Collaborative Research: Developing neural and behavioral measures to predict long-term STEM learning outcomes from a high-school spatial learning course

本项目使用学习的神经和行为测量作为改进沉浸式高中课程的基础，该课程训练学生灵活的空间认知和数据分析能力。该项目跟踪学生进入大学，测量修改地理空间课程课程后空间认知能力提高的长期效果。大规模的纵向研究表明，先进的空间认知能力对STEM职业的成功有压倒性的好处。最近的研究表明，在中学和高等教育课程中，空间认知训练对于发展这些技能是有效的。目前缺乏的是将这些独立的研究联系起来的数据：空间认知教育是否会对认知产生持久的影响，从而影响STEM领域未来的成功？该项目利用并进一步发展了一个成功的高中空间STEM课程，通过跟踪进入大学的进度来确定支持长期学习的因素。鉴于有大量证据表明空间认知是STEM成功的决定因素，扩大空间学习的机会对于拓宽STEM成就的大门至关重要。目前，以空间为中心的教育体验（如课外科学活动）往往需要获得与社会经济地位相关的资源。本项目旨在为空间课程的广泛采用建立经验基础，使更多的学生接受空间教学，以及课程开发工具，以产生更有效的STEM课程，缩短开发时间。此外，该项目可以为扩大STEM的参与提供新的见解，并将指出干预的神经目标，确定性别和STEM相关焦虑对大脑概念学习的可能影响，并测试空间教育对减少差异的功效。最广泛地说，这项研究有可能提高具有不同背景和不同职业道路的下一代美国STEM劳动力的空间能力。该项目使用神经数据，结合行为测试，来衡量和比较不同教学方法的有效性，并改进课程本身。该研究建立在多学科团队工作的基础上，包括多年的课程开发，神经数据分析，以及空间认知教育的认知和神经益处的检查。该项目提供的见解使研究人员能够解决几个基本问题，包括如何在教育中最有效地训练和利用空间认知，青少年空间学习与长期神经和认知变化有关，如何将神经数据纳入课程开发周期，以及哪些教学变化有利于学生的学习和动机，以追求未来的STEM努力。除了测试空间教育的有效性，该项目还产生了解码反映学习和概念理解的神经信号的新方法。此外，该项目将这些方法用于比较基于短期和长期神经和认知变化的不同版本的空间课程。通过比较传统的学习成果、新颖的神经测量和学生追求STEM学科的动机，该项目为选择教学方法时的决策提供了新的、有力的证据基础。除了为空间丰富的科学课程提供具体和可操作的建议外，该项目还建立了焦点小组测试的新能力，其中包括改善教育课程的神经数据。因此，该项目在两个方面推动了课程开发：通过展示中学教育中空间认知学习的长期有效性——跟踪学生进入大学的进展——以及通过向课程开发人员的工具箱中添加神经数据。该项目由探索研究pre -12计划（DRK-12）、EHR核心研究（ECR）计划和学生和教师创新技术体验（ITEST）计划共同资助。探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高preK-12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和实证依据。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。投资在至关重要、广泛和持久的关键领域：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大STEM参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该项目支持积累有力的证据，为理解、构建理论进行解释提供依据，并提出干预和创新建议，以应对教育中持续存在的挑战。ITEST项目支持的项目建立对实践、项目要素、背景和过程的理解，有助于提高学生对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）以及信息和通信技术（ICT）职业的知识和兴趣。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。

This project uses neural and behavioral measures of learning as a basis for making improvements to an immersive high school course that trains students in flexible spatial cognition and data analysis. Tracking students into college, the project measures long-term effects of improved spatial cognition resulting from the modified geospatial course curriculum. Large-scale longitudinal studies have demonstrated the overwhelming benefit of advanced spatial cognitive abilities for success in STEM careers. Recent research has shown the effectiveness of spatial cognitive training for developing these skills in the context of secondary and higher education curricula. What is lacking are the data to connect these separate lines of research: does spatial cognitive education yield lasting effects on cognition that influence future success in STEM fields. This project leverages, and further develops, a successful high school spatial STEM curriculum to identify factors that support long-term learning that builds over time, demonstrated by tracking progress into college. Given the substantial evidence that spatial cognition is a determinant of success in STEM, broadening access to spatial learning is critical to broadening the gateway to STEM achievement. Currently, spatially-focused educational experiences (e.g., extracurricular science activities) often require access to resources associated with socioeconomic status. This project aims to establish an empirical basis for broad adoption of spatial curricula so that more students receive spatial instruction, as well as curriculum development tools to yield more effective STEM curricula and shorten development time. Further, this project can provide new insights for broadening participation in STEM and will point to neural targets for intervention, identifying possible effects of sex and STEM-related anxieties on conceptual learning in the brain, and testing the efficacy of spatial education for reducing disparities. Most broadly, the research has potential to bolster spatial ability in the next generation of the U.S. STEM workforce, with diverse backgrounds and diverse career paths. The project uses neural data, in combination with behavioral tests, to measure and compare the effectiveness of different instructional approaches and to improve the curriculum itself. The research builds on a foundation of work by the multidisciplinary team, including years of curriculum development, neural data analysis, and examination of the cognitive and neural benefits of spatial cognitive education. The insights provided by this project allow the investigators to address several fundamental questions, including how to most effectively train and utilize spatial cognition in education, what long-term neural and cognitive changes are associated with spatial learning during adolescence, how can neural data be incorporated into the curriculum development cycle, and which instructional changes benefit student learning and motivation to pursue future STEM endeavors. Beyond testing the efficacy of spatial education, this project also generates new methods for decoding the neural signals that reflect learning and conceptual understanding. Further, the project puts these methods to use in comparing different versions of the spatial curriculum on the basis of short-term and long-term neural and cognitive changes. By comparing traditional learning outcomes, novel neural measures, and student motivation for pursuing STEM disciplines, the project provides a new, powerful evidentiary basis for decision-making when choosing among instructional approaches. This project builds new capacity for focus-group testing that includes neural data to improve educational curricula, in addition to providing specific and actionable recommendations for spatially-enriched science curricula. This project therefore advances curriculum development on two fronts: by demonstrating the long-term effectiveness of spatial cognitive learning in secondary education – tracking student progress into college – and by adding neural data to the toolbox of the curriculum developer. This project is jointly funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12), EHR Core Research (ECR) program, and the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program.The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in education.The ITEST program supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.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.