Articles

The eight essential elements of inclusive STEM high schools

Inclusive STEM (traditionally known to stand for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math”) high schools are emerging across the country as a mechanism for improving STEM education and getting more and dive...

Authors: Melanie LaForce, Elizabeth Noble, Heather King, Jeanne Century, Courtney Blackwell, Sandra Holt, Ahmed Ibrahim and Stephanie Loo

Astrophotography, a portal for engaging non-STEM majors in science

We report the results of an undergraduate course in astrophotography designed to engage non-STEM majors in the natural sciences to train future amateur astronomers and citizen scientists. Over 200,000 students...

Authors: Mario A. De Leo–Winkler, Gabriela Canalizo and Gillian Wilson

Teachers’ use of classroom assessment techniques in primary mathematics education—an explorative study with six Chinese teachers

This paper reports on the use of classroom assessment techniques (CATs) by primary school mathematics teachers in China. CATs are short, focused assessment activities that can reveal students’ understanding of...

Authors: Xiaoyan Zhao, Marja Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen and Michiel Veldhuis

Gender, interest, and prior experience shape opportunities to learn programming in robotics competitions

Robotics competitions are increasingly popular and potentially provide an on-ramp to computer science, which is currently highly gender imbalanced. However, within competitive robotics teams, student participa...

Authors: Eben B. Witherspoon, Christian D. Schunn, Ross M. Higashi and Emily C. Baehr

Beyond “group work”: an integrated approach to support collaboration in engineering education

Working effectively in a collaborative team is not only an outcome required by ABET but also one that scholars and practitioners recognize as necessary for being a successful professional engineer. Technology-...

Authors: Rose M. Marra, Linsey Steege, Chia-Lin Tsai and Nai-En Tang

Elementary content specialization: models, affordances, and constraints

This study investigates the models of elementary content specialization (ECS) in elementary mathematics and science and the affordances and constraints related to ECS—both generally and in relation to specific...

Authors: Kimberly A. Markworth, Joseph Brobst, Chris Ohana and Ruth Parker

Promoting the asking of research questions in a high-school biotechnology inquiry-oriented program

Asking questions is an important scientific practice, and students around the world are expected to learn how to ask their own research questions while performing inquiry. In contrast to authentic scientific i...

Authors: Tom Bielik and Anat Yarden

Increasing STEM success: a near-peer mentoring program in the physical sciences

Mentoring supports professional success in a myriad of fields; in the physical sciences, mentoring increases the retention of diverse groups of students. While physics education has made progress in classifyin...

Authors: Anna M. Zaniewski and Daniel Reinholz

A framework for understanding the characteristics of complexity in biology

Understanding the functioning of natural systems is not easy, although there is general agreement that understanding complex systems is an important goal for science education. Defining what makes a natural sy...

Authors: Joseph Dauer and Jenny Dauer

My science class and expected career choices—a structural equation model of determinants involving Abu Dhabi high school students

This study is about Abu Dhabi high school students’ interest in science in different contexts. The survey was conducted in connection with the international project, the Relevance of Science Education (ROSE). ...

Authors: Masood Badri, Ali Alnuaimi, Jihad Mohaidat, Asma Al Rashedi, Guang Yang and Karima Al Mazroui

A conceptual framework for integrated STEM education

The global urgency to improve STEM education may be driven by environmental and social impacts of the twenty-first century which in turn jeopardizes global security and economic stability. The complexity of th...

Authors: Todd R. Kelley and J. Geoff Knowles

Situated instructional coaching: a case study of faculty professional development

Barriers to reforming traditional lecture-based undergraduate STEM classes are numerous and include time constraints, lack of training, and instructor’s beliefs about teaching and learning. This case study doc...

Authors: Charles Doug Czajka and David McConnell

Developing preservice elementary teachers’ specialized content knowledge: the case of associative property

Specialized content knowledge (SCK) is a type of mathematical content knowledge specifically needed for teaching. This type of knowledge, although serving as a critical component for preservice teacher educati...

Authors: Meixia Ding

Get a room: the role of classroom space in sustained implementation of studio style instruction

The characteristics of the classroom environment play an important role in shaping teaching practices and supporting research-based instructional strategies. One instructional strategy that has reimagined the ...

Authors: Alexis V. Knaub, Kathleen T. Foote, Charles Henderson, Melissa Dancy and Robert J. Beichner

The teachers’ role in developing, opening, and nurturing an inclusive STEM-focused school

This study is about teachers’ collective activity during the development and initial year of a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-focused school in the USA. The target school of this stud...

Authors: David Slavit, Tamara Holmlund Nelson and Kristin Lesseig

NE STEM 4U: an out-of-school time academic program to improve achievement of socioeconomically disadvantaged youth in STEM areas

The Nebraska Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics 4U (NE STEM 4U) program was initiated at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) in 2013. NE STEM 4U is a student-run, faculty-led program facil...

Authors: Christine E. Cutucache, Jamie L. Luhr, Kari L. Nelson, Neal F. Grandgenett and William E. Tapprich

Challenging instructors to change: a mixed methods investigation on the effects of material development on the pedagogical beliefs of geoscience instructors

STEM educational reform encourages a transition from instructor-centered passive learning environments to student-centered, active learning environments. Instructors adopting these changes incorporate research...

Authors: Michael A. Pelch and David A. McConnell

On understanding and improving the teaching of university Mathematics

This paper reports on a professional development workshop in University level mathematics. The workshop was grounded in Schoenfeld’s (How we think. A theory of goal-oriented decision-making and its educational...

Authors: Alan H. Schoenfeld, Mike Thomas and Bill Barton

STEM education K-12: perspectives on integration

This commentary was stimulated by Yeping Li’s first editorial (2014) citing one of the journal’s goals as adding multidisciplinary perspectives to current studies of single disciplines comprising the focus of ...

Authors: Lyn D. English

Erratum to: Supporting students with disabilities and limited English proficiency: STEM educator professional development participation and perceived utility

Authors: S. Li, J. V. Ernst and T. O. Williams

Supporting sustained adoption of education innovations: The Designing for Sustained Adoption Assessment Instrument

Every year, significant effort and resources are expended around the world to develop innovative instructional strategies and materials to improve undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic...

Authors: Courtney Stanford, Renée Cole, Jeff Froyd, Debra Friedrichsen, Raina Khatri and Charles Henderson

Supporting students with disabilities and limited English proficiency: STEM educator professional development participation and perceived utility

Professional development offerings assist K–12 educators in addressing new and evolving classroom dynamics, circumstances, and situations. With the emerging demands of an increasingly science, technology, engi...

Authors: S. Li, J. V. Ernst and T. O. Williams

Standards-based mathematics curricula and the promotion of quantitative literacy in elementary school

Prior research has shown that students taught using Standards-based mathematics curricula tend to outperform students on measures of mathematics achievement. However, little research has focused particularly on t...

Authors: Jesse L. M. Wilkins

Describing undergraduate STEM teaching practices: a comparison of instructor self-report instruments

Collecting data on instructional practices is an important step in planning and enacting meaningful initiatives to improve undergraduate science instruction. Self-report survey instruments are one of the most ...

Authors: Cody T. Williams, Emily M. Walter, Charles Henderson and Andrea L. Beach

University-level practical activities in bioinformatics benefit voluntary groups of pupils in the last 2 years of school

Bioinformatics—the use of computers in biology—is of major and increasing importance to biological sciences and medicine. We conducted a preliminary investigation of the value of bringing practical, university...

Authors: Daniel Barker, Rosanna G. Alderson, James L. McDonagh, Heleen Plaisier, Muriel M. Comrie, Leigh Duncan, Gavin T. P. Muirhead and Stuart D. Sweeney

Analysis of errors in derivatives of trigonometric functions

This article reports on an analysis of errors that were displayed by students who studied mathematics in Chemical Engineering in derivatives of mostly trigonometric functions. The poor performance of these stu...

Authors: Sibawu Witness Siyepu

Incorporating effective e-learning principles to improve student engagement in middle-school mathematics

The expanded use of online and blended learning programs in K-12 STEM education has led researchers to propose design principles for effective e-learning systems. Much of this research has focused on the impac...

Authors: Kevin Mulqueeny, Victor Kostyuk, Ryan S. Baker and Jaclyn Ocumpaugh

STEM learning through engineering design: fourth-grade students’ investigations in aerospace

Internationally, there is a growing concern for developing STEM education to prepare students for a scientifically and technologically advanced society. Despite educational bodies lobbying for an increased foc...

Authors: Lyn D English and Donna T King

The importance of context: an exploration of factors influencing the adoption of student-centered teaching among chemistry, biology, and physics faculty

Research at the secondary and postsecondary levels has clearly demonstrated the critical role that individual and contextual characteristics play in instructors’ decision to adopt educational innovations. Alth...

Authors: Travis J Lund and Marilyne Stains

Refining questionnaire-based assessment of STEM students’ learning strategies

Learning strategies are considered a key aspect for academic performance not only for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students. Refining their assessment thus constitutes a worthwhile r...

Authors: Birgit Griese, Malte Lehmann and Bettina Roesken-Winter

The role of visual representations in scientific practices: from conceptual understanding and knowledge generation to ‘seeing’ how science works

The use of visual representations (i.e., photographs, diagrams, models) has been part of science, and their use makes it possible for scientists to interact with and represent complex phenomena, not observable...

Authors: Maria Evagorou, Sibel Erduran and Terhi Mäntylä

Teachers’ perceptions of students’ mathematical work while making conjectures: an examination of teacher discussions of an animated geometry classroom scenario

This paper reports on a study examining teachers’ perceptions of students they observed in an animated episode and who were engaged in the work of making conjectures in a geometry classroom. We examined eight ...

Authors: Wendy R Aaron and Patricio G Herbst

An exploratory study of informed engineering design behaviors associated with scientific explanations

Design and science inquiry are intertwined during engineering practice. In this study, we examined the relationship between design behaviors and scientific explanations. Data on student design processes were c...

Authors: Şenay Purzer, Molly Hathaway Goldstein, Robin S Adams, Charles Xie and Saeid Nourian

The effects of using exploratory computerized environments in grades 1 to 8 mathematics: a meta-analysis of research

The process of problem solving is difficult for students; thus, mathematics educators have made multiple attempts to seek ways of making this process more accessible to learners. The purpose of this study was ...

Authors: Andrzej Sokolowski, Yeping Li and Victor Willson

Learning to teach scientific practices: pedagogical decisions and reflections during a course for pre-service science teachers

This auto-ethnographic study describes research conducted in a science teacher education program at a state university in Turkey, where I had taught the ‘laboratory applications’ course for the four previous y...

Authors: Deniz Saribas and Gaye Defne Ceyhan

Mathematical practices and mathematical modes of enquiry: same or different?

In this paper, I share a case study of a teacher’s work on mathematics tasks in the context of a ‘mathematics for teaching’ course aiming to develop mathematical content understandings and mathematical practic...

Authors: Hamsa Venkat

Research trends on argumentation in science education: a journal content analysis from 1998–2014

The primary objective of this paper is to provide a review of research on argumentation in science education based on publications from 1998 to 2014 in three science education journals. In recent years, the te...

Authors: Sibel Erduran, Yasemin Ozdem and Jee-Young Park

Case studies of a robot-based game to shape interests and hone proportional reasoning skills

Robot-math is a term used to describe mathematics instruction centered on engineering, particularly robotics. This type of instruction seeks first to make the mathematics skills useful for robotics-centered ch...

Authors: Louis Alfieri, Ross Higashi, Robin Shoop and Christian D Schunn

Exploring variation in measurement as a foundation for statistical thinking in the elementary school

This study was based on the premise that variation is the foundation of statistics and statistical investigations. The study followed the development of fourth-grade students' understanding of variation throug...

Authors: Lyn D English and Jane M Watson

Disciplinary integration of digital games for science learning

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between theory and design in the context of creating digital games to support children's development of scientific expertise.

Authors: Douglas B Clark, Pratim Sengupta, Corey E Brady, Mario M Martinez-Garza and Stephen S Killingsworth

The landscape of PreK-12 engineering online resources for teachers: global trends

The newly formed discipline of engineering education is addressing the need to (a) enhance STEM education for precollege students and (b) identify optimum ways to introduce engineering content starting, perhap...

Authors: Aikaterini Bagiati, So Yoon Yoon, Demetra Evangelou, Alejandra Magana, Garene Kaloustian and Jiabin Zhu

Planning and carrying out investigations: an entry to learning and to teacher professional development around NGSS science and engineering practices

The shift from science inquiry to science practices as recommended in the US reports A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas and the Next Generation Science Standa...

Authors: Richard A Duschl and Rodger W Bybee

Understanding of high-achieving science students on the nature of science

Although teaching nature of science (NOS) has been continually emphasized in many major reform efforts in science education, researchers claim that students do not possess adequate views of NOS. Insufficient u...

Authors: Ora Kahana and Tali Tal

Diffusion of research-based instructional strategies: the case of SCALE-UP

Many innovative teaching strategies have been developed under the assumption that documenting successful student learning outcomes at the development site is enough to spread the innovation successfully to sec...

Authors: Kathleen T Foote, Xaver Neumeyer, Charles Henderson, Melissa H Dancy and Robert J Beichner

Mathematics and biology teachers’ tacit views of the knowledge required for teaching: varying relationships between CK and PCK

The knowledge that is required for teaching includes subject matter content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Although CK and PCK are distinct components of the teachers’ knowledge, the d...

Authors: Ronit Rozenszajn and Anat Yarden

Exploring the dynamics of organizational learning: identifying the decision chains science and math faculty use to plan and teach undergraduate courses

The field of STEM education is increasingly focusing on processes of individual, cultural, and organization-level change in postsecondary institutions, yet current approaches tend to focus on individual levera...

Authors: Matthew T Hora and Anne-Barrie Hunter

Meaningful statistics in professional practices as a bridge between mathematics and science: an evaluation of a design research project

Creating coherence between school subjects mathematics and science and making these school subjects meaningful are still topical challenges. This study investigates how students make meaningful connections bet...

Authors: Adri Dierdorp, Arthur Bakker, Jan A van Maanen and Harrie MC Eijkelhof

Studying technology-based strategies for enhancing motivation in mathematics

During the middle school years, students frequently show significant declines in motivation toward school in general and mathematics in particular. One way in which researchers have sought to spark students’ i...

Authors: Jon R Star, Jason A Chen, Megan W Taylor, Kelley Durkin, Chris Dede and Theodore Chao

Meteorology meets engineering: an interdisciplinary STEM module for middle and early secondary school students

Given the continued need to educate the public on both the meteorological and engineering hazards posed by the severe winds of a tornado, an interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ...

Authors: Bradford S Barrett, Angela L Moran and John E Woods

International Journal of STEM Education - a platform to promote STEM education and research worldwide

Authors: Yeping Li