Search

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Project SEED (Summer Experiences for the Economically Disadvantaged) program has been exposing students to chemistry-related research for over half a century. The program was created and designed to recruit and prepare high school students from economically challenged households to explore and build their confidence in chemistry and STEM, enter college, and hopefully pursue a STEM career. Historically, the students engaged in a summer research experience on college campuses, industrial laboratories, or government facilities, working alongside a scientist mentor. However, the 2020 summer on-campus experiences were not possible due to COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Thus, even after the program planning and recruitment for the experience was well underway, the program pivoted to a virtual camp. The camp's format was substantially different from the on-campus experiences, with 291 students nationwide participating in webinars, small group discussions, and completing assignments based on a schedule with due-dates. Gathering a combination of quantitative and qualitative data before and after the camp revealed increases in the students' professional skills, STEM identity, and college preparation. We failed to find a change in their professional identity. We determined that students participating in future Project SEED programming could benefit from engaging in a combination of on-campus and online events to experience authentic laboratory research and gain a more global perspective of chemistry careers and the potential for extended networking with other Project SEED participants and alumni. © 2021 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Emotional caring and curiosity are associated with exceptional patient care. Combined, the characteristics form empathetic curiosity. Little is known about nursing students' curiosity. Our quantitative research study provides insight into connections between caring and curiosity of nursing students both early and late in their programs of study. Students early their program perceived more caring from others toward them than the students late in the program. The students did not differ in their curiosity or caring levels for others. Our findings indicate a positive relationship between caring and curiosity. Nursing student curiosity may be reflective of their preparation as professionals.

The use of research evidence to inform practice has become an expectation of those working in many professions. There is a dearth of research on teacher use of scholarship to inform their practice....

In this special issue of The Journal of Educational Research, the focus is on makerspaces in K–12 education research—in particular, research on how student engagement in the spaces influences their...

Building on the research about assessing teachers’ leader identity, we were curious to understand how K-12 school principals perceive teachers as leaders. We used a survey research design to gather quantitative and qualitative data from K-12 school principals. We could not find any extant surveys aligned with our research focus; thus, we designed and validated a survey for our research. We contacted 1042 K-12 principals from the south-central region of the US; 70 responded by completing our survey. Analysis indicated a potential misalignment in principal leadership styles between the ideal attributes of leadership and contextual or practical applications of leadership. Additional analysis revealed considerable overlap between the principals’ perceptions of leadership and the roles of teachers; however, those leadership roles aligned with teachers as school-level leaders outside the classroom rather than in their role of teaching students. Findings also revealed an alignment of principals’ perceptions of teachers as leaders with principals’ efforts to develop teachers as leaders. Overall, our research suggests that principals support teachers' development as leaders. We close with a discussion of the results and implications for research and practice.

The goal of our exploratory study was to examine how management and staff in engineering education making spaces are enacting equitable access amongst their users (e.g., students). We examined six different making space types categorized by Wilczynsky’s and Hoover’s classification of academic makerspaces, which considered scope, accessibility, users, footprint (size), and management and staffing. We reviewed research memos and transcripts of interviews of university makerspace staff, student staff, and leaders/administrators during two separate visits to these places that took place between 2017 and 2019. We inductively and deductively coded the data, and the findings suggested that equity of access was situational and contextual. From the results, we identified four additional considerations needed to ensure equitable access for engineering education making spaces: (a) spaces designed and operated for multiple points of student entry, (b) spaces operated to facilitate effective student making processes and pathways, (c) threats to expanded access: burdens and consequences, and (d) elevating student membership and equity through a culture of belonging. Together, the findings point toward a need for developing a more nuanced understanding of the concept of access that far supersedes a flattened definition of access to just space, equipment, and cost.

The motivation for this exploratory qualitative study is to understand what a culture of belonging may look like across six engineering education making spaces in institutions of higher education in the U.S. The research question for this study was: In what ways are the management, instructors, and staff operating engineering education making spaces influencing a culture of belonging (if any) for engineering students? We examined the transcripts of semi-structured interviews of 49 faculty members and 29 members of management/staff of making spaces, using thematic coding. From the data, we identified four themes that described the culture of belonging being created in these six engineering making spaces: (a) a ‘closed loop’ culture for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access, (b) a ‘transactional, dichotomous’ culture, (c) a ‘band-aid, masquerading’ culture, (d) a potential ‘boundary-crossing’ culture. Our primary conclusion was that created cultures in engineering making spaces are extensions of normative cultures found in traditional engineering classrooms. Additionally, while making spaces were attempting to change this culture in their physical infrastructures, it was deemed that the space leadership needs to expand hiring strategies, the nature of making activities, the ambient/physical appearance of the space, disciplines, and required expertise, to create a truly inclusive and equitable culture of belonging.

University-based makerspaces are receiving increasing attention as promising innovations that may contribute to the development of future engineers. Using a theory of social boundary spaces, we investigated whether the diverse experiences offered at university-based makerspaces may contribute to students’ learning and development of various “soft” or “21st century” skills that go beyond engineering-specific content knowledge. Through interviews with undergraduate student users at two university-based makerspaces in the United States we identified seven different types of boundary spaces (where multiple communities, and the individuals and activities affiliated with those communities, come together). We identified students engaging in the processes of identification, reflection, and coordination, which allowed them to make sense of, and navigate, the various boundary spaces they encountered in the makerspaces. These processes provided students with opportunities to engage with, and learn from, individuals and practices affiliated with various communities and disciplines. These opportunities can lead to students’ development of necessary skills to creatively and collaboratively address interdisciplinary socio-scientific problems. We suggest that university-based makerspaces can offer important developmental experiences for a diverse body of students that may be challenging for a single university department, program, or course to offer. Based on these findings, we recommend university programs and faculty intentionally integrate makerspace activities into undergraduate curricula to support students’ development of skills, knowledge, and practices relevant for engineering as well as 21st century skills more broadly.

We explored the challenges with the unplanned change of abruptly shifting to online learning that the COVID-19 pandemic mitigation had on first-year students’ perceptions of learning, their connection to the university, and the general college experience. We used a cross-sectional method to gather quantitative and qualitative data using an online survey. More than 200 participating first-year college students indicated concerns with making connections, feeling challenged and unfulfilled with their educational experience, and struggling to adjust to the pandemic-mandated changes. Additionally, we found that students experienced challenges accepting ownership of their learning and navigating ambiguous situations.

We investigated the use of adaptive comparative judgment to evaluate the middle school student learning, engagement, and experience with the design process in an open-ended problem assigned in a technology and engineering education course. Our results indicate that the adaptive comparative judgment tool effectively facilitated the grading of the students’ products and improved the judges’ understanding of the processes the students used to arrive at their solutions. We found the reliability and validity of the tool to be acceptable and the outcomes of our study suggest that there is justification for the use of the adaptive comparative judgment method to assess student learning outcomes at multiple levels of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education.

Students can gain a range of skills and knowledge from interactions in schools, including emotional competencies such as regulation of emotions. Teachers are positioned to support students’ development of emotion regulation in the social context of school. We sought to determine K-12 teachers’ sense of responsibility, preparation, engagement, comfort, and approach to teaching students emotion regulation. The quantitative and qualitative data we gathered from 155 general K-12 classroom teachers revealed a sense of responsibility, low preparation, varied engagement, and low to moderate comfort. We found differences by grade levels, school location, and teacher education level. There was moderate alignment between how the teachers regulate their emotions and the emotion regulation processes they teach their students. We share implications for school psychologists and suggest multiple directions for future research.

Reading and writing are fundamental skills students need to succeed in college, making literacy development an issue of education equity. The literacy skills can be content-specific, indicating faculty members across disciplines need to support student development of appropriate literacy skills. The extent to which faculty members support student literacy development is likely associated with their literacy-focused education equity mindset. The goal of our research was to document the mindset of faculty members across multiple disciplines. We gathered a combination of quantitative and qualitative data from 345 college faculty members using a survey. We found variations in the mindset strength between disciplines by the number of students taught, gender, and age. Overall, the faculty members held a moderate literacy-focused education equity mindset. The findings have implications for student inclusion, retention, and completion.

With school buildings shuttering due to COVID-19, school counselors’ work needed to shift to virtual environments. The shift in operations led us to wonder about school counselors’ perceptions and practices in these new and unfamiliar conditions. In our mixed-methods cross-sectional study, we gathered quantitative and qualitative data from 89 school counselors. Our findings include evidence of the counselors feeling disconnected from their students, lack of technology and student access, privacy issues, limited preparation to counsel in virtual environments, and work and life balance. We follow our results with a discussion, related implications, and directions for future research.

In an ongoing effort to understand teacher adoption of innovative instructional practices and their consideration of non-conventional tools for teaching and learning we collected survey data from over 300 teachers. From the 44 teachers who participated in our research we found a lack of alignment between teacher personal use of technology for teaching, high levels of teacher-centered use of technology and low levels of student-centered access to technology for learning, and need for instructional technology professional development that is different than what the teachers are receiving. Our discussion includes possible explanations, implications, and directions for future research.

Preparing elementary-level teachers to teach in alignment with the eight Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practices could prove to be a daunting endeavor. However, the process may be catalyzed by leveraging elements of teacher science instruction that inherently attend to the practice standards. In this study, we investigated the science instruction of three grade 3–5 elementary-level teachers. We used observation, interviews, and surveys to determine the level to which the teachers perceived they taught and engaged in teaching science aligned with the eight NGSS practices. We found that the teachers were partially, and intrinsically implementing several of these practices in their instruction, and at the same time could not articulate the eight NGSS practices. Our results suggest there may be ample opportunity to build on the current science instruction of elementary-level teachers to bring their instruction into alignment with the NGSS. We found that teachers’ perceive professional development, school culture, and access to additional instructional resources to be essential to their adoption of the NGSS practices.

In synchronously-delivered, multi-site classrooms, the physical separation between distance students and instructors may create a perceived divide that negatively affects learning. Building on prior experience in flipping organic chemistry in single-site face-to-face (F2F) classes, we decided to extend our approach to multi-site, synchronously-delivered general chemistry courses. Our thought was to narrow the perceived instructor-student divide in distance teaching by using the flexible in-class time that flipping affords to increase the number of positive teacher/distance-student interactions. In this effort, we gradually developed a technique called “bridging questions,” through which the instructor becomes more familiar with student interests and then connects those interests to chemistry topics discussed in class. Despite anticipating overall positive results, actual consequences were mixed: after flipping the class, evaluation scores and positive feedback increased slightly. However, the mean final exam scores decreased for F2F students by 26.2%, but increased for distance students by 4.4% (not statistically significant). Thus, this new approach (flipping with bridging questions) may have unintentionally skewed our focus to distance students, though this conclusion is speculative. (We acknowledge statistical limitations, due to small sample sizes.) We accordingly advocate proactive efforts to balance engagement between both F2F and distance sites. In this paper we also discuss modifications we made to adapt our flipped format to multi-site, synchronously-delivered freshman chemistry courses, as well as the basic idea of bridging questions in general.

Researchers in various contexts have long struggled with an apparent disconnect between an individual’s level of understanding of biological evolution and their acceptance of it as an explanation for the history and diversity of life. Here, we discuss the main factors associated with acceptance of evolution and chart a path forward for evolution education research.

College students’ interactions with campus leaders is critical to their success, particularly in situations of distress. Yet, little is known about college students’ knowledge, perceptions, and identification of campus administrators, faculty members, and staff as leaders and their interactions with these campus leaders. To fill the gap in the literature, we applied a cross-sectional methodology to gather a combination of quantitative and qualitative data using an online survey. We had 60 first-year students participate in our exploratory research by fully completing our survey. We found that students identified their advisors as leaders on campus. We also found most of our participants avoided campus administrators in fear of judgment, intimidation, and feelings of anxiety. Our results have implications for campus leadership, college administrators, student retention, and campus climate. Following our results, we discuss implications for practice and offer additional recommendations for future research.

School principals commonly face a range of decision making that require creative or novel thinking, and these innovative thought processes align with a strong entrepreneurial mindset. We considered entrepreneurial mindset on a spectrum ranging from weak to strong as we empirically documented the entrepreneurial mindset of K-12 school principals. Using a survey, we gathered a combination of qualitative and quantitative data from 374 K-12 principals working in the south-central United States. We found those principals held a modest entrepreneurial mindset, and the mindset was predicted by age, the number of memberships to professional organizations, size of the school, and the academic performance of the school. Our findings have implications for K-12 principal preparation and practice.

We recently shared our design of a two-semester flipped organic chemistry course in which we gave students in-class quizzes to incentivize attendance and watching the lecture videos in advance. With a second iteration, we planned to make the video-watching experience more engaging. We accordingly hypothesized that if students completed short at-home quizzes while watching the videos, then attentiveness, engagement, and learning would increase. We tested this with a later section of the course, dividing the material into 13 units. For units 1–6, we gave in-class quizzes; for 7–13, quizzes were at home. Although units 1–6 and 7–13 covered different material, we were nonetheless surprised when students’ average quiz scores decreased for the take-home quizzes because they did not have a time limit and were open-book, unlike the in-class quizzes. Anonymous survey feedback showed a strong preference for quizzes in class and indications that take-home quizzes demotivated attendance and preclass watching of the v...

Students need to be prepared for the 21st century by developing the literacy skills necessary for participating in the age of synthesis—an age that requires a progressive set of skills and knowledge. The authors identified nine educational innovations that are perceived to be effective for preparing students for the 21st century age of synthesis society. They coded a collection of 39 teacher-generated Grade 3–5 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) lesson plans to document the extent to which the teachers included these nine educational innovations their STEM lesson planning. The authors found practices such as project-based and student-centered learning (which are common established approaches to teaching STEM) to be strongly represented in the plans, whereas practices such as family involvement and place-based learning (which have not been traditionally used in STEM instruction) were less evident in the plans. In their discussion they explore the implications for STEM teaching, and potential directions for future research.

We are in the process of transition from the digital revolution, or the information age, to the age of synthesis (Cai, 2011; Hall, 1995). We argue that teaching and learning in the age of synthesis...

Professional development (PD) opportunities for teachers most commonly take place outside the classroom and are typically designed to address specific components of teachers’ instruction or curriculum. However, there are other activities that take place within the classroom that may have a profound impact on the PD of a teacher. We sought to gain a deeper understanding of the influence that placing a teacher in a mentor role can have on their PD and practice. Thus, we researched the influence of mentor teachers’ work with university-level STEM education majors by engaging in teaching a limited series of STEM inquiry-based lessons in the mentors’ classrooms. Surveys of the mentor teachers indicated that there were many positive benefits for mentors, including gaining new ideas, increased reflection on their practice, increased engagement of students, and in some cases shifts in practice.

Post-secondary education is expected to substantially contribute to the cognitive growth and professional achievement of students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Yet, there is limited understanding of how students studying STEM develop a professional identity. We used the lens of self-authorship to develop a model for STEM student professional identity development. We applied the model to frame our assessment of the relationship between the level of STEM students’ perceptions of their professional identities and their educational experiences, learning preferences, and comfort with faculty interactions. We found a misalignment between students’ perception of themselves as professionals and the expectations for their actions in professional situations. We also found that students engaged in learning activities similar to the activities of STEM professionals communicated higher levels of professional identity development. We provide implications for our research and directi...

Today’s students are growing up in a world of constant connectivity, instant information, and ever-changing technological advancements. The increasingly ubiquitous nature of mobile devices among K–12 students has led many to argue for and against the inclusion of these devices in K–12 classrooms. Arguments in favor cite instant access to information and collaboration with others as positive affordances that enable student self-directed learning. In this study, 706 middle school students from 18 technology and engineering education classes worked in groups of 2–3 to complete an open-ended engineering design challenge. Students completed design portfolios and constructed prototypes in response to the design challenge. Classes were divided with some allowing access to mobile devices during the study and others not allowing access. Additionally, randomly assigned classes completed the design portfolio electronically, and others completed the portfolio on paper. Final student portfolios and products were assessed and assigned a rank order using a method of assessment called adaptive comparative judgment. Thirty student interviews were conducted as well as 6 teacher interviews. Statistical analyses between student access, portfolio type, student self-directed learning, and student achievement were conducted. Findings showed that student self-directed learning was independent of mobile device access during the study. Mobile device access was significantly correlated with higher student scores on the design portfolio, but mobile device access was independent of student scores on design products.

The authors detail the discourse patterns observed within mathematics and science classes at specialized STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) high schools. Analyses reveal that teachers in mathematics classes tended to engage their students in authoritative discourse while teachers in science classes tended to engage students in dialogic discourse. The authors examined variations in the type of discourse in relationship to the discipline being taught, the educational level of the teacher, and course requirements were also explored.

Consistent, high-quality introductions to organic chemistry laboratory techniques effectively and efficiently support student learning in the organic chemistry laboratory. In this work, we developed and deployed a series of instructional videos to communicate core laboratory techniques and concepts. Using a quasi-experimental design, we tested the videos in five traditional laboratory experiments by integrating them with the standard pre-laboratory student preparation presentations and instructor demonstrations. We assessed the influence of the videos on student laboratory knowledge and performance, using sections of students who did not view the videos as the control. Our analysis of pre-quizzes revealed the control group had equivalent scores to the treatment group, while the post-quiz results show consistently greater learning gains for the treatment group. Additionally, the students who watched the videos as part of their pre-laboratory instruction completed their experiments in less time.

In an effort to define a principal education equity mindset, we initially identified six essential attributes of the construct and attempted empirically to confirm our definition by gathering a combination of quantitative and qualitative data from 128 principals. We found variations in the expression of the mindset attributes and commitment by principals to create conditions that support success for all students. In addition, we exposed two unanticipated attributes and variations on attribute commitment. The principals’ personal, professional, and school variables were associated with significant differences in the mindset attributes. We provide a discussion of our findings, implications for practice, and directions for future research.

An education equity mindset is fundamental to assuring all students are supported to achieve to their highest capacity.We have identified six attributes of an educational equity mindset critical to assuring teachers’ practices andprofessional choices are aligned with meeting the needs of all students. In an effort to promote education equitymindset among teachers we determined there was a need to first empirically document the construct. We surveyed 452teachers in the southern region of the United States. Our results indicate that we effectively measured our definition ofeducation equity mindset. We found multiple differences in the mindset attributes based on personal and professionalvariables. Our data indicate that teachers may hold competing or fragmented mindsets. Our research uncoveredmultiple needed lines of research and implications for teacher preparation and professional development.

Teachers commonly work with students with dyslexia. They may not have been aware that the reason a student struggled with many academic tasks, was due to challenges with mental processing associated with the dyslexia. Dyslexia tends to be difficult to recognize. However, the commonly associated behaviors such as acting out, withdrawing, or simply trying and failing are readily noticeable. Because of the hidden nature of dyslexia, many teachers may attribute students’ lack of academic success to other easily explainable issues, such as attention deficit disorder or issues with family function. Students’ academic and potentially life-long success, could be influenced by the lack of teacher awareness or ability to recognize the executive functioning issues of students with dyslexia. Thus, there is a need for teachers at all levels to understand what dyslexia is, hold accurate conceptions of dyslexia, and know how to effectively support the learning of students with dyslexia. Given the critical role teachers play in working with students with dyslexia and the potential teachers have to support or hinder students long term success, there is warrant for examining the perceptions, attitudes, misconceptions, and practice of teachers working with students with dyslexia.

Caring and curiosity are fundamental to learning and working well with others. Individuals who are both caring andcurious have empathetic curiosity and want to know about other people and take the initiative to learn aboutperspectives, needs, and goals of those around them. Empathetic curiosity can be enhanced through activities inschools. The goal of our project was to determine teachers’ perceptions and practices associated with teaching andlearning caring and curiosity. The data we collected from 183 K-12 teachers revealed positive perceptions ofteaching caring and curiosity. We found that the instructional methods used to teach caring shifted with the curricularcontent. Our research also revealed that the focus of curiosity changed when the teaching concentrated on contentrather than the instruction method. The teachers relatively limited focus on caring for others when teaching caringsuggests that they may not be considering empathetic curiosity as a learning goal. Based on our findings we interpretour results and provide implications for teaching and learning.

A theoretical association exists between caring, critical thinking, and curiosity. We wanted to gain a deeper understanding about how the relationships translated to the perceptions and practices of nurse educators. We developed a survey of selected and free response items to gather a combination of quantitative and qualitative data related to nurse educators’ perceptions and practices related to caring, critical thinking, and curiosity. We distributed an invitation to participate in our online survey research project through direct communication with a sample of nurse educators and posted the request to a handful of nurse educator social media sites and listservs. Forty-six nurse educators fully completed our survey. Findings include a mixture of positive perceptions about learning caring and curiosity, insights about the importance of caring and curiosity in nursing, and practices that included promoting critical thinking and curiosity among nurses. We follow the results with a discussion of implications for nurse education.

Trust in science and scientists can greatly influence consideration of scientific developments and activities. Yet, trust is a nebulous construct based on emotions, knowledge, beliefs, and relationships. As we explored the literature regarding trust in science and scientists we discovered that no instruments were available to assess the construct, and therefore, we developed one. Using a process of data collection from science faculty members and undergraduate students, field testing, expert feedback, and an iterative process of design, we developed, validated, and established the reliability of the Trust in Science and Scientist Inventory. Our 21-item instrument has a reliability of Cronbach's alpha of .86, and we have successfully field-tested it with a range of undergraduate college students. We discuss implications and possible applications of the instrument, and include it in the appendix.

This study examined differences between university students who were caught and sanctioned for cheating, students admitting to cheating but who were not caught, and students reporting that they had never cheated. Our findings showed that noncheaters are older, have better grade point averages, and have more sophisticated moral and epistemological reasoning skills. Qualitative analyses revealed that denial of responsibility and injury were the most common neutralization techniques and differed between the sanctioned and self-reported cheaters. We discuss the need to examine the extent to which reasoning skills have a causal impact on cheating behaviors.