Project Grant 2111128

This National Science Foundation project grant of $464,597 will fund research to characterize active learning environments in physics education and relate classroom features to student outcomes. The award was made under the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education program (CFDA 47.076) to support the creation and implementation of promising STEM education practices.

Specifically, the funding will support a collaborative research project between Drexel University and Wright State University from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2025. The researchers will collect and analyze data from 32 physics course sites implementing various active learning pedagogies. They aim to characterize the learning environments in terms of student-student interactions and instructor/student activities. Network analyses will identify common features of student interactions across approaches. Classroom observations will generate profiles for different pedagogies. Integration of network, profile and student outcome data is intended to reveal which active learning features most contribute to gains in student performance. Results could help instructors select pedagogies tailored to their student populations.