Building a Solid Foundation for Multidisciplinary STEM Education Research

评估/研究（91）该项目正在为国家STEM教育研究评估数据库（DANSER）建立一个原则验证，这是支持国家STEM教育领导者所设想的研究文化所需的核心基础设施的关键部分。该项目正在收集七个STEM领域的高质量、经过研究验证的评估工具；创建一个安全、用户友好的核心环境来存储这些评估的数据，并与学生、教室和机构特征的数据相结合；制定向教师和研究人员报告结果的方法；在物理和统计教育研究界对该系统进行了实地测试；召开STEM教师和研究人员的跨学科会议，计划将这个原理验证项目转化为STEM范围内的实施。一个长期目标是在STEM教育研究中发展一种文化，在这种文化中，多个学科可以并行高效地工作，共享工具、想法和结果。DANSER将构成这个环境的核心。这一建议的智力价值在于经过实地测试的DANSER系统具有巨大的潜在用途。许多高等教育机构正在开展创新STEM课程的试点教学。DANSER正在促进在受控实验条件下对这些干预措施的仔细评估，以确定它们对学生学习或态度的影响，以及它们对其他机构和人群的可移植性。该项目正在提高教育研究人员将学生在创新课程中的学习和态度与国家规范进行比较的能力，并更容易地评估变化如何影响学生的成绩。一旦STEM教育研究人员能够利用已经收集了一致基线数据的机构联盟来评估新的想法和工具，就可能产生广泛的影响。

Assessment/Research (91) This project is establishing a proof-of-principle for a Database for Assessment of National STEM Education Research (DANSER), a crucial piece of the core infrastructure needed to support the research culture envisioned by national leaders in STEM education. The project is collecting high-quality, research-tested assessment instruments in seven STEM fields; creating the core of a secure, user-friendly environment to store data from these assessments, integrated with data on student, classroom, and institutional characteristics; developing methods for reporting results to teachers and researchers; field-testing the system in the physics and statistics education research communities; and holding cross-disciplinary meetings of STEM teachers and researchers to plan the translation of this proof-of-principle project into STEM-wide implementation. A long-term goal is the development of a culture in STEM education research where multiple disciplines are working efficiently in parallel, sharing tools, ideas, and results. DANSER will form the nucleus of this environment. The intellectual merit of this proposal is the vast potential usefulness of a field-tested DANSER System. Pilot teaching of innovative STEM courses is occurring in many institutions of higher education. DANSER is facilitating the careful evaluation of these interventions under controlled experimental conditions to establish their impact on student learning or attitudes and their portability to other institutions and populations. This project is improving the ability of education researchers to compare student learning and attitudes in innovative courses to national norms and more readily evaluate how changes are affecting student outcomes. Broad impact is likely once STEM education researchers can draw on a consortium of institutions, already gathering consistent base-line data, to evaluate new ideas and instruments.