Research
Research Grants
The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE): Math Achievement and High School Course-Taking Trajectories Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic | 2023-2024
PI: Ji-Eun Lee
This project examines (1) the influence of COVID-19 on high school students’ math achievement, and (2) the associations among math course-taking trajectories, demographic characteristics, and math achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic using longitudinal data collected from the NWEA Map Growth assessments for separate cohorts of over 400,000 students entering high school before and during COVID. Specifically, we explore whether we observe continued rebounding in math achievement for students who are in high school during the 2022-2023 school year. We also examine how high school students’ Algebra I and Geometry course-taking and achievement levels during the COVID-19 pandemic compare to the pre-COVID period. Further, we examine whether achievement patterns differ for minoritized students and students attending high-poverty schools. Results will inform ongoing debates around the timing of exposure to higher-level math courses by revealing how the COVID-19 pandemic has potentially widened existing access and achievement inequities in high school math courses.
National Science Foundation (NSF): Orchestrating Productive Collaboration Among Students in Mathematics with Multimodal Machine Learning | 2023-2025
PI: Anthony Botelho (University of Florida)
Role: Co-PI
The vision for this project is to lay the foundation for innovative, collaborative technologies that leverage artificial intelligence (AI). We will explore how the use of multimodal information about productive collaboration and discourse from rich interaction data as students solve math problems using collaborative spaces can be used in the design and development of tools to support collaborative learning activities.
National Science Foundation (NSF): Examining the Effects of Perceptual Cues on Middle School Students? Online Mathematical Reasoning and Learning | 2023-2026
PI: Erin Ottmar (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
Role: Co-PI
The purpose of this research is to implement two experimental studies that investigate whether and how congruent and incongruent perceptual cues within math notation influence middle school students' order-of-operations performance, learning, and retention, and to understand how perceptual cues create desirable difficulties, or productive struggles, in mathematics practice. This project will produce evidence of the roles of perceptual cues on students' math performance, learning, and retention, including preliminary evidence of any differences in the effects of congruent vs. incongruent perceptual cues, and whether these variations in perceptual effects influence learning synergistically.
Completed Research Projects
Institute of Education Sciences (IES): The Efficacy of From Here to There: A Dynamic Technology for Improving Algebraic Understanding | 2018-2023
PI: Erin Ottmar (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
Role: Postdoctoral Fellow
The project tested the efficacy of From Here to There, a dynamic technology designed to promote algebraic thinking, in comparison to two other educational technology. In addition to managing and processing large-scale data, I have applied applying a set of data mining (e.g., clustering, prediction) and advanced data techniques visualizations (e.g., Sankey diagram) to identify student in-game behaviors and mathematical strategies that predict learning outcomes. Specifically, I have analyzed log data (e.g., students’ actions) and process data (e.g., problem-solving processes) that have been automatically collected by the game, which involves data from hundreds of middle-school students.