4. Externally Funded Campus Projects to Shape Policy and Advocate for STEM Education
- A Longitudinal Study of Gender and Mathematics Using ECLS Data
- Advancing the State-of-the-Art in Evaluation: Field-Testing and Disseminating an Educative, Values-Engaged Approach to Evaluating STEM Education Programs
- Content Validation Study for an Analytic Framework to Identify Strategies Employed in Promising K-12 Science and Mathematics Teacher Preparation Programs
- Critical Path Analysis of the Illinois STEM Pipeline
- Improving Supply & Demand Data for the Preparation of Secondary Science & Math Teachers
- Underrepresented Undergraduates in STEM at Large Research Universities: From Matriculation to Degree Completion
- Underrepresented Undergraduates in STEM: The Impact of Recruitment and Retention Intervention Programs at Large, Research-Intensive, Public Universities
A Longitudinal Study of Gender and Mathematics Using ECLS Data
Institute for Education Sciences
Sarah Lubienski
Curriculum & Instruction
This project explores how boys’ and girls’ early experiences differ at both school and home and how those differences relate to gender disparities in K–5th grade mathematics achievement. In the study's first component, students’ home experiences, classroom experiences, and attitudes toward mathematics are compared by gender. The second and third components focus on the relationship between those student experiences and gender gaps in kindergarten mathematics achievement. In the final component, relationships among girls’ and boys’ attitudes toward mathematics, experiences, and achievement, are examined. Throughout the study, interactions among gender, race/ethnicity, and SES are explored.
Advancing the State-of-the-Art in Evaluation: Field Testing and Disseminating an Educative, Values-Engaged Approach to Evaluating STEM Education Programs
National Science Foundation
Award # 0535793
Jennifer Greene,
Lizanne DeStefano
Educational Psychology
This project continues the development of an educative, values-engaged approach to evaluating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs. The approach emphasizes the critical contributions of evaluation to STEM knowledge generation and learning and to the political requirements for equal access, opportunity, and representation in STEM educational policies, programs, and practices, especially for learners from underrepresented groups. Conceptual development of this approach is currently supported by an EREC grant. The present proposal is funded to field test, critically refine, and disseminate this STEM education evaluation approach.
Content Validation Study for an Analytic Framework to Identify Strategies Employed in Promising K–12 Science and Mathematics Teacher Preparation Programs
National Science Foundation Award # 0829720
Richard Herman,
Lizanne DeStefano
Office of the Chancellor,
I-STEM Education Initiative
As part of its Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative (SMTI), the Association for Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), with early support by the Carnegie Corporation of NY and a grant by the National Science Foundation, is working to develop an Analytic Framework (AF) that will:
- Serve as a tool for describing existing teacher preparation programs notable for their early success in improving the quantity and quality of science and mathematics teachers;
- Provide a structure to systematically identify and compare leading practices and specific program attributes employed by universities and their partnering school systems; and
- Be used as a structure for documenting the systemic nature of teacher preparation: recruitment, pedagogical and content-knowledge instruction, clinical/field experiences, induction, professional development, and linking with program outcomes.
Critical Path Analysis of the Illinois STEM Pipeline
Caterpillar Foundation
Lizanne DeStefano
I-STEM Education Initiative
Caterpillar has provided seed funding for a study of the STEM pipeline in Illinois. Working with corporate partners, IBHE (Illinois Board of Higher Education) and ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education), the study will develop accurate projections of the need for STEM teachers in Illinois schools, track STEM course taking and performance of Illinois youth through high school and postsecondary, and map the number and distribution of STEM majors in Illinois colleges and universities against current and future state workforce needs.
Improving Supply & Demand Data for the Preparation of Secondary Science & Math Teachers
National Science Foundation Award # 0831950
Lizanne DeStefano
I-STEM Education Initiative
This project is a three-year partnership between the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and two discipline-based organizations, the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC/PTEC, an effort of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers) and the American Chemical Society. The project vision is the creation of a large and enduring national network of colleges and universities that have successfully negotiated difficult institutional constraints to establish strong, effective, and well-sustained high school teacher preparation programs in science and mathematics—programs that respond successfully to the need for accomplished science and mathematics teachers in their states and throughout the country. Core objectives of the work are to:
- Create and support a national leadership network from up to 50 institutions of presidents, chancellors, provosts and their designees who are active at their institutions in improving mathematics and science education—and especially teacher education;
- Increase the number of disciplinary faculty who are contributing toward teacher preparation and who, through inter-departmental, inter-college, and school-university partnerships, assume increased responsibility for the mentoring and induction of beginning teachers and the professional development of career teachers;
- Address and make demonstrable progress toward overcoming the challenges that impede the ability of universities to strengthen their science teacher preparation programs;
- Widely disseminate the results and lessons learned from this and other related projects, especially the lessons learned about: 1) changes in institutional policies and practices that enhance science teacher preparation programs and increase the participation of disciplinary faculty; 2) the programmatic features of exemplary science teacher preparation programs; 3) the features of successful Noyce Scholarship Programs; 4) securing the ongoing and active commitment of top institutional leadership to making teacher preparation—particularly in science and mathematics—a central university enterprise; 5) the role of the disciplinary societies in strengthening science teacher preparation and in the support of practicing teachers; and 6) state policy efforts that can facilitate improvement of science teacher preparation and that remove the disincentive for pursuing a career in teaching; and
- Provide support to the national networks of MSP and Noyce Scholarship programs, facilitating communication across these and other networks of science and mathematics education programs.
Underrepresented Undergraduates in STEM at Large Research Universities: From Matriculation to Degree Completion
National Science Foundation
Award # 0856309
William Trent
Educational Policy Studies
This is a three-year study that is examining the matriculation, persistence, and degree attainment of full-time, first-time enrolled women, minorities, and low-income undergraduate students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields at a consortium of 11 large research universities. This project is using statistical and qualitative research methods to identify key individual and institutional factors that affect underrepresented students' matriculation, persistence, and degree completion in the STEM fields. It is evaluating the impact of course offerings, policies and practices, and program interventions designed to increase educational outcomes. This study is contributing to understanding by using large samples of underrepresented students and placing them into meaningful categories (by racial/ethnic sub-group, academic preparation, and STEM major), as well as the intersection with critical demographic characteristics, such as socioeconomic status.
The findings from the study are intended to increase understanding about how postsecondary institutions can use mechanisms and program interventions to improve the persistence and degree attainment of underrepresented students in the STEM fields. The study will benefit the academic community by creating a graduate-level course to be offered to students enrolled at any CIC institution to discuss the empirical, methodological, policy, and program issues that impact the representation of women and minorities in the STEM fields, with specific attention to students attending large research universities.
Underrepresented Undergraduates in STEM: The Impact of Recruitment and Retention Intervention Programs at Large, Research-Intensive, Public Universities
Ford Foundation
William Trent
Educational Policy Studies
This project contributes to understanding of key factors affecting underrepresented students’ matriculation and degree completion in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. It seeks insights on how postsecondary institutions can use interventions to promote persistence and attainment. Findings will inform policymakers and postsecondary administrators about “successful” interventions. Programmatically, the results can help inform the development and implementation of interventions to attract and retain underrepresented students. The study aids in identifying how interventions offered by institutions impact underrepresented students’ enrollment, persistence, and success in STEM fields.