Judging the Evidence Base for "Best Practices" in STEM Teaching and Assessment

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The National Academy of Sciences is taking initial steps toward characterizing the education research base underlying instructional and assessment practices for enhancing student retention, persistence, progression, and professional success. Particular emphasis is being placed on post-secondary engineering with collateral attention to science, technology, and mathematics education. The work is being performed by the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education of the National Academy of Engineering. The outcomes of this effort will be as follows:1. Identification of fewer than 400 papers (distilled from more than 10,000) that address instructional practices and assessment;2. Characterization of these papers with respect to their outcome focus (e.g., academic or career skills), locus of application (e.g., classroom or departmental and beyond), purpose (e.g., improve teaching, redesign courses, or change learning environment)), and nature of research (qualitative, quantitative, or anecdotal);3. Identification of various instructional practices, the populations on which they are asserted to work, and the circumstances under which they are asserted to work;4. Creation of an easily accessible and searchable prototype database with the above information; and 5. Beta and pilot testing of the prototype database and website interface for utility and usability by engineering educators.