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1. Observing Intellectual Need and its Relationship with Undergraduate Students’ Learning of Calculus

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s40753-022-00192-x  

   Weinberg, Aaron ; Corey, Douglas L. ; Tallman, Michael ; Jones, Steven R. ; Martin, Jason ( September 2022 , International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education)

   The concept of intellectual need, which proposes that learning is the result of students wrestling with a problem that is unsolvable by their current knowledge, has been used in instructional design for many years. However, prior research has not described a way to empirically determine whether, and to what extent, students experience intellectual need. In this paper, we present a methodology for identifying students’ intellectual need and report the results of a study that investigated students’ reactions to intellectual need-provoking tasks in first-semester calculus classes. We also explore the relationship between intellectual need, affective need, and students’ learning. Although the overall percentage of students who reported experiencing an intellectual need was low, we found positive associations between intellectual need and learning. 

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2. Observing intellectual need in online instructional tasks

   Corey, D. ; Weinberg, A. ; Tallman, M. ( April 2022 , Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education)

   Karunakaran, S. ; Higgins, A. (Ed.)

   The idea of intellectual need, which proposes that learning is the result of students wrestling with a problem that is unsolvable by their current knowledge, has been used in instructional design for many years. However, prior research has not described a way to empirically determine whether, and to what extent, students’ experience intellectual need. In this paper, we present a methodology to identify students’ intellectual need and also report the results of a study that investigated students’ reactions to intellectual need-provoking tasks in first-semester calculus classes. 

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3. Board 34: Work in Progress: Simple, Scalable Interventions to Address Academic and Mental-Health Barriers in Engineering Undergraduates

   Tang, Maureen ; Galoyan, Tamara ; Capps, Shannon ( June 2023 , 2023 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition)

   The 2021 return to face-to-face teaching and proctored exams revealed significant gaps in student learning during remote instruction. The challenge of supporting underperforming students is not expected to abate in the next 5-10 years as COVID-19-related learning losses compound structural inequalities in K-12 education. More recently, anecdotal evidence across courses shows declines in classroom attendance and student engagement. Lack of engagement indicates emotional barriers rather than intellectual deficiencies, and its growth coincides with the ongoing mental health epidemic. Regardless of the underlying reasons, professors are now faced with the unappealing choice of awarding failing grades to an uncomfortably large fraction of classes or awarding passing grades to students who do not seem prepared for the workforce or adult life in general. Faculty training, if it exists, addresses neither the scale of this situation nor the emotional/identity aspects of the problem. There is an urgent need for pedagogical remediation tools that can be applied without additional TA or staff resources, without training in psychiatry, and with only five or eight weeks remaining in the semester. This work presents two work-in-progress interventions for engineering faculty who face the challenges described above. In the first intervention, students can improve their exam score by submitting videos of reworked exams. The requirement of voiceover forces students to understand the thought process behind problems, even if they have copied the answers from a friend. Incorporating peer review into the assignment reduces the workload for instructor grading. This intervention has been successfully implemented in sophomore- and senior-level courses with positive feedback from both faculty and students. In the second intervention, students who fail the midterm are offered an automatic passing exam grade (typically 51%) in exchange for submitting a knowledge inventory and remediation plan. Students create a glossary of terms and concepts from the class and rank them by their level of understanding. Recent iterations of the remediation plan also include reflections on emotions and support networks. In February 2023, the project team will scale the interventions to freshman-level Introductory Programming, which has 400 students and the highest fail/withdrawal rate in the college. The large sample size will enable more robust statistics to correlate exam scores, intervention rubric items, and surveys on assignment effectiveness. Piloting interventions in a variety of environments and classes will establish best pedagogical practices that minimize instructors’ workload and decision fatigue. The ultimate goal of this project is to benefit students and faculty through well-defined and systematic interventions across the curriculum. 

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4. Effects of High Impact Educational Practices on Engineering and Computer Science Student Participation, Persistence, and Success at Land Grant Universities – Year 2

   Asghar, M. ; Minichiello, A. ; Banerjee, A. ; Ewumi, E. ; Claiborn, C. ; Adesope, O. ( August 2022 , 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   The science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce contributes to the U.S. economy by supporting 67% of jobs and 69% of the gross domestic product [1]. Currently, there is an increased demand for engineering and computer science (E/CS) professionals, particularly those from underrepresented (e.g., gender, racial, ethnic) and underserved (socio-economic, geographically isolated) groups who bring diversity of thought and experience to the national E/CS workforce [2]. Correspondingly, educational institutions are called upon to develop capabilities to attract, engage, and retain students from these diverse backgrounds in E/CS programs of study. To encourage and enable diverse students to opt into and persist within E/CS programs of study, there is a critical need to engage students in supportive and enriching opportunities from which to learn and grow. The importance of student engagement for promoting student growth and development has been researched to such an extent that its utility is widely agreed upon [5]. Importantly, it has been shown that both academic and extracurricular aspects of a student’s learning processes are characterized by engagement [6]. High Impact Educational Practices (HIP) provide useful opportunities for deep student engagement and, thus, positively influence student retention and persistence [4]. Kuh [3] identified eleven curricular and extracurricular HIP (i.e., collaborative assignments and projects, common intellectual experiences, eportfolios, first year seminars and experiences, global learning and study abroad, internships, learning communities, senior culminating experiences, service and community-based learning, undergraduate research, and writing intensive courses). In computer science and engineering education fields, however, the extent to which HIP affects persistence and retention has not been fully investigated. This project aims to examine E/CS undergraduate student engagement in HIP and to understand the factors that contribute to positive engagement experiences. 

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5. “You need to be super smart to do well in math!” Young children's field‐specific ability beliefs

   https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13429  

   Jenifer, Jalisha B. ; Jaxon, Jilana ; Levine, Susan C. ; Cimpian, Andrei ( July 2023 , Developmental Science)

   Success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is often believed to require intellectual talent (“brilliance”). Given that many cultures associate men more than women with brilliance, this belief poses an obstacle to women's STEM pursuits. Here, we investigated the developmental roots of this phenomenon, focusing specifically on young children's beliefs about math (N = 174 U.S. students in Grades 1–4; 93 girls, 81 boys; 52% White, 17% Asian, 13% Hispanic/Latinx). We found that field‐specific ability beliefs (FABs) that associate success in math (vs. reading/writing) with brilliance are already present in early elementary school. We also found that brilliance‐oriented FABs about math are negatively associated with elementary school students’ (and particularly girls’) math motivation—specifically, their math self‐efficacy and interest. The early emergence of brilliance‐oriented FABs about math and the negative relation between FABs and math motivation underscore the need to understand the sources and long‐term effects of these beliefs.

   Field‐specific ability beliefs (FABs) are beliefs about the extent to which intellectual talent (or “brilliance”) is required for success in a particular field or context.

   Among adults, brilliance‐oriented FABs are an obstacle to diversity in science and technology, but the childhood antecedents of these beliefs are not well understood.

   The present study (N = 174) found that FABs that associate success in math (vs. reading/writing) with brilliance were already present in Grades 1−4.

   Brilliance‐oriented FABs about math were negatively associated with elementary school students’ (and particularly girls’) math motivation—specifically, their math self‐efficacy and interest.

    

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