Purdue collaborative education project gets NSF grant funding

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A collaborative project involving researchers from Purdue’s College of Education received grant funding from the National Science Foundation.

The overall research project received a total of $1.1 million and is a collaboration with Indiana University. The grant funding is provided through NSF’s EHR Core Research program, which supports work advancing fundamental research on STEM.

Principal investigators are Toni Kempler Rogat and Anne Traynor, both assistant professors of educational psychology at Purdue; Cindy Hmelo-Silver, the Barbara B. Jacobs Chair of Education and Technology at Indiana University; and Britte Cheng of SRI International.

The project is titled “Theoretical and methodological tools for studying group productive disciplinary engagement.” It runs for three years and began on July 15.

As part of the collaborative research, Rogat said investigators will examine how students in group settings become engaged in learning the core ideas and practices specific to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines.

The observations will help researchers characterize and differentiate groups’ deep-level engagement with mathematics and science content. Project outcomes will be used for examining engagement in science and mathematics practices that are called for in national and local science standards. 

About the College of Education

Purdue’s College of Education meets the challenges of educating 21st century learners by discovering what works in education. The college prepares highly qualified educators and conducts research that informs how teachers teach and students learn. With a focus on integrated P-12 STEM education and a commitment to social justice and diversity, graduates are prepared to be leaders in education, business and society.  

Writer: Brian L. Huchel, 765-494-2084, bhuchel@purdue.edu 

Sources: Toni Kempler Rogat, 765-494-7295, trogat@purdue.edu