resources to support coaching and instructional change. The project team works with 3rd through 8th grade mathematics teachers to implement and evaluate the coaching...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Brett D DePaola

Institution: Kansas State University

The Research on the Use of Visual Cueing and Feedback to Facilitate Problem Solving project uses a rigorous experimental design to expand understanding of the role of visual cues and correctness feedback on undergraduate problem solving, specifically mathematics and physics, as well as the interaction between cues and feedback. The project combines theoretical perspectives on problem solving (representational change theory) with theoretical perspectives on multimedia learning (cognitive theory...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Roger Azevedo

Institution: North Carolina State University

The investigators will research how characteristics of intelligent virtual humans (IVHs) support the ability of students to reflect on and, therefore, improve their learning in undergraduate biology. To date, research has shown mixed effectiveness when human avatars are used in learning technologies. To remedy that, the researchers will first study how expert human tutors use verbal and facial cues in reacting to students' cognitive, affective, metacognitive, and motivational (CAMM) processes....

Effective: 2014-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Cynthia M D'Angelo

Institution: SRI International

The Education Core Research (ECR) program funds foundational research in STEM learning, STEM learning environments, workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. One of the pressing current challenges in schools as curriculum focuses increasingly on inquiry, application, and synthesis (rather than factual recall) is how to efficiently manage, support, and assess collaboration in the classroom. While teaching with collaborative learning may be more productive, it also creates...

Effective: 2014-2016

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Thomas W Rudin

Institution: National Academy of Sciences

The Board on Higher Education and the Workforce of the National Research Council will plan and convene a workshop to engage a diverse group of researchers, practitioners, employers, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders in conversations to (1) describe the current status of research in STEM workforce development, (2) discuss and refine priority research themes and topics that will support development of a national STEM workforce strategy, and (3) inform the efforts of the Directorate...

Effective: 2014-2016

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Michael N Solem

Institution: Association of American Geographers

This project is designed to build capacity for conducting research on learning progressions in geography. Learning progressions offer a means for educators to determine how students learn geographic facts, concepts, and skills, and whether they are on track toward attainment of a particular curriculum standard or set of standards. The available research base in geography education is primarily focused on students' understanding (or learning) of individual ideas or skills, but not on the...

Effective: 2014-2016

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Daniel Denecke

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) is undertaking an exploratory capacity building project to plan a multi-year Best Practice research effort focused on institutional models and strategies for integrating STEM workforce development and graduate education. The project will provide a better understanding of what skills deficiencies employers identify in STEM graduate students, what structures are or are not in place to meet those needs, what learning environments are effective, and how...

Effective: 2013-2020

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Alicia C Alonzo

Institution: Michigan State University

CAREER: Redesigning a Learning Progression to Build upon Students? Intuitive Ideas about Motion and Support Teachers? Formative Assessment PracticesLearning progressions??descriptions of the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about a topic that can follow one another as children learn? (National Research Council, 2007, p. 219)?have the potential to influence a wide range of educational policies and practice. However, learning progressions based upon research on students?...

Effective: 2013-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Megan E Bang, Beth Warren

Institutions: University of Washington, TERC Inc

AbstractExpansive Meanings and Makings in ArtScience will design and develop an innovative model of ArtScience learning for middle and high school age youth from communities underrepresented in STEM fields. ArtScience is an emerging movement emphasizing commonalities in thinking practices used by artists and scientists as they explore complex 21st century problems. Youth will engage in ArtScience inquiries in two scientific domains of significance to them and their communities: climate change...

Effective: 2013-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Mary Kay Stein

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

Investigators are designing a state-wide, empirically based indicator system that aligns with Tennessee's (TN) vision of instructional improvement and is built from data gathered through in-depth study of teaching and learning in a sample of 4th through 8th grade mathematics classrooms. Investigators begin with a set of constructs and measures that are known to predict student learning on high-level mathematics assessments (high-cognitive-demand instruction) and that are associated with...

Effective: 2013-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Chandra L Muller, John R Warren

Institutions: University of Texas at Austin, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

This collaborative study is investigating how the STEM skills and training that individuals from underrepresented groups acquired during high school and postsecondary education have contributed to their STEM workforce success and the types of occupations they now enjoy in midlife. It is uses the High School & Beyond (HS&B) database, a nationally representative study of high school sophomores from 1980. HS&B contains a large sample of African Americans and Latinos, women, and people...

Effective: 2013-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sian Beilock

Institution: University of Chicago

The goal of this EHR Core Research project, focused on the area of STEM learning, is to use cognitive science theories of embodied cognition to enhance student learning in physics. A central hypothesis being investigated is that providing students with direct experience with physics quantities (e.g., feeling the mass distribution in an extended object through balancing techniques designed to locate an object's center of gravity (COG)), as opposed to reading about the concepts in a textbook or...

Effective: 2013-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: C. Lee Giles, Julia I Lane, Christopher C Morphew, Vetle I Torvik, Bruce A Weinberg

Institutions: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park, New York University, American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences, University of Iowa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ohio State University

EHR Core ResearchWorkforce DevelopmentThis is a collaborative project involving Ohio State University (lead institution), Pennsylvania State University, American Institutes for Research, University of Illinois-Urbana, and the University of Iowa. The project examines the impact of different research funding structures on the training of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and the impact of their subsequent outcomes. The rationale for the study is the recognition that research teams are...

Effective: 2013-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lance C Perez, Hannah Sevian

Institutions: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Massachusetts Boston

PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS: University of Massachusetts Boston (Lead)University of Nebraska-LincolnCORE AREA(s):STEM Learning/STEM Learning Environments - Undergraduate EducationPROJECT DESCRIPTION The project is studying the abstraction capacity in problem solving among undergraduate students in two STEM disciplines. The three-year project involves faculty and students in electrical engineering at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and in chemistry at University of Massachusetts Boston. The study...

Effective: 2013-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Reed Stevens

Institution: Northwestern University

The FUSE Studios project designs a series of learning challenges for youth, derived from principles of game design, to: (1) develop and refine a design-based and iterative research and development cycle that will develop new challenges and new sequences, and revise current challenges; 2) conduct original, multi-faceted research on these new informal learning environments and the learning experiences of participants. The project responds to the failure of formal STEM education practices to...

Effective: 2013-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jon D Miller

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

This project is initiating a new cohort of 7th grade students and extending the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) to a new generation. In 1987, the LSAY began with national cohorts of 7th and 10th grade students selected from a stratified probability sample of public schools in the U.S. The LSAY has provided a valuable longitudinal record of the development of student attitudes and experiences into young adult life plans, careers, and new families. The original LSAY cohorts have...

Effective: 2013-2016

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Matthew T Hora

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

EHR Core ResearchWorkforce DevelopmentThis project focuses on workplace expectations for STEM related competencies and the subsequent design of educational curricula in postsecondary institutions and STEM education interventions. It responds to the need to produce empirical evidence regarding employer expectations in STEM related fields that would enable the integration of these expectations into educational practice. Thus, the project goals are to (1) identify employer expectations for the...

Effective: 2013-2016

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Daniel J Heck

Institution: Horizon Research Inc

The project conducts an exploration of elements of geometric mathematics tasks that promote students' record keeping (RK) strategies that facilitate student cognition during problem solving and aid in communication about how solutions were obtained. The project addresses three questions: (1) What features of mathematics task presentation promote record keeping that aid middle grades students cognition and communication? (2) What principles can be derived and applied for designing tasks to...

Effective: 2013-2015

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: William G Buttlar

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

EHR Core ResearchWorkforce DevelopmentThe University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is conducting a workforce development capacity building project that is designed to advance the strategic integration of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) into graduate and professional STEM programs in 21st century research universities by setting the stage for robust research studies. The PI proposes to conduct a workshop to explore pedagogical issues such as the effectiveness of flipped classrooms merged...