CAREER: From Research to Meta-Research to Practice - The Development of an Educational Learning Environment Framework for School Algebra

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This is also funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools.

This project advances the understanding of teaching and learning of algebra in grades 6 through 12 by using a methodology that leverages the cumulative power of an analysis of many studies on a topic. This work will synthesize results aggregated from 40-years of research in the field of mathematics education and develop a unified framework to inform parents, students, teachers, other educators, and researchers.

The project will promote the transformation of research into practice by summarizing data-driven practices of positive educational experiences for students learning algebra in middle and secondary grades. The framework will support a deeper practical understanding of how to teach school algebra. This new understanding formally recognizes the important independent roles of teachers, students. and parents, and how these different roles can be acted on in unison.

In addition, the principal investigator will mentor post-doctoral and doctoral students and develop and implement a new course on meta-research.

The project will conduct meta-research that integrates the results from quantitative meta-analysis, and qualitative meta-synthesis to inform our understanding of four constructs (i.e., parental involvement, school climate, algebra teaching approach, and student engagement) on the algebra achievements of secondary students. The synthesis methods rely on gathering information from existing research to analyze patterns and themes across algebra projects over time.

The results will be used to develop an educational learning environment framework for school algebra. This work will advance understanding of in-school and out-of-school factors that influence the teaching and learning of algebra.

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.