Numerous national and state endeavors have advocated for approaches, funding, and programs focused on expanding the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce of the nation and investing in education to cultivate a more diverse and impactful cohort of students who pursue STEM pathways. Educators, support personnel, and…

Plate tectonics is the organizing paradigm of geosciences, but it is also conceptually complex, and students often struggle with developing a system level understanding of the earth. This article reports on research designed to create a characterization of the different levels of sophistication around plate tectonics in the form of a learning…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience or with school employment. This course, Education…

The purpose of this study is to develop an achievement test which includes the basic concepts about the subject of sound and its properties in middle school science lessons and which at the same time aims to reveal the alternative concepts that the students already have. During the process of the development of the test, studies in the field and…

As part of an effort to improve students' knowledge of constellations and bright stars in an introductory level descriptive astronomy survey course, we measured the baseline knowledge that students bring to the class and how their score evolve over the course of the semester. This baseline is needed by the broader astronomy education research…

This report profiles participant outcomes of the classic Upward Bound (UB) and Upward Bound Math-Science (UBMS) programs. The UB and UBMS programs provide academic and other support services for high school participants preparing to enter college. Upward Bound's goal is to increase the rate at which program participants complete high school and…