Force Concept Inventory

Instruments

The Force Concept Inventory is an instrument designed to probe introductory physics students' beliefs on the central Newtonian concept of force and to probe how these beliefs compare with the many dimensions of the Newtonian concept. The Inventory categorizes Newtonian concepts and commonsense beliefs into six categories: kinematics, impetus, active force, action/reaction pairs, concatenation of influences, and other influences in motion (resistance, gravity). The link below provides access to the instrument and detailed documentation. The attached PDF provides instrument documentation. http:/

Read More

Teacher Beliefs Interview

Instruments

The Teacher Beliefs Interview is a semi-structured, 7-item protocol designed to elicit beginning secondary science teachers' beliefs about teaching, learning, and students in mathematics and science classes. The linked and attached article provides both the Teacher Beliefs Interview and its documentation. Authors provide instrument validity and/or reliability information.

Read More

Program Evaluation of ITEST: Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers

Publications

ITEST projects provide meaningful learning opportunities for youth and their teachers, with a focus on increasing the understanding about possible STEM careers. A subset of the projects that have shown success are being funded to scale up. Others are working to improve the knowledge base on effective STEM experiences by conducting research or convening researchers and practitioners. This document demonstrates the scheme behind the evaluation of the ITEST program as a whole. SRI International presentation, 2012.

Read More

The ITEST Community of Practice: Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Publications

This paper summarizes lessons learned from eight years of hosting a national resource center for the ITEST (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) program, funded by the National Science Foundation. At the core of the resource center’s work is the creation, nurturing and expansion of an active community of practice among principal investigators directing projects focused on a wide variety of scientific content for participants ranging in age from kindergarten through adult (educators) located across the U.S. Design, implementation, evaluation, and evolution of the

Read More

Prime the Pipeline Project (P3): Putting Knowledge to Work

Publications

With funding from NSF, the Prime the Pipeline Project (P 3) is responding to the need to strengthen the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline from high school to college by developing and evaluating the scientific village strategy and the culture it creates. The scientific village, a community of high school students, teachers as learners, undergraduate students as mentors, and university scientists as leaders, collaborate to solve challenging long-term problems/projects that develop villagers’ expertise with STEM concepts/skills and give them a taste of the work of

Read More

Scientists Bring New Rigor to Education Research

Publications

This article in Scientific American (August 2014 issue), features the ITEST Research Study, Predicting STEM Career Choice from Computational Indicators of Student Engagement within Middle School Mathematics Classes (see page 72). The article details efforts to bring more rigorous science to classrooms and research that is showing that our intuitions about education may be wrong.

Read More

ITEST Management Information System

Instruments

The Management Information System (MIS) is designed to collect information from ITEST projects shortly after their award is granted from NSF (to provide baseline data) and annually thereafter at the end of each project year. Each question has been designed to provide information that will inform the state of ITEST: who participates, how often, in what kinds of activities, with what objectives and targeted outcomes. The baseline, annual, and final versions of the Spring 2014 MIS are available for preview as PDFs on the right sidebar.

Read More

ITEST Management Information System (MIS) 2012: Final Report Describing Active ITEST Projects

Publications

The fourth annual MIS report, a program-wide summary of ITEST projects, was released in January 2013. This report, prepared with data from the fourth annual ITEST Management Information System (MIS) administration in 2012, describes who ITEST projects served, how many participants they served, the structure of the project, their intended outcomes, and how those outcomes were measured.

Read More

ITEST Management Information System (MIS) 2010: Final Report Describing Active ITEST Projects

Publications

The second annual MIS report, a program-wide summary of ITEST projects, was released in July 2011. This report, prepared with data from the second annual ITEST Management Information System (MIS) administration in 2010, describes who ITEST projects served, how many participants they served, the structure of the project, their intended outcomes, and how those outcomes were measured.

Read More

ITEST Data Brief: ITEST Participants - Reaching Underserved and Underrepresented Groups

Publications

ITEST Data Brief Volume 1, Issue 3, June 2012 The National Science Foundation ITEST Program explicitly states its commitment to focus on students from groups underserved and underrepresented in STEM and ICT-intensive careers. The ITEST Management Information System (MIS) asked projects to identify characteristics of their student participants, and this Data Brief explores that information to see whether and to what degree projects are working with underserved and underrepresented students.

Read More