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Abstract Field courses provide transformative learning experiences that support success and improve persistence for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors. But field courses have not increased proportionally with the number of students in the natural sciences. We conducted a scoping review to investigate the factors influencing undergraduate participation in and the outcomes from field courses in the United States. Our search yielded 61 articles, from which we classified the knowledge, affect, behavior, and skill-based outcomes resulting from field course participation. We found consistent reporting on course design but little reporting on demographics, which limits our understanding of who takes field courses. Cost was the most commonly reported barrier to student participation, and knowledge gains were the most commonly reported outcome. This scoping review underscores the need for more rigorous and evidence-based investigations of student outcomes in field courses. Understanding how field courses support or hinder student engagement is necessary to make them more accessible to all students. 

The purpose of this research study is to characterize secondary teachers’ orientations toward mathematics engagement. Results indicated that these 16 high school mathematics teachers tended to emphasize a cognitive dimension for engagement in their orientations, usually intertwined with an additional dimension (affective, social, or behavioral). Understanding teachers’ thinking about engagement is a critical step toward helping teachers improve their practice to support their students’ engagement in mathematics learning. 

Sedentary behavior is prevalent in older adults. Older adults often underutilize public parks for exercising because the parks do not support their needs and preferences. Engaging older adults on the redesign of parks may help promote active lifestyles. The objectives of this pilot study were to evaluate (1) the effects of wearing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) glasses on balance; (2) the effects of different virtual walls separating the walking trail from the roadway on older adults’ gait, and (3) the preferences of the participants regarding wall design and other features. The participants were ten older adults (68 ± 5 years) who lived within two miles from the park. Balance and gait were assessed using a force plate and an instrumented mat. It was feasible to use AR with older adults in the park to evaluate features for redesign. Motion sickness was not an issue when using AR glasses, but balance was affected when wearing VR goggles. The area of postural sway increased approximately 25% when wearing AR glasses, and it increased by close to 70% when wearing VR goggles compared to no glasses. This difference is clinically relevant; however, we did not have enough power to identify the differences as statistically significant because of the small sample size and large variability. Different walls did not significantly affect the participants’ gait either because they did not alter the way they walked or because the holograms were insufficiently realistic to cause changes. The participants preferred a transparent wall rather than tall or short solid walls to separate the park from the roadway. 

Teachers' efforts to support students, both academically and socially, can play a role in how high school students productively engage with mathematics in the moment. To examine the connection between teacher support and student engagement, we conducted an exploratory mixed-methods study combining data from 20 high school classroom observations with student self-reports taken during the observed activity. Our findings indicate that when teachers provide academic support to their students during a lesson, they are also likely to provide social support. Higher teacher support of both kinds correlates with higher student self-efficacy, as well as social and cognitive engagement. Investigating relationships between observations of teaching and students' self-reports of engagement in-the-moment is a potentially revealing approach for uncovering engaging instructional strategies in secondary mathematics classrooms. 

To better understand how to support high school students’ engagement, advancements in research methods that provide greater understandings of malleable factors of engagement and conditions that affect students’ engagement are needed. In this conceptual paper, we introduce four dilemmas that researchers need to navigate to study secondary students’ engagement with mathematics: How can we concurrently capture engagement in-the-moment and at scale? What counts as a moment or experience? What sorts of experiences could be engaging? Whose perspectives on the experience should be privileged? We propose approaches for navigating these dilemmas in the context of a current research project. 

The nature of dark matter and properties of neutrinos are among the most pressing issues in contemporary particle physics. The dual-phase xenon time-projection chamber is the leading technology to cover the available parameter space for weakly interacting massive particles, while featuring extensive sensitivity to many alternative dark matter candidates. These detectors can also study neutrinos through neutrinoless double-beta decay and through a variety of astrophysical sources. A next-generation xenon-based detector will therefore be a true multi-purpose observatory to significantly advance particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, solar physics, and cosmology. This review article presents the science cases for such a detector.