Resources included in these libraries were submitted by ITEST projects or STELAR and are relevant to the work of the NSF ITEST Program. PDFs and/or URLs to the original resource are included in the resource description whenever possible. In some cases, full text publications are located behind publishers’ paywalls and a fee or membership to the third party site may be required for access. Permission for use must be requested through the publisher or author listed in each entry.
Technologies to Support Engineering Education
PublicationThis entry describes technologies that support engineering education, such as 3D printing, computer-assisted design, electromechanical systems and instrumentation, and control systems. Engineering education is one of four disciplines within STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. While science and mathematics are commonly regarded as core subjects in schools, engineering has had a less prominent role in K–12 education. However, engineering is increasingly used to teach science in context. This can increase students’ depth of understanding, allowing them to apply
Computing with a Community Focus: Outcomes from an App Inventor Summer Camp for Middle School Students
PublicationThis paper describes the design and evaluation of a one-week App Inventor summer camp for middle school students with an explicit focus on addressing local community needs. The community focus of the camp was designed to appeal to a broad range of students. We conducted an in-depth interview study to examine its impact on students' attitudes and perceptions, and supplemented this with results from project evaluation. Our results indicate that students had positive experiences in learning and creating real apps for solving community problems. Focusing on local community needs can also help to
Gender Differences in Conceptualizations of STEM Career Interest: Complementary Perspectives from Data Mining, Multivariate Data Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling
PublicationData gathered from 325 middle school students in four U.S. states indicate that both male (p < .0005, RSQ = .33) and female (p < .0005, RSQ = .36) career aspirations for being a scientist are predictable based on knowledge of dispositions toward mathematics, science and engineering, plus self-reported creative tendencies. For males, strong predictors are creative tendencies (beta = .348) and dispositions toward science (beta = .326), while dispositions toward mathematics is a weaker (beta = .137) but still a significant (p < .05) predictor. For females, significant (p < .05) predictors ordered
American Teens' Knowledge of Climate Change
InstrumentsAmerican Teens’ Knowledge of Climate Change reports results from a national study of what American teens in middle and high school understand about how the climate system works, and the causes, impacts and potential solutions to global warming. There are 75 individual questions. A straight grading scale was constructed (scores 90% and above = A, 80-89% = B, 70-79% = C, 60-69% = D, and scores 59% and below = F), using only items for which there was a correct or best answer.
Validation of the Teaching Engineering Self-Efficacy Scale for K-12 Teachers: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach
InstrumentsBackground: Teacher self-efficacy has received attention because of its direct relationship with teachers’ classroom behaviors. Since engineering has been increasingly introduced in K-12 (precollege) education, development of an instrument to measure teachers’ self-efficacy in the context of teaching engineering has been needed. Purpose (Hypothesis): This study reports the development and validation of the Teaching Engineering Self-Efficacy Scale (TESS) for K-12 teachers. Design/Method: The items for the TESS were constructed through a comprehensive review of the literature regarding K-12
Teacher Efficacy and Attitudes toward STEM (T-STEM) Survey
InstrumentsEach of the five Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Elementary Teacher Efficacy and Attitudes toward STEM Surveys (T-STEM) contains six scales (sets of surveys items that most confidently describe a single characteristic of the survey-taker when the responses to these items are calculated as a single result). The first scale is called the Personal STEM Teaching Efficacy Belief Scale (PSTEBS) and consists of Likert-scale questions which ask the respondent about their confidence in their teaching skills. The second scale is called the STEM Teaching Outcome Expectancy Scale (STOES
The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory
InstrumentsThe inventory is a free tool to assess how your collaboration is doing on 20 research-tested success factors. It takes about fifteen minutes to complete. It can be distributed to a small group of leaders in the collaborative, during a general meeting, or via mail to all members for the most complete picture. You can tally your score manually or online.
What Makes for Powerful Classrooms, and How Can We Support Teachers in Creating Them? A Story of Research and Practice, Productively Intertwined
PublicationThis article and my career as an educational researcher are grounded in two fundamental assumptions: (a) that research and practice can and should live in productive synergy, with each enhancing the other, and (b) that research focused on teaching and learning in a particular discipline can, if carefully framed, yield insights that have implications across a broad spectrum of disciplines. This article begins by describing in brief two bodies of work that exemplify these two fundamental assumptions. I then elaborate on a third example, the development of a new set of tools for understanding and
Measuring the Mathematical Quality of Instruction
InstrumentsIn this article, we describe a framework and instrument for measuring the mathematical quality of mathematics instruction. In describing this framework, we argue for the separation of the mathematical quality of instruction (MQI), such as the absence of mathematical errors and the presence of sound mathematical reasoning, from pedagogical method. We argue that conceptualizing this key aspect of mathematics classrooms will enable more clarity in mathematics educators’ research questions and will facilitate study of the mechanisms by which teacher knowledge shapes instruction and subsequent
Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire: Toward Valid and Meaningful Assessment of Learners’ Conceptions of Nature of Science
InstrumentsHelping students develop informed views of nature of science (NOS) has been and continues to be a central goal for kindergarten through Grade 12 (K–12) science education. Since the early 1960s, major efforts have been undertaken to enhance K–12 students and science teachers’ NOS views. However, the crucial component of assessing learners’ NOS views remains an issue in research on NOS. This article aims to (a) trace the development of a new open-ended instrument, the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS), which in conjunction with individual interviews aims to provide meaningful