Promoting Graphical Literacy Skills at Two and Four Year Colleges Through Virtual Tutoring

在美国国家科学基金会改善本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源（IUSE: EHR）的支持下，该项目旨在通过研究和理解所有学生如何培养图形素养（现代劳动力的基本概念）来服务于国家利益。该项目将开发虚拟辅导系统，并评估它们如何在两年制社区学院和四年制主要本科院校促进图形素养。理解和解释图形信息是STEM专业和具有STEM素养的公众的重要基础技能。虽然大学教科书和课程期望学生掌握图表阅读技能，但有证据表明，大学生很难阅读和解释线形图和条形图。当图包含多个变量（这会增加图的复杂性和结构）时尤其如此。几个版本的辅导系统将进行测试，每个版本都基于个人如何学习的相互竞争的理论，以评估针对不同学生和不同环境的最有效方法。到最后，该项目将开发出几个经过研究验证的、灵活的虚拟辅导系统，这些系统可以轻松、自由地传播。该项目将利用初步数据，展示大学一年级和二年级学生在图形素养方面的共同失败点，开发图形素养的虚拟辅导系统。在这些辅导系统中，一项由认知和社会发展学习理论指导的对照实验将使用2x2方差分析设计测试情境和脚手架对促进图形素养的独立和互动影响。额外的层次线性回归分析将测试节目影响的潜在调节者的作用，以及它们与节目特征的相互作用。这项研究的新颖之处在于，它明确地考察了相互竞争的学习理论及其相互作用。该项目的一个重要元素是其有意采用的包容性框架，评估两年制和四年制大学设置的材料，以及学习者个人特征在学习成果中的作用。一个由来自生物学、化学、运动与健康科学、数学和物理学的教师组成的顾问委员会将提供跨学科的见解，包括学科特定的应用或程序修改。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by studying and understanding how all students develop graphical literacy, an essential concept for the modern workforce. This project will develop virtual tutoring systems and evaluate how they promote graphical literacy at both a two-year community college and a four-year primarily undergraduate institution. Understanding and interpreting graphical information is a critical foundational skill for STEM majors and the STEM-literate public. While college textbooks and curricula expect students to have mastered graph-reading skills, evidence indicates that college students struggle to read and interpret line and bar graphs. This is particularly true when graphs include multiple variables that increase the complexity and structure of the graph. Several versions of the tutoring system will be tested, each based on competing theories of how individuals learn, to evaluate the most effective method or methods for different students and in different environments. By its conclusion, this project will have developed several research-validated, flexible virtual tutoring systems that can be easily and freely disseminated.This project will develop virtual tutoring systems for graphical literacy by drawing on preliminary data demonstrating common points of failure in graphical literacy exhibited by first- and second-year college students. Within these tutoring systems, a controlled experiment informed by cognitive and social-developmental theories of learning will test the independent and interactive effects of context and scaffolding to promote graphical literacy using a 2x2 ANOVA design. Additional hierarchical linear regression analyses will test the role of potential moderators of program impact as well as their interactions with program features. The proposed research is novel in that it explicitly examines competing learning theories and their interaction. An important element of the project is its intentionally inclusive framework that evaluates materials across both two-year and four-year college settings, as well as the role of individual learner characteristics on learning outcomes. An advisory board, consisting of faculty from biology, chemistry, exercise and health sciences, mathematics, and physics, will provide interdisciplinary insights, including discipline-specific applications or program modifications. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.