Using ASSISTments for College Math: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Supports and Transferability of Findings

将 ASSISTments 用于大学数学：支持有效性和结果可转移性的评估

• 批准号: 2216212
• 负责人: Kelly Smalenberger
• 金额: $ 3.01万
• 依托单位: Belmont Abbey College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2216212&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Using; ASSISTments; College; Math; Evaluation

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving student learning in mathematics and statistics using an online system that provides feedback to students while solving homework problems. A common teaching challenge is how best to support students when they are stuck on a mathematics problem in a homework assignment. When the goal is to support productive struggle and not just provide the correct answer, it is not always clear how much support should be provided. An existing free web-based platform allows teachers and researchers to author questions and solution step supports, and it makes student action data available to instructors and researchers. Previous research results on the use of this platform to support student learning and the use of formative feedback in instruction in secondary school classrooms was promising. Given the potential of the platform as a useful pedagogical tool in those settings, this project aims to adapt the platform for use at the undergraduate level, where research indicates the need for such supports in introductory level mathematics and statistics courses. Understanding how the technological supports provided to college students as they complete mathematics problems impacts student learning and confidence will provide important insights for the design and implementation of educational materials broadly.By adapting prior studies, this project seeks to determine whether the use of an existing online platform for formative assessment of student work at the college level leads to similar gains in mathematics learning and analogous changes in pedagogical practices as has been reported at the middle school and high school levels. Over 100 randomized control trials have been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of supports provided through the ASSISTments platform, but these have primarily occurred at levels of schooling prior to the undergraduate years. This project aims to determine whether the use of the platform at the college level leads to similar gains in learning and analogous changes in pedagogical practices. This will be accomplished by replicating studies at the college level which have been shown in the literature to be “Best So Far” supports – those supports which have significantly impacted student learning the most. To accomplish this, the project has four main aims. First is to support scalability by adding a feature to the platform which allows for the uploading of questions and solutions from the learning management system Canvas, thus creating a database of at least 500 problems aligned with college algebra, precalculus, calculus, and statistics curricula. A second aim is to design questions and feedback to improve student understanding and help them complete math homework problems, by creating 16 classroom-ready assignments on common topics in college algebra. Third is to use the platform in college mathematics courses and measure its impact on student learning, and persistence in STEM majors, thus generating large and rich datasets containing student actions within the platform. The fourth and final project aim is to track system usage by instructors during the semester, i.e., while problems are assigned and immediately after the due date, and also the persistence of system usage from semester-to-semester. Project results will be disseminated through the Open Science Framework and the platform’s website. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在通过使用在线系统来改善数学和统计学的学生学习，从而为学生提供反馈，同时解决家庭作业问题。一个普遍的教学挑战是，当学生陷入家庭作业中的数学问题时，如何最好地支持他们。当目标是支持生产斗争，而不仅仅是提供正确的答案时，并不总是清楚应该提供多少支持。现有的基于Web的现有平台使教师和研究人员能够发表问题和解决方案步骤支持，并使学生的行动数据可供教师和研究人员使用。关于使用该平台来支持学生学习的先前研究结果，并承诺在中学课上的指示中使用形成性反馈。鉴于该平台作为这些设置中有用的教学工具的潜力，该项目旨在调整本科级别使用的平台，其中研究表明在引言级别的数学和统计课程中需要进行此类支持。了解在完成数学问题时向大学生提供的技术支持如何影响学生的学习和信心，将为教育材料的设计和实施提供重要的见解。通过调整先前的研究，该项目旨在确定在大学水平上使用现有的在线平台对学生工作的形成性评估是否在学校水平上促进了数学学习和类似程度的培训，这是在学院水平上的领导者。已经进行了100多次随机对照试验，以评估通过辅助平台提供的支持的有效性，但是这些主要发生在本科年之前的教育水平。该项目旨在确定在大学一级使用该平台是否会带来类似的学习和教学实践变化的收益。这将通过在大学一级复制研究来实现，这些研究在文献中表现为“迄今为止最好的”支持 - 这些支持对学生学习最大的支持。为此，该项目具有四个主要目标。首先是通过在平台上添加功能来支持可扩展性，该功能允许从学习管理系统画布上上传问题和解决方案，从而创建一个与大学代数，预钙库，计算和统计学课程相符的至少500个问题的数据库。第二个目的是设计问题和反馈，以提高学生的理解并帮助他们完成数学作业问题，通过在大学代数中创建16个教室就绪的作业。第三是在大学数学课程中使用该平台，并衡量其对学生学习的影响以及STEM专业的持久性，从而在平台内产生包含学生行动的大型且丰富的数据集。第四个也是最后一个项目的目的是在学期期间跟踪讲师的系统使用情况，即，在到期日之后并立即分配问题，以及从学期到学期开始的系统使用的持续性。项目结果将通过开放科学框架和平台的网站传播。 NSF IUSE：EDU计划支持研发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过其参与的学生学习轨道，该计划支持了承诺实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准，被视为通过评估而被视为珍贵的支持。