Collaborative Research: The Downside of Perseverance--Investigating and Moving Students Beyond Unproductive Persistence

该项目研究了基于计算机的学习环境(CBLE)中数学学习的持久性。这项研究调查了CBLE如何提供支持性帮助，并促进学生不仅成为坚持不懈的数学学习者，而且是富有成效的坚持不懈的数学学习者所必需的自我调节策略。该项目将重点关注中学阶段，这是学校发展轨迹中的一个重要和薄弱环节，因为数学概念在从算术到代数的过渡过程中变得越来越困难和抽象。持久性在CBLE中至关重要。研究表明，改变学生的学业心态对他们的毅力和成就有很大的好处。持续的努力对学习来说很重要，但并不总是足够的，人们对坚持不懈的负面影响关注较少，这被称为旋转车轮，即陷入困境的学习者花费在没有进步的时间上。该项目将建立工具、理论和干预策略，以满足有困难的数学学生的需求。对于技术设计人员，该项目将提取成果，为CBLE制定基于研究的设计原则。对于教育工作者来说，该项目将把研究结果转化为可用于加强教师实践的教学方法。该研究旨在解决三个目标：(1)开发能够实时区分车轮旋转和生产性持续性的自动化检测器；(2)调查预测车轮旋转和生产性持续性的学生、教师和系统因素；以及(3)设计和测试干预措施，以减少车轮旋转并促进生产性持续性。该项目将使用数千名学生的详细日志数据，这些学生使用现有的基于计算机的数学程序。学习分析方法现在提供了识别和研究微观层面的学生行为投入模式的手段。该项目将使用补充数据分析、相关、有声思考和实验方法来检验生产性持久性及其未被研究但普遍存在的非生产性持久性。这项研究将推进基于数据挖掘的测量的最新发展，以提供可用于增强学习的工具；扩展关于认知和自我调节过程的经验发现，使数学学习具有生产性坚持；并扩大经验基础，告知在CBLEs或教师实践中哪些支持是生产性坚持所必需的。该项目由STEM基础研究的EHR核心研究(ECR)计划支持，将贡献有关STEM学习和学习环境的重要研究成果，这是ECR计划的重要优先事项。

The project researches persistence in mathematics learning in a computer-based learning environment (CBLE). The research investigates how a CBLE can provide the supportive help and promote the self-regulatory strategies necessary for students to be not just persistent, but productively persistent math learners. The project will focus on the middle school years, an important and vulnerable point in the school trajectory, as mathematical concepts become increasingly difficult and abstract in the transition from arithmetic to algebra. Persistence is critical in CBLEs. Research shows has shown that changing student academic mindsets can have strong benefits for their persistence and achievement. Sustained effort is important but not always sufficient for learning and less attention has been paid to the downside of perseverance, called wheel-spinning, the time that struggling learners spend without making progress. The project will build instrumentation, theory, and intervention strategies to address the needs of struggling math students. For technology designers, the project will distill findings to develop research-based design principles for CBLEs. For educators, the project will translate findings into pedagogical approaches that can be used to enhance teacher practice.The research is designed to address three goals: (1) Develop automated detectors that can differentiate between wheel-spinning and productive persistence in real time; (2) Investigate student, teacher, and system factors that predict wheel-spinning and productive persistence; and (3) To design and test interventions to reduce wheel-spinning and promote productive persistence. The project will use detailed log data from thousands students who use an existing computer-based mathematics program. Learning analytic methods now provide the means to identify and study micro-level student behavioral engagement patterns. The project will use complementary data analytic, correlational, think-aloud, and experimental methods to examine productive persistence and its understudied yet common counterpart, unproductive persistence. The research will advance the state of the art in data mining-based measurement to provide instrumentation that can be used to enhance learning; extend empirical findings about the cognitive and self-regulatory processes that enable productive persistence in math learning; and extend the empirical base informing what supports in CBLEs or teacher practice are necessary for productive persistence. The project, supported through the EHR Core Research (ECR) program of fundamental research in STEM, will contribute important research findings regarding STEM learning and learning environments, which are important priorities of the ECR program.