Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sarah L Ferguson

Institution: Rowan University

The project will examine the efficacy of an intervention designed to increase self-efficacy and motivation to pursue STEM careers among rural high school students. Researchers will use a design-based approach to partner with rural school districts tointroduce students to high-need STEM career fields using virtual reality technology and career exploration modules. They will also guide students in assessing their potential fit for these fields. The researchers hypothesize that student career...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Richard S Moog

Institution: The POGIL Project

This project aims to promote discipline-based education research (DBER) within the Process-oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) community of practitioners. Specifically, the project team will host a workshop for early- and mid-career POGIL practitioners led by a team of five DBER scholars. The goal of this event is to introduce current POGIL practitioners to the knowledge and skills involved in design, implementation, and methodology of STEM education research. The participants will be...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Simi T Hoque

Institution: Drexel University

This two-year project will analyze how adolescent girls develop as sustainable citizens as they take part in a college-based STEM summer program that offers hands-on workshops in sustainability science. As a Building Capacity in STEM Educational Research (BCSER) project, a key goal is to build the principal investigator's knowledge base and analytical expertise in STEM education research. This project aims to position the investigator to conduct longer-term research on broadening participation...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigators: Margaret Levenstein, Felice J Levine

Institutions: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, American Educational Research Association

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan and the American Education Research Association (AERA) propose to create an ECR Data Resource Hub, Partnership for Expanding Education Research in STEM (PEERS). The goal is to connect, educate, and build community around relevant forms of data and offer professional development focused on data skills, tools, and resources. PEERS will connect researchers to repositories and data sources as...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Philip A Vieira

Institution: California State University-Dominguez Hills Foundation

In this capacity building project, the investigator proposes to investigate the impact of design thinking training combined with established pedagogical strategies in increasing student recruitment, persistence, and retention in STEM at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and a predominantly urban undergraduate institution. In this context, design thinking focuses on the iterative process by which solutions are derived, taking multiple perspectives from various disciplines, and encouraging...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Gerald R Marschke

Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc

This RAPID project addresses the need to maintain resilience in the STEM workforce during a pandemic. The researchers aim to assess which STEM jobs in which industries are more or less able to telework in the near term during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project also will examine the distribution of STEM occupations and wages within firms and compare across industries to gain insight into how disruptive COVID-19 will be at the workplace level. The research team will use large-scale population...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens

Institution: Clemson University

Society’s reliance on digital technologies has resulted in enormous amounts of data being recorded, sorted, and analyzed. While improving human efficiency and life quality, data analytics can also reproduce inequities and further marginalize those from non-dominant populations, including women, people of color, and those who live in poverty. This two-year Building Capacity in STEM Education Research Individual Investigator Development project addresses this issue by developing a data science...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ashkan Negahban

Institution: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University propose to create and utilize 3D virtual reality (VR) environments in engineering settings that immerse learners in complex simulation models representing a real-world situation instead of well-defined problems with existing solutions. By partnering with a simulation software company and industry consultants, the project will generate education modules aligned with industry needs and provide novel model-based systems for engineering education. The...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lorelle A Meadows, Denise J Sekaquaptewa

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

Women have been historically underrepresented in STEM fields, and research evidence suggests that subtle gender bias occurs in many STEM settings, especially those where women continue to be underrepresented. Social psychological research has demonstrated the negative effects of perceived bias or becoming aware that one is the target of stereotyping and discrimination. This project will provide a novel contribution to and extension of the perceived bias research by proposing that simply...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Mala Htun

Institution: University of New Mexico

Researchers from New Mexico State University (NMSU) will implement an EHR Core Research (ECR) program research project. This ECR program supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The study will assess whether and how bystander intervention training - a successful approach in other contexts such as universities and the U.S. military - can be refined, adapted, and delivered to...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Karen L Webber

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

The project examines how students’ work-related experiential activities (WREAs) may be affected by their institution’s geographic proximity to major economic and workforce hubs. WREAs include internships, co-ops, practicums, job shadowing, and other similar opportunities that enable students to apply knowledge in an authentic setting and that lead to successful and productive employment. The research will fill a knowledge gap by empirically documenting the influence of locale on internships...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Kendra S Cheruvelil, Isis H Settles

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

Researchers from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor will collaborate with researchers from Michigan State University to implement an EHR Core Research (ECR) project. The project will study how an inclusive educational and workplace climate can affect academic STEM career outcomes, particularly for early-career individuals from underrepresented groups. The proposers will develop a novel construct of inclusive authorship climate in which intellectual contributions are fully welcomed and valued...

Effective: 2020-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Suzanne T Ortega

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

The Council of Graduate Schools will examine data about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) PhD career aspirations and alumni outcomes from a network of 70 diverse U.S. doctoral institutions. The proposed project will conduct a survey to examine individual and environmental factors that influence retention and persistence in STEM careers and transitions between employment sectors. The underlying assumption of the project is that individual attributes such as self-efficacy...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Jason Owen-Smith

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The project will train and support diverse education and social science researchers to develop the skills necessary to effectively use large scale, privacy-protected administrative data to analyze core questions pertaining to STEM education. The goals are to provide technical training, methodological training, technical support for research project development, and community building for participants. The capacity building efforts leverage a successful research infrastructure, accessible data,...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigators: Chi-Ning Chang, Guan K Saw

Institutions: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc, University of Texas at San Antonio, Claremont Graduate University

Researchers from the University of Texas at San Antonio and University of Kansas will examine how electronic mentoring (e-mentoring) affects student academic, career, and mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an important topic particularly for faculty who are forced to continue mentoring and supporting students through computer-mediated communication technology. The study investigates the life and work challenges for engineering graduate students affected by the COVID-19...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Alexis N Petri

Institution: University of Missouri-Kansas City

The proposed three-day conference "Integrating STEM Education Research Collaboration for Regional Prosperity" will highlight topics relevant to STEM education and workforce development in the greater Kansas City region. STEM education topics will include supporting student success, broadening participation in STEM, and developing partnerships between two- and four-year institutions. Regional prosperity topics will include identifying high-impact practices to retain STEM majors, promoting STEM...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Mary Bridget Kustusch

Institution: DePaul University

The proposed workshop will convene experts in discipline-based education research (DBER) to introduce novice DBER scholars to interdisciplinary educational theories and research methodologies and to support their scholarship through ongoing mentoring. The event aims to unite mathematics and physics researchers with discipline-based education researchers to share knowledge, develop new understandings, and create new networks. Participants will develop research questions around their interests,...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Cheryl Gomillion

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

The proposal focuses on fundamental STEM education research that examines broadening participation and STEM workforce training in engineering graduate programs. The research will contribute to expanding the current understanding of the characteristics and functioning of STEM research labs (microcultures) that may impact the success of underrepresented graduate students. The Principal Investigator has designed a professional development plan that will support individual capacity building in the...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigator: Eric Hamilton

Institution: Pepperdine University

This project was submitted in response to EHR Core Research (ECR) program announcement NSF 19-508. The ECR program of fundamental research in STEM education provides funding in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. ECR supports projects that 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...

Effective: 2020-2022

Funding Type: Conference

Principal Investigators: Hironao Okahana, Deborah Silver

Institutions: Council of Graduate Schools, Rutgers University New Brunswick

Rutgers University and the Council of Graduate Schools propose to conduct a survey and workshop to develop templates for Individual Development Plans (IDPs) that can be used by STEM Master’s programs. The project responds to recommendations of the National Academies report on Graduate Education for the 21st Century and growing interest among master’s programs to use IDPs to encourage the acquisition of transferrable skills and career exploration for STEM master’s degree students. This...

Effective: 2020-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Suzanne T Ortega

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

This RAPID project aims to empirically examine obstacles to the matriculation, persistence, and completion of underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM graduate programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The underlying assumptions of the project are that URMs may experience greater economic hardship and erosion in motivation to complete a graduate degree during crises. To address this problem, the Council of Graduate Schools will collaborate with the Council for Opportunity in Education and...

Effective: 2020-2021

Funding Type: RAPID/EAGER

Principal Investigator: Matthew T Hora

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions will partner with Parker Dewey to generate a robust mixed-methods dataset about the impact of online internships on student progression. Internships, mandated by many STEM academic programs, are a form of work-based learning that can lead to academic and workforce success for undergraduate and graduate students. Traditional face-to-face internships also can enhance students’ social...

Effective: 2019-2025

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Laura Stapleton

Institution: University of Maryland, College Park

Despite the persistent under representation of individuals from underserved populations in STEM, there are not enough scholars and early career researchers trained to adequately study the issues. This training institute project will target early career scholars with research foci on issues of access and equity of underrepresented populations in STEM within either K-12 or postsecondary settings. The goal of the training institute is to focus on and improve education research study design,...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Emily A Dringenberg

Institution: Ohio State University

This EHR Core Research project involves a qualitative, exploratory study that will collect interview data to capture the beliefs and identities of first-year engineering students with respect to intelligence and engineering. Participants will be enrolled in the same introductory engineering courses across six distinct institutionalized pathways. Despite significant efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, those who earn engineering undergraduate degrees...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Tessa C Andrews

Institution: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc

Active-learning instruction refers to teaching methods that engage students during a significant amount of class time in work designed to help them learn. When compared with traditional lecturing, studies have shown that active-learning instruction can enhance students' science learning. Active learning is also associated with increased retention of underrepresented minorities in science courses. However, studies also show that the learning gains achieved in active-learning classrooms vary...

Effective: 2019-2024

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Benjamin Zwickl

Institution: Rochester Institute of Tech

This CAREER project investigates learning and assessment of problem-solving in context-rich settings, such as research laboratories, project-based courses, and STEM workplaces. It includes an education plan focused on transferring the research to improve education. Because these context-rich, problem-solving experiences more closely mimic professional work, they offer important venues for STEM workforce development. However, these environments tend to be resource and time-intensive compared to...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Melissa Mazmanian

Institution: University of California-Irvine

The project examines whether and how the class ceiling impacts the STEM workforce by focusing on the application and hiring process of elite internships, a key juncture in the path towards careers in Big Tech. By simultaneously studying the hiring process at Big Tech firms from the demand side evaluations of job applicants by employers and supply side choices and preparation of job applicants, the research will illuminate the hidden factors that shape who is offered elite internships. It fills...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ross J Benbow

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Student military service members and veterans, who are undergraduate students, face numerous medical, financial and social obstacles that universities and communities must address to prevent this skilled talent pool from leaving STEM before entering, or re-entering, our nation's workforce. For example, many service members and veterans have family or work...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lara C Perez-Felkner

Institution: Florida State University

This EHR Core Research project will conduct research on women's participation in computing fields, with a focus on community college starters using a comprehensive dataset from Florida's educational institutions and national-level comparable data. Despite the growing demand for computer scientists and engineers, women's representation in this industry remains problematically low while their share of degree earners has declined nationally. In 2014, the most recent year for which U.S. national...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigator: Larry V Hedges

Institution: Northwestern University

The primary goal of this set of workshops is to provide STEM education researchers with the framework, skills, and community they need to implement new developments in causal inference methods into their research. These methods will be immediately implementable in their current (or near future) studies and will result in stronger causal findings, providing higher-quality evidence regarding the potential of new innovations to improve STEM education broadly. Additionally, a secondary goal is to...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Heather Griller Clark, Michael Krezmien

Institutions: Arizona State University, University of Massachusetts Amherst

The project will investigate the impact of a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) App-based curriculum on STEM career knowledge, interests, competencies, and readiness for incarcerated youth. Integrating STEM into Transition Education for Incarcerated Learners (INSITE) will integrate STEM workforce development activities into Merging Worlds, an empirically supported transition program, and deliver it through a UDL App-based framework to prepare and support STEM career readiness and employment...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: BCSER Institute

Principal Investigators: Therese D Pigott, Joshua R Polanin, Elizabeth Tipton

Institutions: Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University

The project is supported through the EHR Core Research: Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) competition that is designed to build individual capacity to carry out high quality fundamental STEM education research in STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM fields, and STEM workforce development. The goal of the Modern Meta-Analysis Research Institute (MMARI) is to improve the quality of meta-analyses conducted in STEM education by increasing...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heather Hill

Institution: Harvard University

The long-term goal of this project, funded by EHR's Core Research Program, is to guide and support teacher education programs. Significant research work is currently available about how to best train STEM K-12 teachers. As a result, it is an appropriate time to reflect on what educational researchers have already learned and plan for new research designs and methods that can sustain and extend improvements in STEM teacher education. This project will work with STEM teacher educators to study...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: Other

Principal Investigator: Philip L Bell

Institution: University of Washington

This project will examine how partnerships among state science leaders, education researchers and education practitioners cultivate vertical coherence and equity in state science education. This is an important study because in most states, the student population is becoming more diverse, and states need help in finding ways to better serve schools and districts within their jurisdictions. Through this effort, state science leaders will participate in a networked improvement community model...

Effective: 2019-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Matthew T Hora

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Internships and other forms of experiential and work-based learning are increasingly a common feature of STEM education in the United States and are all central to the goal of preparing a STEM workforce for the 21st century. In focusing on access and equity related to internship participation, this study will be one of the first to empirically explore these issues, which are of increasing concern to higher education scholars.The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for College-Workforce...

Effective: 2019-2021

Funding Type: BCSER IID

Principal Investigator: Ramon Goings

Institutions: University of Maryland Baltimore County, Loyola University Maryland, Inc.

This project will support fundamental STEM education research that examines broadening participation within the STEM teacher workforce. By investigating the factors that influence undergraduate student persistence in STEM and teacher education, it has the potential to contribute new knowledge about the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority pre-service STEM teachers. The investigator has designed a professional development plan that will support building his capacity to do...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: IVORY A TOLDSON

Institution: QUALITY EDUCATION FOR MINORITIES NETWORK

The Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network, in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), is studying a model aligned with the successful graduation of undergraduate STEM students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) who go on to earn doctoral degrees. The primary objective of this research is to advance understanding about the characteristics of HBCUs that enable STEM undergraduate students to thrive and prepare them to subsequently pursue and...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Benjamin Kelcey

Institution: University of Cincinnati Main Campus

There is widespread recognition that research on malleable teacher attributes represents a critical component of the foundational knowledge necessary to improve and advance STEM education. A method of research to understand how teachers affect students is mediation analyses. Mediation analyses decode how and why attributes are connected to student improvement by probing the intermediate developmental processes and behaviors of teachers that operationalize these relationships. Multi-school or...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Krystal Hinerman, Eric M Riggs, Julie M Sexton

Institutions: Lamar University, Texas A&M University, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Northern Colorado

The representation of women in the earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences workforce is significantly lower than that of female undergraduate students majoring in these disciplines. This underrepresentation limits the available role models for female undergraduate and graduate students, and female scientists working in industry. It is critical to understand the factors that may influence why male or female undergraduate students pursue the STEM workforce or not. Advancing a diverse and...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Samantha Daley

Institution: University of Rochester

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project will pursue integrated research and education efforts to broaden participation, persistence, and success in advanced science coursework and career progression for students with learning disabilities, the largest disability category in United States' public education. Despite the potential for academic and career success in STEM, students with learning disabilities participate in advanced science courses and pursue STEM careers at much lower...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: James Minogue

Institution: North Carolina State University

The need to prepare a skilled and motivated STEM workforce who can meet the demands of a dynamic and complex global economy is a widely recognized national challenge. This project, a cross-institutional collaboration among North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Davidson College, capitalizes on advances in technology to respond to that challenge. It aims to provide empirical evidence on the enhancement of foundational physics concepts of pre-service...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Nadya A Fouad

Institution: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

The study examines how the interaction of diversity and engineering team dynamics impact innovation in the workplace. The investigators apply the Categorization Elaboration Model (CEM) to investigate why simply including women or racial/ethnic minorities on engineering teams does not lead automatically to greater innovation. The model reconciles the inconsistent literature on team diversity and team performance and addresses the fundamental question of when and how team diversity can have a...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heather L Thiry

Institution: University of Colorado at Boulder

Given their accessibility and affordability, community colleges attract high numbers of minority, low-income, and first-generation students. Despite their potential to diversify the STEM workforce, few studies have sought to capture how community colleges serve underrepresented students in STEM courses and degree programs. Further, there is a limited understanding of what leads underrepresented community college students to transfer to and attain STEM degrees from four-year institutions. Taking...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: David F Feldon

Institution: Utah State University

The proposed project will examine the linkage between graduate skill development and postgraduate career outcomes by (1) identifying the ways in which the development of research skills and professional goals during graduate training may predict postdoctoral career attainment and trajectories, (2) examining the capacity of postdoctoral research positions to serve as inflection points in early career researchers' career trajectories, and (3) characterizing the extent to which demographic...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Amy D Robertson Jr

Institution: Seattle Pacific University

This ECR project will explore the extent to which educational strategies, tools, and materials in undergraduate physics classrooms and laboratory sessions center some students and marginalize others. This project will identify teaching strategies, tools, and materials that communicate who is welcome, important, and influential in physics and what characteristics are valued and necessary for success in physics. The ways that undergraduate physics is taught may lead to reduced persistence and...

Effective: 2018-2023

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Andrew S Hanks, Kevin M Kniffin

Institutions: Ohio State University, Cornell University

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

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

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

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

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

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Tama Leventhal

Institution: Tufts University

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

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sandra Simpkins

Institution: University of California-Irvine

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

Effective: 2018-2022

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Lois Joy

Institution: Jobs for the Future, Inc.

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