CAREER: Knowledge Exchange for Supporting Youth with or at Risk for Mathematics Difficulty

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One of the most persistent challenges in education is the gap between research and classroom practice, meaning that research-informed recommendations and practices that could support students’ mathematics learning do not always reach the classroom. Students struggling with mathematics in upper elementary grades experience cascading difficulties and limited access to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Improving how mathematics-focused education research is communicated to a teacher audience—using strategies that are useful and valuable from the teacher perspective—is one key avenue for mitigating consequences of the research-practice gap. This project will develop, assess, and refine innovative key abstracts (i.e., concise, infographic-type resources) for communicating mathematics-focused practitioner articles with a teacher audience. Teacher perspectives will be embedded throughout the project to inform key abstract design. The project also involves a collaboration with the university disability center to provide funded research opportunities in STEM education to university students with disabilities.This project builds on a sequence from a systematic journal analysis that will develop a database of practitioner articles for subsequent project studies; to a qualitative exploration of teachers’ perceptions of key abstracts; to a mixed methods study; and finally, to an experimental pretest-posttest control group design to investigate the impact of abstract types on teachers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions. The context for the research is communication of mathematics-focused practitioner articles for supporting upper elementary students with or at risk for mathematics difficulty. As noted, promoting students’ mathematics and overall STEM achievement is a critical need in the United States. The focus of the research aligns with and advances in the PI’s early-career research program. Project outcomes hold potential for empowering researchers, teachers, and students. Researchers will have strategies grounded in evidence for improving their communication which may, in turn, support use of effective mathematics practices in the classroom that bolster student outcomes.This is a Faculty Early Career Development Program project responsive to a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers the most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. The proposal was submitted to the Discovery Research K-12 program, which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers.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.