Cultivating Learners' Autonomy to Improve Math Skills for STEM Learning

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This project aims to serve the national interest by increasing students' motivation to achieve early mastery of essential math skills (i.e., basic procedural math skills) necessary for success in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Based on self-determination theory, this IUSE Engaged Student Learning Level 1 project will develop motivational features for the STEM Fluency system, an online training system that aims to improve students' mastery of essential math skills via explicit practice. The motivational features will support students' autonomy during the online training by providing students meaningful choice and rationale to increase their motivation to engage with the training. The project will improve students' mastery of essential math skills and positively impact students' persistence and progress in STEM undergraduate programs. The project will also generate design principles that will inform researchers' future endeavors to improve students' engagement in online training on a variety of STEM topics. STEM undergraduate students often do not possess essential math skills that are foundational to solve STEM problems, or they are far from fluent in their use. The goal of the project is to develop an enhanced STEM Fluency system that addresses students' motivational needs to complete essential math skill training, particularly for those who are underprepared and underrepresented in STEM. The development of the enhanced STEM Fluency system will follow the stages of design-based research to iteratively improve the enhanced system through analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. The central question of the project is to what extent the essential math skill training in the enhanced STEM Fluency system affects students' sense of autonomy, mastery of essential math skills, and self-efficacy. To address this question, the project team will conduct quasi-experiments by comparing the effectiveness of the original system to an enhanced system with integrated autonomy-supportive features. The project team will also use validated learning assessment instruments, surveys, and interviews both to iteratively improve the design and to test the efficacy of the enhanced system. The research findings will be disseminated via conference presentations, peer-reviewed journal publications, and workshops. This project will advance understanding of how to increase student engagement in online STEM training and benefit society by developing a diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce. 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.