Enhancing Program Review to Improve Undergraduate Mathematics Education

This project aims to serve the national interest by taking important foundational steps to transform the culture and impact of program review in the mathematical sciences. Enhancing Program Review in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (E-PRIME) will utilize the Mathematical Association of America’s newly launched Program Review Guidelines (MAA PRG) to develop, implement, evaluate, and promote an enhanced program review (EPR) model.

This EPR model will offer a more productive, collaborative, purposeful alternative to often perfunctory approaches to the program review requirement for undergraduate academic programs, shifting the focus from compliance to an opportunity for growth. E-PRIME’s development and evaluation of the EPR model will improve on all aspects of the program review process, ensure departments have access to a diverse pool of well-trained external consultants, increase faculty ownership over the review process and subsequent outcomes, increase productive collaboration between departments and administrators, provide structures and support for departments to act on their findings, disseminate outcomes, and ensure that EPR serves a diverse range of institutions.

In line with IUSE:EDU goals, E-PRIME will support the changes and progress needed to help improve undergraduate mathematics education throughout the United States.

E-PRIME will engage 12 departments in the newly established EPR process, including sustainable training structures, support for and monitoring of follow-up actions, and identifying strategies and barriers to acting on resulting recommendations. The project focuses on improving all stages of the program review process and supporting changes needed to improve undergraduate mathematics education, which can ultimately lead to a stronger STEM workforce, better prepared STEM graduate students and researchers, and more effective K-12 mathematics teachers.

Five goals will guide the project team's efforts. First, is to design and evaluate a training program, based on the new MAA PRG, that appropriately serves a diverse group of mathematics departments and external consultants. Second, is to recruit and train a diverse group of external EPR consultants to support mathematics departments in conducting an EPR using the new MAA PRG.

Third, is to train and support mathematics departments in conducting a successful EPR with a focus on five key areas that cultivate academic excellence in an undergraduate mathematics program: inclusive culture, engaged faculty, purposeful curriculum, evidence-based pedagogy, and first-year/transfer student success. Fourth, is to provide resources and support for departments to implement follow-up actions based on EPR data and recommendations.

Fifth, is to evaluate, document, and disseminate the impact of EPR on participating programs by collecting data, summarizing lessons learned, and preparing case studies focused on progress in the five key areas. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.

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.