Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Erin Ottmar

Institution: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Many students lack the necessary procedural and conceptual knowledge to progress beyond Algebra I. This limits their ability to pursue STEM interests, training, and careers. In this promising approach to giving support to learners, investigators will study the use various perceptual cues embedded in online math materials for middle school students in an effort to evaluate whether manipulating the visual perceptual cues in the materials, such as coloring and spacing, influence learning and...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jing Zhang

Institution: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

This project aims to serve the national interest by investigating faculty professional identity in Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) community networks. Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to benefit undergraduate students’ success by improving critical thinking skills, retention in STEMs, and graduation rate. CUREs provide effective alternatives to traditional and extensive undergraduate research experiences through incorporating key components of research...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David M Sobel

Institution: Brown University

Children’s engagement and learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is fundamental to developing a more scientifically literate society. The ways parents and children interact around STEM activities sets the stage for how children might become engaged in STEM. This project will investigate the relation between the ways parents and children interact during at-home STEM activities, children’s understanding of their interaction, and children’s engagement with and...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Erin Ottmar

Institution: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Using perceptual cues in mathematical problem solving has been shown to improve students' performance. Attention and executive function skills are two potential mechanisms that explain how and for whom perceptual supports have the greatest impact. However, measuring executive function, attention, and cognitive control with students in educational settings is challenging. Using more scalable and affordable web-based tools such as open-source executive function and eye gaze measures provides a...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Chun Wang

Institution: University of Washington

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) are an area of psychometric research that has seen substantial growth in the past decade. These assessment tools have received more attention because a simple overall test score does not serve teaching goals as a richer evaluation of the student's skills is needed to support tailored instruction. The investigator proposes to extend existing CDM psychometric approaches to develop the diagnostic facet status model (DFSM) for formative assessment design based on...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Nicole M James

Institution: Reed College

This project aims to serve the national interest by identifying the concepts and skills necessary for materials chemistry research. Solutions to the Nation’s most challenging problems require materials designed with the right chemical properties. For example, addressing energy needs requires higher-efficiency solar panels; decreasing the prevalence of microplastics requires robust plastic alternatives. Consequently, materials chemistry is a rapidly growing field of research and area of the...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Charlie Blake

Institution: Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville

The project from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville will work to update instructional bioscience content in high-school curricula to increase accuracy and decrease sociocultural biases. The proposed project will increase our understanding of how biology instructional content can impact student bioessentialist beliefs and has the potential to contribute foundational knowledge about the epistemology of bioessentialist bias and the process by which these attitudes develop. There has been...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Megan R Brown

Institution: Northern Illinois University

To address the Nation’s need for solutions to the complex problems that face American citizens, expert STEM workers from many sectors and communities are needed. Education must engage young people from diverse cultures to train in science and problem-solving so they can pursue the many challenges of the world around us. Geoscience is the disciplinary home from which to study the many resources we depend on, from air, water, and minerals, to safeguarding communities from natural hazards such...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Qi Shi

Institution: Loyola University Maryland, Inc.

Latinas’ experiences in engineering programs can be unique due to the multiple layers of challenges and assets in their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) journey: being a woman, being Latinx, being a bilingual speaker of Spanish and English. The disparities in Latinas’ engineering access and attainment are the result of historically oppressive racist and sexist structures embedded in STEM space that perpetuate sexism and racism. However, there is limited research on...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Hamid Karimi

Institution: Utah State University

To develop student skills in computer programming, it is essential to understand how students approach computer programming assignments. This knowledge can improve teaching techniques, foster a diverse and inclusive student body, and enhance our Nation's digital proficiency. This project at Utah State University seeks to investigate students' keystroke patterns as they work on Python programming assignments in introductory computer programming courses. This innovative approach provides...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Yibing Li

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

This research synthesis systematically reviews and meta-analyzes the evidence on relationships between teacher support, student engagement, and mathematics achievement in the instructional–relational model framework. The researchers rigorously examine the consistency and variability of the relationships between the domains and constructs across studies. The results of this comprehensive meta-analysis inform the research community on the status of student engagement research by identifying...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Julia S Gouvea

Institution: Tufts University

This project aims to serve the national interest by better understanding how students think about the foundational biological concept of natural selection in undergraduate biology education. Prior work has established that student thinking about natural selection can vary greatly depending on the specific features of questions students are asked, such the type of organism or the trait that is under selection. Understanding when and why this variation in student thinking arises is important for...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jennifer Hamilton

Institution: National Opinion Research Center

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the educational landscape of the United States, overwhelming schools and leaving high school students with fewer opportunities to learn math and science content. This was particularly true for students from historically marginalized groups including students living in poverty, students of color, students with disabilities, and students whose primary language is not English. Reduced opportunities to learn math and science content has profound...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Geetha Ramani, Meredith L Rowe

Institutions: University of Maryland, College Park, Harvard University

Having a strong foundation in early mathematical knowledge is of critical importance for children’s later mathematical achievement and moving forward in STEM fields. One context for promoting early mathematical development is the home environment. Informal activities and interactions with adults can provide children with extensive mathematical information through the communication about math that families provide to their young children. Additionally, numerous factors can influence...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Carlton J Fong

Institution: Texas State University - San Marcos

Many college students have difficulty learning mathematics not because they are unable to learn but because they often do not believe they can perform successfully. Students’ beliefs, along with their learning-related and socially influenced needs, perceptions, goals, and strategies, often described as psychosocial factors, are key factors to their academic achievement. Because such factors are malleable, many interventions targeting psychosocial factors have been evaluated and could be...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: N. Sanjay Rebello

Institution: Purdue University

Problem solving is an essential 21st century STEM workforce skill, but in most undergraduate introductory STEM courses students use ineffective problem-solving strategies. The pedagogical challenge is that these courses typically have very large enrollments which prohibits instructors' providing of real-time feedback to students on their unproductive strategies, given how labor intensive providing such individualized feedback is. The investigators propose to use natural language processing...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Justin T McDaniel

Institution: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

The transition from active-duty military service to civilian life is challenging. Securing a job following retirement from the military is important, not least because it is a major social determinant of health and wellbeing. Only 3% of military veterans in Illinois - compared to 7% nationally - are employed in science, engineering, technology, or mathematics (STEM) occupations. Furthermore, rural-dwelling veterans are nearly 50% less likely than urban-dwelling veterans to work in STEM. Because...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Stephen R Podowitz-Thomas

Institution: Thomas Jefferson University

Self-concept is the set of ideas that people hold about who they are, how they behave, and who they have the potential to become. The self-concept of students has a strong impact on their academic success and persistence in higher education. This project aims to develop a tool to measure self-concept as a neurodivergent student in STEM and investigate its relationship to academic motivation and identification with STEM. Although a significant and growing number of undergraduates are...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Traci S Kutaka

Institution: University of Virginia Main Campus

Young children experience and express many emotions as they learn to make sense of and solve story problems. Mathematics anxiety is the most well-studied and familiar achievement emotion and, as a result there are now teaching practices and policies to reduce its impacts on learning. Yet, much less is known about how basic, universal emotions such as joy, surprise, sadness, anger, and fear impact learning and achievement. This project addresses this knowledge gap through two primary activities:...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Gili Ad-Marbach, Grant E Gardner, Kristen R Miller, Elisabeth E Schussler

Institutions: University of Maryland, College Park, Middle Tennessee State University, University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, University of Tennessee Knoxville

The United States needs a strong scientific workforce, yet only about 50% of undergraduate students seeking a degree in Biology complete that major. One of the main reasons students leave the Biology major is their perception that instruction in introductory courses is of poor quality. In many cases, graduate students are the instructors of record, especially for discussion and laboratory sections. Despite the significant instructional role that graduate students play, there is a documented...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Juan M Cruz, Matilde L Sanchez-Pena

Institutions: Rowan University, SUNY at Buffalo

During the last decades, there have been significant investments in Broadening Participation Initiatives (BPIs) aimed to increase the participation of marginalized groups in engineering. Yet the plethora of factors that influence the success of BPIs and persistent challenges faced by BPIs complicate a strong grasp of their impact. Not understanding the aspects that make BPIs effective, limits their potential for institutional change. BPIs are often implemented within higher education...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Jeffrey A Greene, Thomason W Price

Institutions: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University

Computer science (CS) is an increasingly important topic for undergraduate students; it is where they learn to program and develop software. However, it is also a challenging subject for many students to learn. A key determinant of students' success in modern CS classrooms is whether and how they use self-regulated learning (SRL) skills, such as planning, goal setting, and adapting their learning strategies to meet new challenges. The aim of this project is to help develop theory to explain how...

Effective: 2023-2026

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Roghayeh L Barmaki

Institution: University of Delaware

Emerging technology poses potential benefit to all Americans. Technologies support innovations in many fields, including agriculture, electronics, transportation, data science and computing. The workforce that forms the engine for this growth must first receive education and training to understand and master the advanced STEM methods that form the foundation of technological growth. That workforce includes educators with knowledge in STEM and in learning sciences to engage and prepare students,...

Effective: 2023-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Simone Sisneros-Thiry

Institution: California State University, East Bay Foundation, Inc.

This project aims to serve the national interest by contributing to the understanding of experiences of students and instructors of assessment strategies aligned with active learning methods. Towards this goal the project will seek to incorporate the student voice into professional development experiences for collegiate mathematics instructors. In particular, this project will focus on assessment strategies that are aligned with the values and practices of active learning. The community of...

Effective: 2023-2025

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Paola Sztajn

Institution: North Carolina State University

Leaders in mathematics and elementary education are organizing and hosting a conference that brings together researchers from mathematics education, cognitive science, and special education. The work is grounded in a common goal via constructive conversations and is purposefully framed to bring forth areas of agreement and disagreement when it comes to early mathematics teaching and learning. Organized over three face-to-face meetings with follow-up virtual meetings, the conference is designed...

Effective: 2023-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Jeremy Hsu

Institution: Chapman University

Many skills are typically taught in introductory biology lectures and labs and are important for success as a biologist. One of these skills is quantitative reasoning. Quantitative reasoning is the ability to use mathematical concepts in biological contexts, which encompasses processing and interpreting numerical and graphical data. However, many students in introductory biology struggle to apply quantitative reasoning skills taught in math classes and other classes to these biological...

Effective: 2023-2025

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Youmi Suk

Institution: Teachers College, Columbia University

The current math course-taking plan for high school students across much of the United States is not optimized for every student’s success in math, especially in advanced mathematics. In particular, there has been disproportional participation in advanced math courses among different racial/ethnic and income groups. To this end, this research project develops data-driven, personalized math course-taking plans by leveraging recent advances in personalized medicine. In personalized medicine,...

Effective: 2023-2025

Funding Type: Mid-Career Advancement (MCA)

Principal Investigator: Jessica P Bishop

Institution: Texas State University - San Marcos

This project aims to serve the national interest by using analytic tools to better understand how classroom discourse affects the teaching and learning of mathematics. The project will focus on two aspects of classroom discourse: how teachers respond to student thinking, and how teachers and students talk about mathematical authority. The project will use quantitative methods to analyze video data from middle-grades mathematics classrooms. Results will advance knowledge and understanding how...

Effective: 2023-2024

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Alicia K Wooten

Institution: Gallaudet University

Deaf and hard of hearing individuals (DHH) in STEM remain a small percentage of both the disability and general community leading to a severe underrepresentation in STEM. Many DHH students are in K-12 classes and often are the only DHH student or one of few DHH students with a sign language interpreter. Despite the surge of STEM sign language development and its popularity in the media, technical terminology in sign languages for STEM terms and concepts is still lacking, and what does exist is...

Effective: 2023-2024

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Peggy McNeal

Institution: Towson University

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing a researcher’s skills to conduct fundamental geosciences education research that investigates how college students use spatial reasoning to think and learn about fluid-Earth science concepts. In fluid-Earth science courses, topics such as atmosphere and ocean dynamics are highly abstract and mathematical without a natural bridge to everyday understanding of physical reality. The important leaps in thinking from mathematical...

Effective: 2023-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jing Tian

Institution: Temple University

Mathematics proficiency is essential for success in STEM fields, but remains a challenge for many US students, particularly proficiency in understanding decimals and decimal arithmetic. The project aims to test whether optimizing practice problems can improve students’ competency with and understanding of decimals. Currently, students receive certain types of practice problems more frequently than other types of practice problems, an occurrence that may limit as well as interfere with...

Effective: 2022-2028

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Sona Gholizadeh

Institution: University of South Carolina at Columbia

This project will investigate the influence of family on student interest and persistence in engineering. The overarching goal of this project is to expand the investigator’s expertise to conduct fundamental research on the influence of family in engineering fields to better understand facilitators of student persistence. The research findings have the potential to inform a larger quantitative study through developing and testing a theory about impacts of family relationships on STEM student...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Steven T Piantadosi

Institution: University of California-Berkeley

From counting to computing derivatives, many mathematical skills that students master rely on well-defined sequences of procedural steps, or algorithms. The acquisition of specific algorithmic skills such as counting, small number addition, and fractional reasoning have been intensely studied as cognitive achievements in their own right. However, despite the key role that algorithms play in early mathematics, very little is known about algorithmic cognition itself. It is not known, for example,...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: James Heckman

Institution: University of Chicago

Scholars in personality psychology, economics, and child development report a variety of empirical relationships connecting personality traits, executive functions (EF), and economic preferences to enrollment and performance in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses in elementary and secondary education and choice of STEM majors in college. The similarities and differences in how these attributes are measured and their relationships to STEM education outcomes have not been...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Zeyu Xu

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

America’s community colleges play a vital role in strengthening the country’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. More than one-quarter of all STEM jobs are held by workers with either an associate’s degree or some other sub-baccalaureate training. Community colleges also play a central role in increasing the diversity of the STEM workforce, as they often serve students from populations underrepresented in their participation in STEM fields of study....

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Lin Bian

Institution: University of Chicago

The increased demand for intellectual talent has highlighted the need for more female scientists, yet women are consistently underrepresented in the STEM domain. A pervading stereotype associating intellectual talent with men rather than women is a powerful cultural message that is in part responsible for this gender gap, termed the gender brilliance stereotype. This pernicious stereotype emerges early and immediately shapes children’s interests. To tackle this gender disparity from its...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Abiola Akanmu, Andrea N Ofori-Boadu

Institutions: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University

While universities equip students with theoretical knowledge for STEM, there can be challenges in employing those theories to solve real-life problems. This challenge has resulted in an imbalance between the preparation of graduates entering the workforce and the demands of the industry. This disconnection is persistent in the construction industry as construction practitioners continue to highlight skill shortages that have resulted in low performance and low productivity. This research...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ariel Starr

Institution: University of Washington

Spatial skills are a key predictor of success in STEM fields throughout the lifespan. When children first begin formal schooling, large individual differences in spatial skills are already present. These early emerging differences in spatial aptitude can have long-lasting, detrimental effects on students’ engagement with and performance in STEM classes. To address these issues, this research will conduct a series of studies with children between infancy and 8-years of age as well as adults to...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Courtney L Ngai

Institution: Colorado State University

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization, and to build a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. This CAREER project aims to investigate the experiences of persons excluded because of ethnicity...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Shanta R Robinson

Institution: University of Chicago

Existing educational inequities produce complex challenges for Black students, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms. Black students who show promise for success in STEM while experiencing homelessness find themselves particularly marginalized at the intersection of race and class. The purpose of this project is to center the voices and experiences of Black, high achieving homeless adolescents to better understand the resources and strengths they...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: Other

Principal Investigator: David I Miller

Institution: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences

As a 5-year resource center, the EHR Core Research – Resource Coordination Hub (ECR Hub) is designed to advance the ways in which NSF’s ECR Core (ECR) and ECR Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR:BCSER) programs can better use and support fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. ECR-funded research has the potential to address pressing national problems by developing foundational knowledge...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: EDU Racial Equity

Principal Investigators: Terrell R Morton, Shari E Watkins

Institutions: University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Illinois at Chicago, American University

Despite well-intentioned university efforts to support Black undergraduate STEM students, policy and practice reforms run the risk of not appropriately benefiting all Black people due to pervasive, deficit-based assumptions about Black racial identities and the types of structural engagement needed to advance holistic, racial well-being in transformative and sustainable ways. Stated simply, STEM contexts do not adequately support Black undergraduate STEM students because STEM educators and...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Erin Ottmar

Institution: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Many middle and high school students in the United States do not reach proficiency in algebra. When solving algebraic expressions and equations, students not only need to perform procedures, but also identify mathematical structure, attend to important perceptual cues, and make decisions about which steps are most appropriate or productive in a particular problem context. Math teachers are critical to supporting and improving students’ math achievement by providing high-quality feedback,...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Yu Chen

Institution: Louisiana State University

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization, and to build a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. This CAREER project will examine psychological and social factors that are influential to...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Jeremy R Manning

Institution: Dartmouth College

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The project is also funded from the EHR Core Research (ECR) program with co-funding from the Human Networks and Data Science (HNDS) program in SBE.The goal of this CAREER project at Dartmouth University is to advance our understanding of how students learn STEM concepts through online course videos in order to improve online education. Continued expansion of the internet backbone and...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Jamie Jirout

Institution: University of Virginia Main Campus

This project will explore how to promote students’ curiosity as a way of supporting science learning. Students’ interest in science significantly relates to their science performance, but few list it as their most interesting subject. One way to promote interest in science and to make learning and teaching more enjoyable is to support students’ curiosity. In addition to its importance to motivation and innovation in STEM areas, curiosity has been shown to lead to learning that more...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Homero Murzi

Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization, and to build a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. This CAREER...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David W Shaffer

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

In modern classrooms, students learn science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through interactions not only with teachers and textbooks but also with computer games and simulations, automated tutors, and online resources. Education researchers thus have access to large amounts of data about students’ STEM learning processes, from classroom or online conversations to detailed records of student activity in educational apps. Despite the potential of such rich data for curriculum...

Effective: 2022-2027

Funding Type: EDU Racial Equity

Principal Investigator: Tamara Pearson

Institution: Georgia Tech Research Corporation

This collaborative project will study the impact of interruptions on Black women’s collegiate STEM experiences and their persistence and matriculation in STEM majors. Interruptions are defined as overt and subtle external acts and internal dialogues and decisions that result in a loss of focus, momentum, and confidence and require time to rebound. Each interruption requires resources to rebound (e.g., time), but continual interruptions impact Black women’s ability to rebound and persist in...

Effective: 2022-2026

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: David A Barner, Sara Cordes, Lisa Feigenson, Elizabeth A Gunderson, Daniel C Hyde, Melissa M Kibbe, Melissa E Libertus, Jessica Sullivan, Kristy L VanMarle

Institutions: University of California-San Diego, Boston College, Johns Hopkins University, Temple University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Trustees of Boston University, University of Pittsburgh, Skidmore College, University of Missouri-Columbia

Preschool numeracy is a crucial foundation for STEM learning and long-term academic success. Previous research suggests that the development of strong numeracy skills depends on a combination of perceptual, cognitive, and language skills. However, most past studies have focused on a relatively small and homogeneous groups of children in US urban areas. As a result, current understanding of early numeracy may notgeneralize to diverse groups of learners. It is likely that home language...