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.
Elementary Pre-Service Teachers' Response-Shift Bias: Self-Efficacy and Attitudes Toward Science
PublicationResponse-shift bias occurs when participants' initial constructs, such as self-efficacy in teaching science, are incomplete because they do not fully conceptualize something they have yet to experience. This study examines whether elementary pre-service teachers can consistently evaluate constructs such as self-efficacy and attitudes toward science throughout an elementary methods course. After the administration of traditional pre-tests, retrospective pre-tests, and post-tests, this study examined whether a response-shift bias consistently occurred in scales indicating science teaching self
Examining Urban Students’ Constructions of a STEM/Career Development Intervention Over Time
PublicationUsing consensual qualitative research, the study examines urban high school students’ reactions to a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) enrichment/career development program, their resources and barriers, their perspectives on the impact of race and gender on their career development, and their overall views of work and their futures. The sample included nine students who participated in a semistructured interview at the end of the 2-week summer program and again 12–18 months later. The results indicate that the students continued to explore STEM fields after the summer program
How High School Students Envision Their STEM Career Pathways
PublicationGiven that many urban students exclude Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics careers from their career choices, the present study focuses on urban high school students and adopts the social-cultural approach to understand the following questions: how do students envision their careers? What are the experiences that shape students’ self-reflections? And how do students’ self-reflections influence the way they envision their future careers? Five students were interviewed and data were coded in two ways: by topic domains and confidence levels. The research findings indicate that
Predicting College Enrollment from Student Interaction with an Intelligent Tutoring System in Middle School
PublicationResearch shows that middle school is an important juncture for a student where he or she starts to be conscious about academic achievement and thinks about college attendance. It is already known that access to financial resources, family background, career aspirations and academic ability are indicative of a student’s choice to attend college; though these variables are interesting, they do not necessarily give sufficient actionable information to instructors or guidance counselors to intervene for individual students. However, increasing numbers of students are using educational software at
Affective States and State Tests: Investigating How Affect Throughout the School Year Predicts End of Year Learning Outcomes
PublicationIn this paper, we investigate the correspondence between student affect in a web-based tutoring platform throughout the school year and learning outcomes at the end of the year, on a high-stakes mathematics exam.
Towards an Understanding of Affect and Knowledge from Student Interaction with an Intelligent Tutoring System
PublicationCsikszentmihalyi’s Flow theory states that a balance between challenge and skill leads to high engagement, overwhelming challenge leads to anxiety or frustration, and insufficient challenge leads to boredom. In this paper, we test this theory within the context of student interaction with an intelligent tutoring system. Automated detectors of student affect and knowledge were developed, validated, and applied to a large data set. The results did not match Flow theory: boredom was more common for poorly -known material, and frustration was common both for very difficult material and very easy
Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat
PublicationThis book brings together new media theorists, game designers, educators, psychologists, and industry professionals, including some of the contributors to the earlier volume, to look at how gender intersects with the broader contexts of digital games today: gaming, game industry and design, and serious games.
STEM Digital Educational Materials
Curricular MaterialsITEST project STEM Digital shares its summer institute and seminar materials. These include PowerPoint presentations, lesson plans, student worksheets, and teacher notes for doing projects with high school and middle school students.
CryptoClub.org
Curricular MaterialsCryptoClub.org is the official webpage of ITEST project The CryptoClub. It contains many activities for learning and enjoying cryptography: ciphers, challenges, games, and comics.
Center for 21st Century Skills at EDUCATION CONNECTION Learning Management System
Curricular MaterialsThe Center for 21st Century Skills at EDUCATION CONNECTION Learning Management System is the online learning space for the Connecticut Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences ITEST project. This space is designed to support the delivery of the courses and programs developed to Connecticut High Schools. The site is powered by an open-source course management system, Moodle. While a user name and password are required access the courses listed, news posted on the front page of the site and some of the course materials can be viewed by guests.