Research on the Impact of Inviting Early College Students to be Mathematicians

邀请早期大学生成为数学家的影响研究

• 批准号: 2021161
• 负责人: Terrance Pendleton
• 金额: $ 26.44万
• 依托单位: Drake University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2021161&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Impact; Inviting; Early; College

This project aims to serve the national interest in high quality undergraduate mathematics education and career pathways. Specifically, this exploratory research project will investigate whether mathematics research projects conducted early in students’ college mathematical careers will spark students’ engagement and interest in mathematics. To do so, the PI will work with 12 students in two weekly mathematics seminars of six students each. The students will pose their own questions to investigate, then develop skills in building innovative quantitative solutions to these complex problems. The project has a focus on students from populations that have not yet been equitably recruited into mathematics majors. Participating students will be recruited from non-major or pre-major mathematics courses, with an emphasis on recruiting students who are people of color. A second goal of the project is to capture the nuances in conducting educational research when the mathematician directing the research project is a Black man. The project aims to answer the following research questions: In what ways can undergraduate students enrolled in pre-Calculus and Calculus courses engage in developing and researching authentic mathematical research questions? In what ways does participation in authentic mathematics research shift how students think about themselves as mathematicians or potential mathematicians? How does race intersect with mathematics as the students do research with a faculty mentor? To address these questions, the project will collect data on students’ mathematical work, weekly student journals, and weekly surveys. The project will also collect journals from the Principal Investigator, and video recordings of two seminar meetings. These data will be analyzed using content analysis methods. Results of the study will contribute to the literature about undergraduate research in mathematics, about supporting student populations that have traditionally been excluded from upper level mathematics courses, and about the complexity of the experience of Black STEM faculty. 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.

该项目旨在为高质量的本科数学教育和职业途径提供国家利益。具体来说，该探索性研究项目将调查在学生大学数学职业早期进行的数学研究项目是否会激发学生对数学的参与和兴趣。为此，PI将与12名学生一起在两个每周的六个学生的数学半小伙子中工作。学生将提出自己的问题来调查，然后发展技能，以针对这些复杂问题建立创新的定量解决方案。该项目的重点是尚未同样招募到数学专业的人群的学生。参与的学生将从非硕士或前学前数学课程中招募，重点是招募有色人种的学生。该项目的第二个目标是在指挥研究项目的数学家是黑人时捕捉进行教育研究的细微差别。该项目旨在回答以下研究问题：在哪些方面可以在哪些方面招收校学生和微积分课程，从而参与开发和研究真实的数学研究问题？对真实数学研究的参与如何以什么方式改变了学生如何将自己视为数学家或潜在的数学家？当学生与教师的心理研究一样，种族如何与数学相交？为了解决这些问题，该项目将收集有关学生数学工作，每周学生期刊和每周调查的数据。该项目还将从主要研究者那里收集期刊，以及两次开创性会议的视频录制。这些数据将使用内容分析方法分析。这项研究的结果将有助于有关数学本科研究的文献，有关支持传统上被排除在上层数学课程中的学生人群以及黑人STEM教师经验的复杂性。 NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过订婚的学生学习轨道，该计划支持了承诺实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准来评估诚实的支持。