Using ASSISTments for College Math: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Supports and Transferability of Findings

将 ASSISTments 用于大学数学：支持有效性和结果可转移性的评估

• 批准号: 2216036
• 负责人: Allison McCulloch
• 金额: $ 13.49万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2216036&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Using; ASSISTments; College; Math; Evaluation

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving student learning in mathematics and statistics using an online system that provides feedback to students while solving homework problems. A common teaching challenge is how best to support students when they are stuck on a mathematics problem in a homework assignment. When the goal is to support productive struggle and not just provide the correct answer, it is not always clear how much support should be provided. An existing free web-based platform allows teachers and researchers to author questions and solution step supports, and it makes student action data available to instructors and researchers. Previous research results on the use of this platform to support student learning and the use of formative feedback in instruction in secondary school classrooms was promising. Given the potential of the platform as a useful pedagogical tool in those settings, this project aims to adapt the platform for use at the undergraduate level, where research indicates the need for such supports in introductory level mathematics and statistics courses. Understanding how the technological supports provided to college students as they complete mathematics problems impacts student learning and confidence will provide important insights for the design and implementation of educational materials broadly.By adapting prior studies, this project seeks to determine whether the use of an existing online platform for formative assessment of student work at the college level leads to similar gains in mathematics learning and analogous changes in pedagogical practices as has been reported at the middle school and high school levels. Over 100 randomized control trials have been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of supports provided through the ASSISTments platform, but these have primarily occurred at levels of schooling prior to the undergraduate years. This project aims to determine whether the use of the platform at the college level leads to similar gains in learning and analogous changes in pedagogical practices. This will be accomplished by replicating studies at the college level which have been shown in the literature to be “Best So Far” supports – those supports which have significantly impacted student learning the most. To accomplish this, the project has four main aims. First is to support scalability by adding a feature to the platform which allows for the uploading of questions and solutions from the learning management system Canvas, thus creating a database of at least 500 problems aligned with college algebra, precalculus, calculus, and statistics curricula. A second aim is to design questions and feedback to improve student understanding and help them complete math homework problems, by creating 16 classroom-ready assignments on common topics in college algebra. Third is to use the platform in college mathematics courses and measure its impact on student learning, and persistence in STEM majors, thus generating large and rich datasets containing student actions within the platform. The fourth and final project aim is to track system usage by instructors during the semester, i.e., while problems are assigned and immediately after the due date, and also the persistence of system usage from semester-to-semester. Project results will be disseminated through the Open Science Framework and the platform’s website. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its 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.

该项目旨在通过使用在线系统改善学生在数学和统计方面的学习，为国家利益服务，该系统在解决家庭作业问题的同时向学生提供反馈。一个常见的教学挑战是如何最好地支持学生时，他们被困在一个数学问题的家庭作业。当目标是支持生产性斗争而不仅仅是提供正确答案时，并不总是清楚应该提供多少支持。现有的免费网络平台允许教师和研究人员编写问题和解决方案步骤支持，并使教师和研究人员可以使用学生的行动数据。以往的研究成果，使用这个平台，以支持学生的学习和使用形成性反馈在中学课堂教学是有前途的。鉴于该平台在这些环境中作为一种有用的教学工具的潜力，该项目旨在调整该平台以供本科生使用，研究表明在入门级数学和统计课程中需要这种支持。了解在大学生完成数学问题时提供给他们的技术支持如何影响学生的学习和信心，将为广泛地设计和实施教育材料提供重要的见解。该项目旨在确定使用现有的在线平台对大学水平的学生作业进行形成性评估是否会导致数学学习和类似的收益。据报告，初中和高中的教学方法发生了变化。已经进行了100多项随机对照试验，以评估通过ASSISTments平台提供的支持的有效性，但这些主要发生在本科之前的学校教育水平。该项目旨在确定在大学一级使用该平台是否会导致类似的学习成果和教学实践的类似变化。这将通过复制在大学一级的研究，已在文献中被证明是“迄今为止最好的”支持-这些支持有显着影响学生的学习最。为了实现这一目标，该项目有四个主要目标。首先是通过向平台添加一个功能来支持可扩展性，该功能允许从学习管理系统Canvas上传问题和解决方案，从而创建一个至少包含500个与大学代数，微积分，微积分和统计课程相一致的问题的数据库。第二个目标是设计问题和反馈，以提高学生的理解，并帮助他们完成数学家庭作业的问题，通过创建16个课堂上准备的任务，在大学代数的共同主题。第三是在大学数学课程中使用该平台，并衡量其对学生学习的影响，以及STEM专业的持续性，从而生成包含平台内学生行为的大型且丰富的数据集。第四个也是最后一个项目的目标是跟踪教师在学期中的系统使用情况，即，而问题是分配的，并立即在到期日后，以及系统的使用持续从学期到学期。项目成果将通过开放科学框架和平台网站传播。NSF IUSE：EDU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。该奖项反映了NSF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。