College of Education Professors Score Prestigious NSF Grants

Jennifer Schmidt and M Cecil Smith (LEPF) received a grant in the amount of $476,131 for their proposal “Looking Inside High School Science Classrooms: An Exploration of Males’ and Females Subjective Experience” from the National Science Foundation. This three-year project will record students’ classroom experiences through a combination of surveys, interviews, classroom observations, and experience sampling. The data collected from this project will have a substantial impact on instructional practices, course design, and curriculum in high school science education. If the expected gender differences are found in students’ subjective experience, the findings could suggest specific ways to alter science curricula to more fully engage males and females in science classrooms.

NSF also awarded M Cecil Smith (LEPF), Wei-Chen Hung (ETRA), and Thomas Smith (ETRA) a $150,000 grant for their proposal “Development of a Cognitive Tutor for Training Social and Behavioral Science Students in Research Methods Fundamentals.” The three-year project will develop a computerized cognitive tutor for undergraduate students called “REsearchMentor” that will provide an interactive, scenario-based environment to present research methods principles in an integrated “real-life” setting. The interactive tutorials provide corrective feedback, continuous performance feedback, audio and visual segments and graphical aids. The REsearchMentor tutorial is expected to increase and sustain student interest in and comprehension of research methods principles.

Additional information about each grant is available at the National Science Foundation web site:

• “Looking Inside High School Science Classrooms: An Exploration of Males’ and Females Subjective Experience”
• “Development of a Cognitive Tutor for Training Social and Behavioral Science Students in Research Methods Fundamentals”