Articles

Change theory and theory of change: what’s the difference anyway?

This commentary focuses on the difference between a theory of change and change theory, as it relates to systemic change projects in STEM higher education. A theory of change is project-specific and related to...

Authors: Daniel L. Reinholz and Tessa C. Andrews

Development and application of the Action Taxonomy for Learning Assistants (ATLAs)

The success of the learning assistant (LA) model has largely been attributed to LA facilitation of active learning tasks. A deeper understanding of how LAs facilitate these tasks would inform LA training and s...

Authors: Amreen Nasim Thompson, Robert M. Talbot, Leanne Doughty, Hannah Huvard, Paul Le, Laurel Hartley and Jeffrey Boyer

Problematizing teaching and learning mathematics as “given” in STEM education

Mathematics is fundamental for many professions, especially science, technology, and engineering. Yet, mathematics is often perceived as difficult and many students leave disciplines in science, technology, en...

Authors: Yeping Li and Alan H. Schoenfeld

Students’ reasons for STEM choices and the relationship of mathematics choice to university admission

Despite the increasing need for STEM skills, to date, the connection between STEM subject choices and their impact on students’ educational pathways has not been widely studied. Focusing on the mathematics cho...

Authors: Satu Kaleva, Jouni Pursiainen, Mirkka Hakola, Jarmo Rusanen and Hanni Muukkonen

Five years of development in pursuing excellence in quality and global impact to become the first journal in STEM education covered in SSCI

With the completion of its first five publication cycle years (August 2014 to July 2019), the International Journal of STEM Education has made great progress with its commitments to pursue excellence in quality a...

Authors: Yeping Li

“I Broke Your Game!”: critique among middle schoolers designing computer games about climate change

There have been increasing calls for integrating computational thinking and computing into school science, mathematics, and engineering classrooms. The learning goals of the curriculum in this study included l...

Authors: Eli Tucker-Raymond, Gillian Puttick, Michael Cassidy, Casper Harteveld and Giovanni M. Troiano

Measuring informal STEM learning supports across contexts and time

Informal science activities are critical for supporting long-term learning in STEM fields. However, little is known about the kinds of activities children and their families engage in outside of formal setting...

Authors: Bradley J. Morris, Whitney Owens, Kirsten Ellenbogen, Sibel Erduran and John Dunlosky

Developing student 21^st Century skills in selected exemplary inclusive STEM high schools

There is a need to arm students with noncognitive, or 21^st Century, skills to prepare them for a more STEM-based job market. As STEM schools are created in a response to this call to action, research is needed to...

Authors: Stephanie M. Stehle and Erin E. Peters-Burton

Changes in students’ mental models from computational modeling of gene regulatory networks

Computational modeling is an increasingly common practice for disciplinary experts and therefore necessitates integration into science curricula. Computational models afford an opportunity for students to inve...

Authors: Joseph T. Dauer, Heather E. Bergan-Roller, Gretchen P. King, McKenzie Kjose, Nicholas J. Galt and Tomáš Helikar

From quality to outcomes: a national study of afterschool STEM programming

State afterschool networks across the US are engaged in system-building efforts to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-focused afterschool programming. This study examined ...

Authors: Patricia J. Allen, Rong Chang, Britt K. Gorrall, Luke Waggenspack, Eriko Fukuda, Todd D. Little and Gil G. Noam

Vigilante Innovation (VIX): case study on the development of student skills through a team-based design process and environment

Many undergraduate students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields lack experience in collaborative thinking, limiting their effectiveness as they enter careers in academic...

Authors: Kendra H. Oliver, Jonathan D. Ehrman and Christina C. Marasco

The STEM Faculty Instructional Barriers and Identity Survey (FIBIS): development and exploratory results

As institutions and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments emphasize faculty use of evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs), various barriers and faculty perceptions hinder...

Authors: Hannah Sturtevant and Lindsay Wheeler

Innovative Professional Development and Community Building Activity Program Improves STEM URM Graduate Student Experiences

Strong consensus exists on the need to expand participation of URM doctoral students in STEM fields, to increase their retention, reduce their average time to degree, and provide these students with the prepar...

Authors: Rosana G. Moreira, Karen Butler-Purry, Adrienne Carter-Sowell, Shannon Walton, Isah V. Juranek, Linda Challoo, Gloria Regisford, Richard Coffin and Angela Spaulding

Assessing prior knowledge types as predictors of academic achievement in the introductory phase of biology and physics study programmes using logistic regression

Increasingly, high dropout rates in science courses at colleges and universities have led to discussions of causes and potential support measures of students. Students’ prior knowledge is repeatedly mentioned ...

Authors: Torsten Binder, Angela Sandmann, Bernd Sures, Gunnar Friege, Heike Theyssen and Philipp Schmiemann

Splits in students’ beliefs about learning classical and quantum physics

While there has been increasing recognition of the importance of attending to students’ views about what counts as knowing and learning a STEM field, surveys that measure these “epistemological” beliefs are of...

Authors: Benjamin W. Dreyfus, Jessica R. Hoehn, Andrew Elby, Noah D. Finkelstein and Ayush Gupta

Using the life grid interview technique in STEM education research

Qualitative interviewing is a common tool that has been utilized by science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education researchers to explore and describe the experiences of students, educators...

Authors: Ashley A. Rowland, Dimitri R. Dounas-Frazer, Laura Ríos, H. J. Lewandowski and Lisa A. Corwin

The balance model for teaching linear equations: a systematic literature review

This paper reports a systematic literature review of the balance model, an often-used aid to teach linear equations. The purpose of the review was to report why such a model is used, what types of models are used...

Authors: Mara Otten, Marja Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen and Michiel Veldhuis

Scientists of the future: an analysis of talented students’ interests

Nowadays, scientists not only need to be creative, resourceful, and inventive regarding their research questions and need to understand their field and research methods, but also need to know how to teach, how...

Authors: Tim N. Höffler, Christine Köhler and Ilka Parchmann

Investigating how faculty social networks and peer influence relate to knowledge and use of evidence-based teaching practices

Calls for science education reform have been made for decades in the USA. The recent call to produce one million new science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduates over 10 years highlights the nee...

Authors: A. K. Lane, J. Skvoretz, J. P. Ziker, B. A. Couch, B. Earl, J. E. Lewis, J. D. McAlpin, L. B. Prevost, S. E. Shadle and M. Stains

Optimising Moodle quizzes for online assessments

Computer-aided learning management systems (LMSs) are widely used in higher education and are viewed as beneficial when transitioning from conventional face-to-face teaching to fully online courses. While LMSs...

Authors: Sithara H. P. W. Gamage, Jennifer R. Ayres, Monica B. Behrend and Elizabeth J. Smith

Sustaining pedagogical change via faculty learning community

The necessity of a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) literate population continues to be a high priority worldwide. One approach to build and bolster a STEM-literate workforce is to explore app...

Authors: Teresa L. Tinnell, Patricia A. S. Ralston, Thomas R. Tretter and Mary E. Mills

An investigation into the curriculum ideology that foregrounds the presentation of HIV/AIDS content in selected South Africa Life Sciences textbooks

Research suggests that the South African school curriculum, including subjects such as Life Sciences, may be failing to address students’ socio-scientific challenges such as HIV/AIDS. This could be due to the ...

Authors: Lindelani Mnguni

Facilitators’ adaptation practices of curriculum material resources for professional development courses

In STEM-innovation implementation processes, PD curriculum materials are designed to support facilitators in conducting professional development. However, little is known about the facilitators’ practices in a...

Authors: Nikola Leufer, Susanne Prediger, Peter Mahns and Ulrich Kortenkamp

Individual and situational factors related to undergraduate mathematics instruction

In the US, there is significant interest from policy boards and funding agencies to change students’ experiences in undergraduate mathematics classes. Even with these reform initiatives, researchers continue t...

Authors: Estrella Johnson, Rachel Keller, Valerie Peterson and Timothy Fukawa-Connelly

Models and modelling for authentic STEM education: reinforcing the argument

This commentary expands the notion that models and modelling can be used as a basis to foster an integrated and authentic STEM education and STEM literacy. The aim is to synthesize key publications that docume...

Authors: Jonas Hallström and Konrad J. Schönborn

Toward narrowing the theory–practice gap: characterizing evidence from in-service biology teachers’ questions asked during an academic course

The gap between theory and teachers’ practice is a barrier to education improvement. There is therefore an ongoing need to understand teachers’ thinking and find new ways to meaningfully relate theory and prac...

Authors: Yael Furman Shaharabani and Anat Yarden

Supporting improvements to undergraduate STEM instruction: an emerging model for understanding instructional change teams

Instructional change efforts involving teams of change agents are becoming increasingly prevalent at higher education institutions across the US. Teams may be able to make more lasting and high-quality changes...

Authors: Alice Olmstead, Andrea Beach and Charles Henderson

Learning about research and readership development in STEM education: a systematic analysis of the journal’s publications from 2014 to 2018

In this editorial, we conduct a systematic review of 144 items published in the International Journal of STEM Education over its first 5-year period from 2014 to 2018. We analyze publication quantities and types,...

Authors: Yeping Li, Jeffrey E. Froyd and Ke Wang

Green building literacy: a framework for advancing green building education

Despite the increasing square footage of green buildings worldwide, green building expertise remains largely in the domain of building industry professionals. However, the performance of and advocacy for green...

Authors: Laura B. Cole

Using social network analysis to develop relational expertise for an instructional change initiative

Change leaders (faculty, administrators, and/or external stakeholders) need to develop relational expertise, recognizing the perspectives of others, to enable emergent, systemic change. We describe how change lea...

Authors: Kathleen Quardokus Fisher, Ann Sitomer, Jana Bouwma-Gearhart and Milo Koretsky

Multiple-true-false questions reveal more thoroughly the complexity of student thinking than multiple-choice questions: a Bayesian item response model comparison

Within undergraduate science courses, instructors often assess student thinking using closed-ended question formats, such as multiple-choice (MC) and multiple-true-false (MTF), where students provide answers w...

Authors: Chad E. Brassil and Brian A. Couch

Taking the next step: supporting postdocs to develop an independent path in academia

In the USA, 28.5% of the population is considered underrepresented minority (URM) population; however, fewer than 8 % of US’ research faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) discipl...

Authors: Aman Yadav and Christopher Seals

How teacher talk guidance during Invention activities shapes students’ cognitive engagement and transfer

A key question in K-12 STEM education is how best to guide students as they engage in exploratory learning activities so that students develop transferable knowledge. We investigated this question in a study o...

Authors: Catherine C. Chase, Jenna Marks, Laura J. Malkiewich and Helena Connolly

“It’s not my dream, actually”: students’ identity work across figured worlds of construction engineering in Sweden

Research in engineering education has pointed to the need for new engineers to develop a broader skill-set with an emphasis on “softer” social skills. However, there remains strong tensions in the identity wor...

Authors: Allison J. Gonsalves, Eva Silfver, Anna Danielsson and Maria Berge

A method for analyzing instructors’ purposeful modifications to research-based instructional strategies

Numerous studies in the literature describe the effectiveness of research-based instructional strategies (RBIS) in the postsecondary STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) context. Many of th...

Authors: Erin Scanlon, Brian Zamarripa Roman, Elijah Ibadlit and Jacquelyn J. Chini

Perceived supports and evidence-based teaching in college STEM

Evidence-based teaching, such as active learning, is associated with increases in student learning and engagement. Although many faculty are beginning to adopt innovative practices, traditional lecture-based t...

Authors: Meghan E. Bathgate, Oriana R. Aragón, Andrew J. Cavanagh, Jonathan K. Waterhouse, Jennifer Frederick and Mark J. Graham

Building future primary teachers' capacity in STEM: based on a platform of beliefs, understandings and intentions

STEM education needs to begin in primary schools and should aim to prepare young people for active participation in their future. To produce a generation interested and skilled in STEM, the key foci within sch...

Authors: Premnadh M. Kurup, Xia Li, Greg Powell and Michael Brown

Recognizing and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, leadership, and impact: award for interdisciplinary excellence in mathematics education (IEME award)

Authors: Yeping Li and W. James Lewis

Universal Design for Learning in postsecondary STEM education for students with disabilities: a systematic literature review

Universal Design for Learning is not widely used in postsecondary STEM education. The purpose of this literature review is to synthesize the empirical literature using Universal Design for Learning in postseco...

Authors: Jillian Schreffler, Eleazar Vasquez III, Jacquelyn Chini and Westley James

An investigation of verbal episodes that relate to individual and team performance in engineering student teams

Being an effective team member is one of the key twenty-first century skills and a fundamental proficiency required for jobs and work settings in an increasingly global economy. Collaborative problem-solving i...

Authors: Muhsin Menekse, Senay Purzer and Damji Heo

A descriptive study of race and gender differences in how instructional style and perceived professor care influence decisions to major in STEM

Women and students of color are widely underrepresented in the majority of STEM fields. In order to investigate this underrepresentation, we interviewed over 200 male and female college seniors, primarily wome...

Authors: Katherine Rainey, Melissa Dancy, Roslyn Mickelson, Elizabeth Stearns and Stephanie Moller

Facilitating the use of video with teachers of mathematics: learning from staying with the detail

This article is focused on the role of the facilitator in the professional development of mathematics teachers. It is a feature of several frameworks for using video that teachers are invited to comment on the...

Authors: Alf Coles

Exploring student understanding of the engineering design process using distractor analysis

Typical approaches to assessing students’ understanding of the engineering design process (EDP) include performance assessments that are time-consuming to score. It is also possible to use multiple-choice (MC)...

Authors: Stefanie A. Wind, Meltem Alemdar, Jeremy A. Lingle, Roxanne Moore and Abdullah Asilkalkan

Assessing epistemological beliefs of experts and novices via practices in authentic science inquiry

Achieving science literacy requires learning disciplinary knowledge, science practices, and development of sophisticated epistemological beliefs about the nature of science and science knowledge. Although soph...

Authors: Melanie E. Peffer and Niloofar Ramezani

Teachers’ perception of STEM integration and education: a systematic literature review

For schools to include quality STEM education, it is important to understand teachers’ beliefs and perceptions related to STEM talent development. Teachers, as important persons within a student’s talent devel...

Authors: Kelly C. Margot and Todd Kettler

Evidence that communities of practice are associated with active learning in large STEM lectures

With the increased attention on the need to retain students within STEM majors, it is important for STEM instructors to adopt evidence-based instructional practices that are student-centric and employ active l...

Authors: Jonathan H. Tomkin, Shereen O. Beilstein, Jason W. Morphew and Geoffrey L. Herman

A logistic regression investigation of the relationship between the Learning Assistant model and failure rates in introductory STEM courses

Large introductory STEM courses historically have high failure rates, and failing such courses often leads students to change majors or even drop out of college. Instructional innovations such as the Learning ...

Authors: Jessica L. Alzen, Laurie S. Langdon and Valerie K. Otero

An outlook on self-assessment of homework assignments in higher mathematics education

We discuss first experiences with a new variant of self-assessment in higher mathematics education. In our setting, the students of the course have to mark a part of their homework assignments themselves and t...

Authors: Sarah Beumann and Sven-Ake Wegner

Four years of development as a gathering place for international researchers and readers in STEM education

Authors: Yeping Li

Examining ways to meaningfully support students in STEM

A strong, positive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identity is a predictor of future career choice in a STEM field. In this commentary, major concepts are explored within and among fou...

Authors: Lisa Martin-Hansen