Judging the Evidence Base for "Best Practices" in STEM Teaching and Assessment

美国国家科学院正在采取初步措施，以确定教学和评估实践的教育研究基础，以提高学生的留存、坚持不懈、进步和职业成功。特别强调后中级工程，同时关注科学、技术和数学教育。这项工作由美国国家工程院工程教育奖学金促进中心执行。这一努力的结果如下：1.确定涉及教学实践和评估的不到400篇论文(从10,000多篇论文中提炼出来)；2.根据这些论文的成果重点(例如，学术或职业技能)、应用场所(例如，课堂或系外)、目的(例如，改进教学、重新设计课程或改变学习环境)和研究性质(定性、定量或轶事)对这些论文进行表征；3.确定各种教学做法、声称对其起作用的人群以及声称对其起作用的环境；4.利用上述信息创建一个易于访问和可搜索的原型数据库；5.工程教育工作者对原型数据库和网站界面进行测试性和试点测试，以提高实用性和可用性。

The National Academy of Sciences is taking initial steps toward characterizing the education research base underlying instructional and assessment practices for enhancing student retention, persistence, progression, and professional success. Particular emphasis is being placed on post-secondary engineering with collateral attention to science, technology, and mathematics education. The work is being performed by the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education of the National Academy of Engineering. The outcomes of this effort will be as follows:1. Identification of fewer than 400 papers (distilled from more than 10,000) that address instructional practices and assessment;2. Characterization of these papers with respect to their outcome focus (e.g., academic or career skills), locus of application (e.g., classroom or departmental and beyond), purpose (e.g., improve teaching, redesign courses, or change learning environment)), and nature of research (qualitative, quantitative, or anecdotal);3. Identification of various instructional practices, the populations on which they are asserted to work, and the circumstances under which they are asserted to work;4. Creation of an easily accessible and searchable prototype database with the above information; and 5. Beta and pilot testing of the prototype database and website interface for utility and usability by engineering educators.