NSF IUSE: Cultivating Learners’ Autonomy to Improve Math Skills for STEM Learning

Funded by National Science Foundation, this project aims to increase students’ motivation to achieve early mastery of essential math skills (i.e., basic procedural math skills) necessary for success in STEM. Based on self-determination theory, this IUSE Engaged Student Learning Level 1 project proposes to develop motivational features for an existing online training system that aims to improve students’ mastery of essential math skills via explicit practice. The motivational features will support students’ autonomy during the online training by providing students meaningful choice and rationale, thus increasing their motivation to engage with the training. The project intends to improve to students’ mastery of essential math skills and therefore positively impact students’ persistence and progress in STEM undergraduate programs and increase the number of students who successfully complete STEM courses and undergraduate programs. The project will also generate design principles that will inform researchers’ future endeavors to improve students’ engagement in online training on a variety of STEM topics.  

To accomplish our objective, we will pursue two specific aims: 

1. Build an enhanced system with SDT-based motivational features to support meaningful choice and meaningful rationale.  

We will employ design-based research to identify, test, and refine the SDT-based motivational features through iterative cycles of analysis, design, development, and implementation. We will use data and information obtained from our preliminary study, relevant research literature, interviews with instructors and students, and recommendations from the advisory board members to inform and shape the iterative process. 

2. Determine the effects of the enhanced system with integrated motivational features on students’ sense of autonomy, mastery of essential math skills, and self-efficacy.  

We will conduct three rounds of experiments comparing the sense of autonomy, mastery of essential math skills, and self-efficacy of those students who use the enhanced system with those who use the original system. We will also survey and interview students to identify how the enhanced system impacts their participation and learning process. Our working hypothesis is that the enhanced system with the integrated motivational features will improve students’ sense of autonomy, mastery of essential math skills, and self-efficacy.   

Progress Updates:

We are currently in the process of building the SDT-based motivational features to enhance the online training system that support meaningful choice and meaningful rationale based on SDT. More specifically,

• We piloted a goal-setting intervention in Fall 2022 in an undergraduate physics class to encourage student participation in online essential math skills training;
• We conducted a study in Fall 2022 in an undergraduate math class to examine the effects of leaderboard on students’ motivation to practice math problems;
• We are developing a learning analytics dashboard that encourage students’ autonomy in self-evaluation, goal-setting, and decision making.