Inside IES Research

As part of the IES 20^th Anniversary celebration, we are continuing to highlight projects that exemplify research conducted through an equity lens. For this blog, we asked Carol Martin (Arizona State University) to discuss her IES-funded project focused on exploring associations between gender integration in classrooms and student academic engagement and performance in elementary school grades.    

What motivated your team to study the relation between gender integration in classrooms and academic outcomes?

Think about the last time you watched children playing with their peers. Did you notice how the children formed groups, with boys hanging out and talking to other boys, and girls doing the same with other girls? This is a common pattern: Children (and adults) tend to seek out others like themselves. Classic research from the 1970s demonstrated that this used to be common in classrooms, but in over 50 years, there has been almost no research confirming that this pattern might still be happening in contemporary U.S. classrooms.

Our IES-funded team set off to see if it was still occurring, and if so, whether this pattern might limit academic success. We hypothesized that if a student does not feel a sense of belonging or comfort with most students in their class, the school environment is unlikely to be conducive for learning and engagement. In contrast, when students feel comfortable and accepted by most of their peers in the classroom, learning and motivation at school should be enhanced.

What are your research findings?

In our research involving 3^rd- to 5^th-grade students in the Phoenix metro area in Arizona, we began with questions about how to best measure what we are calling gender integration (GI).  We acknowledge that gender is fluid and not a binary of women/girls and men/boys; however, most children in elementary school have stereotypes about these two groups, so it made sense to us to focus on these groups.

In one study, to measure GI, we asked every student how often they interacted with every other student in class. When we looked at these scores by classroom, we found that gender segregation is strong even today. Out of the 26 classrooms included in the study, 24 showed higher levels of interactions among same-gender peers in working groups as compared to what was seen in mixed-gender groups. In addition, we found that feeling included by other-gender peers early in the school year contributed to later improved feelings about school, and this mattered more than did feeling included by same-gender peers.

We recently finished a study in which we examined whether GI is related to academic outcomes such as math and science self-concepts and STEM achievement. We found that GI measured in the fall semester was related to STEM achievement, measured in the spring semester, through improved STEM academic beliefs. We thought it might be the case that this pattern would be found for girls but not boys because of the stereotyped nature of STEM; however, both girls and boys showed this pattern.

Based on your preliminary research findings, what advice would you give to teachers or school leaders?

First off, it is clear that gender segregation is still very strong today. As such, it is important for teachers (and other adults) to be mindful of the need to encourage students to develop relationships with diverse classmates. Teachers can intentionally shape interactions within their classes in a variety of ways. One is by student seating arrangements, and another is in choices of how students are grouped to work together. Teachers can also ensure that students recognize the value of having diverse peer experiences by letting students know that interacting with others who differ from themselves is useful and beneficial. Also, there are relatively simple strategies such as “buddy up” in which teachers mindfully pair students for classwork, which has been shown to help students to mingle more widely with others and to learn from them.

How does your research contribute to a better understanding of the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in education?

Every aspect of our work is related to the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in education. We study the importance of having diverse classrooms (mixed-gender in our case) and breaking down barriers that separate people from each other but stress that this diversity matters only when it is perceived as inclusive and fosters a sense of belonging. For some students, additional supports might be needed to feel included, and we hope to identify which students may need these additional supports and what types of support they need to promote equity in classrooms around issues of social belongingness. When these pieces come together, students are supported, and the learning environment is greatly enhanced.

What are the next steps for your research team?

We are interested in expanding our work to consider other individual characteristics of students and how those relate to GI and academic success. For instance, once all our data are amassed, we intend to examine race and ethnic differences in GI. Furthermore, we are interested in assessing how gender beliefs and identity of students relate to their academic success. In future work, we are interested in exploring in-depth how interventions such as buddying strategies work in classrooms, and how to promote more diverse interactions and classroom experiences that promote optimal academic and social competence.

This blog was produced by Christina Chhin, NCER (christina.chhin@ed.gov).

International and national assessment data show that many U.S. students struggle with mathematics, and there continues to be a gap between students with and without disabilities. The recent 2022 NAEP mathematics results continue to showcase these disparities, which have been further exacerbated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for lower-performing students and students of color.

In honor of Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month, we want to highlight the research IES is supporting to improve mathematics achievement and access to educational opportunities for all learners, especially learners who have been historically underserved and underrepresented in STEM education.

IES is supporting research through its discretionary grant competitions to measure, explore, develop, and evaluate effective mathematics programs, practices, and policies for all students, including those with or at risk for disabilities. Here are a few highlights of some new research supported by IES:

• Interleaved Mathematics Practice – Bryan Matlen (WestEd) and colleagues are conducting a systematic replication of a highly promising mathematics learning intervention, interleaved practice, in 7th grade classrooms. With the interleaved practice intervention, some of the assigned math practice problems are rearranged so that problems of different kinds are mixed together, which improves learning, and problems of the same kind are distributed across multiple assignments, which improves retention. Numerous studies in the laboratory and classroom have demonstrated that merely rearranging practice problems so that the students receive a higher dose of interleaved practice can dramatically boost scores on measures of learning. This replication study will determine whether this promising intervention can improve math learning and achievement and whether the intervention can scale to a widely-used online intervention that currently reaches tens of thousands of students in diverse settings.
• Educational Technology Approaches to K-12 Mathematics – Jennifer Morrison (Johns Hopkins University) and colleagues are conducting a meta-analysis of rigorous evaluations of approaches that use technology to improve student mathematics achievement in grades K to 12. Using meta-analytic techniques, the team will be identifying conditions under which various types of technology applications are most effective in teaching mathematics. The results will provide researchers and education leaders with up-to-date information on effective uses of technology, including computer assisted instruction, cooperative learning, intelligent tutoring systems, games, simulations, virtual reality, inquiry/discovery, project-based learning, and media-infused instruction.
• Specialized Intervention to Reach All Learners - Sarah Powell (University of Texas at Austin) and colleagues are conducting an initial efficacy evaluation of Math SPIRAL, an educator-provided mathematics intervention for students identified as needing intervention services through state achievement testing in grades four and five. Educators are provided with an evidence-based word problem intervention (Pirate Math Equation Quest), associated professional development, and coaching to support implementation and address the needs of their learners who are struggling in math. The research team will evaluate the impact of Math SPIRAL on mathematics outcomes for upper elementary students identified as being with or at risk for a disability. The results will provide information on the efficacy of Math SPIRAL as a tool to accelerate the learning of students in need of math intervention.
• Math and Reading Acquisition Co-Adaptive System – Jess Gropen (Center for Applied Special Technology), Steve Ritter (Carnegie Learning), and their research team are iteratively developing and studying a set of individualized reading supports for students embedded within an adaptive mathematics learning system (MATHia) and an associated teacher application (LiveLab). Heuristics will determine when reading supports or scaffolds should be provided or recommended to students. In addition, adaptive supports for teachers will alert them when students are likely exhibiting reading challenges and provide recommendations for intervention. The findings will determine whether these reading supports that can be embedded into a variety of digital and/or adaptive math tools to decrease reading challenges and increase students' ability to engage effectively with math. The findings and generated technical resources (such as design assets and heuristics) will be Creative Commons licensed and made available through GitHub for use by other developers.

In August 2022, IES also launched the Learning Acceleration Challenge (LAC) Math Prize to identify and award school-based, digital interventions that significantly improve math outcomes for upper elementary school students with or at risk for a disability that affects math performance. Interventions for the Math Prize needed to specifically focus on fractions and could also include prerequisite skills such as whole numbers and operations. Two interventions are currently competing for the math prize and the winner will be announced Fall 2023.

In addition, IES has developed Practice Guides with evidence-based recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools. A list of the mathematics focused Practice Guides can be found here.

This blog was written by Christina Chhin (christina.chhin@ed.gov), NCER; Sarah Brasiel (sarah.brasiel@ed.gov), NCSER; and Britta Bresina (britta.bresina@ed.gov), NCSER.

On March 14, many students across the country will be paying homage to one of the most important irrational numbers – Pi (or π), the mathematical constant that represents the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter. Here at IES, we are celebrating Pi Day in two ways – one, by highlighting two projects that are helping students better understand and apply pi and other geometry concepts, and two, by daydreaming about the other kind of pie (more on that below).

Highlighting Two IES-Funded Geometry Projects

Julie Booth (Temple University) and colleagues are developing and testing an intervention, GeometryByExample, to improve student learning of high school geometry. GeometryByExample provides strategically designed, worked-example based assignments of varied geometric content for students to complete in class in place of more typical practice assignments. Instead of solving all of the practice problems themselves, students study correct or incorrect examples of solutions to half of the problems and respond to prompts asking them to write explanations of why those procedures are correct or incorrect.

Candace Walkington and colleagues are exploring how the interaction between collaboration and multisensory experiences affects geometric reasoning. They are using augmented reality (AR) technology to explore different modalities for math learning, such as a hologram, a set of physical manipulatives, a dynamic geometry system (DGS) on a tablet, or a piece of paper. Each of these modalities has different affordances, including the degree to which they can represent dynamic transformations, represent objects and operations in 3 dimensions, support joint attention, and provide situational feedback. Researchers have developed an experimental platform that uses AR and situates experimental tasks in an engaging narrative story. The overarching research questions they are exploring are (1) How does shared AR impact student understanding of geometric principles? (2) how are these effects mediated by gesture, language, and actions? and (3) how are these effects moderated by student and task characteristics?

The Other Kind of Pi(e)

Baking pies with the pi symbol is another fun way to celebrate the day, so in the spirit of that, we asked NCER and NCSER staff about their favorite pie flavors. Below is a pie graph with the results – not much consensus on flavor, but it’s clear we all love pie. Happy Pi Day!

This chart shows NCER and NCSER staff pie preferences in percentages: Apple 19%, Cherry 19%, Chocolate 12%, Key Lime 12%, Peach 6%, Pecan 19%, and Rhubarb 13%.

Written by Christina Chhin (Christina.Chhin@ed.gov) and Erin Higgins (Erin.Higgins@ed.gov), NCER Program Officers.

The Department of Education’s (ED) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, administered by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), funds entrepreneurial developers to create the next generation of technology products for students, teachers, and administrators in education and special education. The program, known as ED/IES SBIR, emphasizes an iterative design and development process and pilot research to test the feasibility, usability, and promise of new products to improve outcomes. The program also focuses on planning for commercialization so that the products can reach schools and end-users and be sustained over time.

In recent years, millions of students in tens of thousands of schools around the country have used technologies developed through ED/IES SBIR, including more than million students and teachers who used products for remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ED/IES SBIR Announces 2022 Awards

IES has made 10 2022 Phase I awards for $250,000*. During these 8 month projects, teams will develop and refine prototypes of new products and test their usability and initial feasibility. All awardees who complete a Phase I project will be eligible to apply for a Phase II award in 2023.

IES has made nine 2022 Phase II awards, which support further research and development of prototypes of education technology products that were developed under 2021 ED/IES SBIR Phase I awards. In these Phase II projects, teams will complete product development and conduct pilot studies in schools to demonstrate the usability and feasibility, fidelity of implementation, and the promise of the products to improve the intended outcomes.

IES also made one Direct to Phase II award to support the research, development, and evaluation of a new education technology product to ready an existing researcher-developed evidence-based intervention for use at scale and to plan for commercialization. The Direct to Phase II project is awarded without a prior Phase I award. All Phase II and the Direct to Phase II awards are for $1,000,000 for two-years. Across all awards, projects address different ages of students and content areas.

The list of all 2022 awards is posted here. This page will be updated with the two additional Phase I awards after the contracts are finalized.

The 2022 ED/IES SBIR awards highlight three trends that continue to emerge in the field of education technology.

Trend 1: Projects Are Employing Advanced Technologies to Personalize Learning and Generate Insights to Inform Tailored Instruction

About two-thirds of the new projects are developing software components that personalize teaching and learning, whether through artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, automated speech recognition, or algorithms. All these projects will include functionalities afforded by modern technology to personalize learning by adjusting content to the level of the individual learner, offer feedback and prompts to scaffold learning as students progress through the systems, and generate real-time actionable information for educators to track and understand student progress and adjust instruction accordingly. For example:

• Charmtech Labs and Literably are fully developing reading assessments that provide feedback to inform instruction.
• Sirius Thinking and studio:Sckaal are developing prototypes to formatively assess early grade school students in reading.
• Sown To Grow and xSEL Labs are fully developing platforms to facilitate student social and emotional assessments and provide insights to educators.
• Future Engineers is fully developing a platform for judges to provide feedback to students who enter STEM and educational challenges and contests.
• Querium and 2Sigma School are developing prototypes to support math and computer science learning respectively.
• ,Soterix is fully developing a smart walking cane and app for children with visual impairments to learn to navigate.
• Alchemie is fully developing a product to provide audio cues to blind or visually impaired students learning science.
• Star Autism Support is developing a prototype to support practitioners and parents of children with autism spectrum disorder.

Trend 2: Projects Focusing on Experiential and Hands-On Learning
Several new projects are combining hardware and software solutions to engage students through pedagogies employing game-based, hands-on, collaborative, or immersive learning:

• Pocketlab is fully developing a matchbox-sized car with a sensor to collect physical science data as middle school students play.
• GaiaXus is developing a prototype sensor used for environmental science field experiments.
• Mind Trust is a developing a virtual reality escape room for biology learning.
• Smart Girls is developing a prototype science game and accompanying real-world hands-on physical activity kits.
• Indelible Learning is developing a prototype online multi-player game about the electoral college.
• Edify is fully developing a school-based program for students to learn about, create, and play music.

Trend 3: Projects to Advance Research to Practice at Scale

Several new awards will advance existing education research-based practices into new technology products that are ready to be delivered at scale:

• INSIGHTS is fully developing a new technology-delivered version to ready an NIH- and IES-supported social and emotional intervention for use at scale.
• xSEL Labs and Charmtech Labs (noted above) are building on prior IES-funded research-based interventions to create scalable products.
• Scrible is developing an online writing platform in partnership with the National Writers Project based on prior Department of Education-funded research. 

*Note: Two additional 2022 Phase I awards are forthcoming in 2022. The contracts for these awards are delayed due to a back-up in the SAM registration process.

Stay tuned for updates on Twitter and Facebook as IES continues to support innovative forms of technology.

Edward Metz (Edward.Metz@ed.gov) is the Program Manager of the ED/IES SBIR program.

Michael Leonard (Michael.Leonard@ed.gov) is the Program Analyst of the ED/IES SBIR program.

Several efforts around the country are re-examining the skills students need to be prepared for the 21^st century. Frontier digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and blockchain carry the potential—and in some cases have already begun—to radically transform the economy and the workplace. Global engagement and national competitiveness will likely rely upon the skills, deep understanding, and leadership in these areas.

These technologies run on a new type of fuel: data, and very large amounts of it. The “big data” revolution has already changed the way modern businesses, government, and research is conducted, generating new information and shaping critical decisions at all levels. The volume and complexity of modern data has evolved to such a degree that an entire field—data science—has emerged to meet the needs of these new technologies and the stakeholders employing them, drawing upon an inter-disciplinary intersection of statistics, computer science, and domain knowledge. Data science professionals work in a variety of industries, and data now run many of the systems we interact with in our daily life—whether smart voice assistants on our phone, social media platforms in our personal and civic lives, or Internet of Things infrastructure in our built environment.

Students in grades K-12 also interact with these systems. Despite the vast amount of data that students are informally exposed to, there are currently limited formal learning opportunities for students to learn how to understand, assess, and work with the data that they encounter in a variety of contexts. Data science education in K-12 is not widespread, suggesting that our education system has not invested in building capacity around these new and important skill sets. A review of the NCES 2019 NAEP High School Transcript Study (HSTS) data revealed that only 0.07% of high school graduates took a data science course, and 0.04% of high school graduates took an applied or interdisciplinary data science course in health informatics, business, energy, or other field. Critically, education research informing the design, implementation, and teaching of these programs is similarly limited.

To develop a better understanding of the state of data science education research, on October 26, 2021, NCER convened a Technical Working Group (TWG) panel to provide recommendations to NCER on 1) the goals for K-12 data science education research, 2) how to improve K-12 data science education practice, 3) how to ensure access to and equity in data science education, and 4) what is needed to build an evidence base and research capacity for the new field. The five key recommendations from the panel are summarized in a new report.  

• Recommendation 1. Articulate the Developmental Pathway—Panelists recommended more research to better articulate K-12 learning pathways for students.
• Recommendation 2: Assess and Improve Data Science Software—Panelists suggested additional research to assess which data analysis software tools (tinker-based tools, spreadsheets, professional software, or other tools) should be incorporated into instruction and when, in order to be developmentally appropriate and accessible to all learners.
• Recommendation 3: Build Tools for Measurement and Assessment—Panelists advocated for additional research to develop classroom assessment tools to support teachers and to track student success and progress, and to ensure students may earn transferable credit for their work from K-12 to postsecondary education.
• Recommendation 4: Integrate Equity into Schooling and Systems—Panelists emphasized the importance of equity in opportunities and access to high quality data science education for all learners. Data science education research should be conducted with an equity lens that critically examines what is researched and for whom the research benefits.
• Recommendation 5: Improve Implementation—Panelists highlighted several systematic barriers to successfully implementing and scaling data science education policies and practices, including insufficient resources, lack of teacher training, and misalignment in required coursework and credentials between K-12, postsecondary education, and industry. The panel called for research to evaluate different implementation approaches to reduce these barriers and increase the scalability of data science education policies and practices. 

Given the limited evidence base informing data science education at the K-12 level, panelists expressed a sense of urgency for additional research, and for expanded research efforts to quickly build an evidence base to evaluate the promise of, practices for, and best ways to impart data science education. These transformations may carry significant implications for career and technical skills, online social and civic engagement, and global citizenship in the digital sphere.   

Importantly, this report highlights more research is still needed—and soon. IES looks forward to the field’s ideas for research projects that address what works, for whom, and under which conditions within data science education and will continue to engage the education research community to draw attention to critical research gaps in this area.

Written by Zarek Drozda, 2021-2022 FAS Data Science Education Impact Fellow.