Init2Winit is a gamified mobile application designed to promote college and career knowledge among adolescents. Init2Winit offers students multiple opportunities to explore college and career pathways using game tunnels; this tunnel play informs students’ understanding of how mis/aligned choices can have varying consequences for their future. Our study examines player performance in the career tunnel--where students attempt to align their educational expectations with chosen career pathways. Students earn points when their educational expectations are correctly aligned with their desired careers and expected salaries. Init2Winit was tested in Midwest urban and rural high schools using a sample of 186 high students. Results show that students who earned high alignment scores increased their college-going expectations. Subsequent game plays increased students’ alignment between college choices, career plans, and realistic salary projections.

Chen, I.C., Rocha-Beverly, C. & Schneider, B. “Alignment of educational aspirations and career plans in high school with Mobile app technology”. Educ Inf Technol 26, 1091–1109 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10296-z

Init2Winit, a gamified mobile application designed to increase students’ alignment knowledge between college, career, and salary expectations has been beta-tested in midwestern urban and rural U.S. high schools (age 14–18). Students earn different points in the game when their educational expectations and expected annual income are matched with their desired careers. Propensity score matching was used with 481 high school students to compare the changes in 4-year college plans, college-going aspirations, and educational expectations between players and non-players. Results show that Init2Winit players significantly increased their 4-year college plans and educational aspirations from fall 2018 to spring 2019 compared to those students who did not play the game.

I-Chien Chen, Christel Rocha-Beverly & Barbara Schneider “Learning by playing Init2Winit: How alignment knowledge increases educational aspirations and college plans in high school”, (2021) Journal of Research on Technology in Education, DOI: 10.1080/15391523.2021.1877225

Crafting Engaging Science Environments is a high school chemistry and physics project-based learning intervention that meets Next Generation Science Standards performance expectations. It was administered to a diverse group of over 4,000 students in a randomized control trial in California and Michigan. Results show that treatment students, on average, performed 0.20 standard deviations higher than control students on an independently developed summative science assessment. Mediation analyses show an indirect path between teacher- and student-reported participation in modeling practices and science achievement. Exploratory analyses indicate positive treatment effects for enhancing college ambitions. Overall, results show that improving secondary school science learning is achievable with a coherent system comprising teacher and student learning experiences, professional learning, and formative unit assessments that support students in “doing” science.

Barbara Schneider, Joseph Krajcik, Jari Lavonen, Katariina Salmela-Aro, Christopher Klager, Lydia Bradford, I-Chien Chen, Quinton Baker, Israel Touitou, Deborah Peek-Brown, Rachel Marias Dezendorf, Sarah Maestrales, Kayla Bartz, “Improving Science Achievement—Is It Possible? Evaluating the Efficacy of a High School Chemistry and Physics Project-Based Learning Intervention”, American Education Research Association, January 21, 2022 , https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0013189X211067742

We present teacher–researcher partnership (TRP) as a way of fostering teachers’ professional learning. Teachers’ participation as research group members is an essential aspect of the partnership. Teachers and researchers share the same goal, which is to improve their understanding of and enhance students’ engagement in science. Project-based learning (PBL) was selected as a means of enhancing student engagement. The activities of the partnership focused on the co-design and enactment of and co-reflection on PBL units. Teachers participated in the design of the data collection process and the interpretation of initial findings. As an indicator of teachers’ professional learning, we examined students’ engagement during different implementations of the PBL units. Student engagement was measured using a situational experience sampling questionnaire delivered via mobile phones. The students’ experiences of scientific practices and engagement in actual learning situations were measured in the first and second years of the teachers’ implementation of the teaching units. An analysis of the students’ responses showed that the students were 20% more engaged in the second year than in the first year. We argue that TRP has the potential to enhance teachers’ professional learning.

Kalle Juuti, Jari Lavonen, Visajaani Salonen, Katariina Salmela-Aro, Barbara Schneider & Joseph Krajcik (2021) “A Teacher–Researcher Partnership for Professional Learning: Co-Designing Project-Based Learning Units to Increase Student Engagement in Science Classes”, Journal of Science Teacher Education, 32:6, 625-641, DOI: 10.1080/1046560X.2021.1872207

his study explores how often students are engaged in their science classes and their affective states during these times, using an innovative methodology that records these experiences in situ. Sampling a subset of high schools in the U.S. and Finland, we collected over 7,000 momentary responses from 344 students over the course of a week. We examine engagement within and between students in different environments identifying common social and emotional factors they may be experiencing in their science classes, suggesting the challenges that the U.S. and Finland may encounter when implementing their new science standards (i.e., Next Generation of Science Standards and Finnish National Core Curriculum). We operationalize engagement as situational when students experience high levels of challenge, skill, and interest, which we term as optimal learning moments. Specifically we analyze: (i) the components of optimal learning; (ii) the relationship of optimal learning with other subjective measures; (iii) how optimal learning moments in science classes compare to other academic classes; and (iv) the extent that optimal learning moments predict an individual's perception of importance to self and future in science classes. Using several multivariate models, results show that when students are challenged in their classes and are appropriately skilled they are more likely to feel confident, successful, and happy during specific science classes as well as in other academic classes. When students experience more times of optimal learning in their science classes they are more likely to report that they perceive science as important to them and their futures. Females, however, report being more stressed in their science classes than males. 

Schneider, Barbara; Krajcik, Joseph; Lavonen, Jari; Salmela-Aro, Katariina; Broda, Michael; Spicer, Justina; Bruner, Justin; Moeller, Julia; Linnansaari, Janna; Juuti, Kalle; Viljaranta, Jaana, “Investigating optimal learning moments in U.S. and Finnish science classes” 2016, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 

In response to the call for promoting three-dimensional science learning (NRC, 2012), researchers argue for developing assessment items that go beyond rote memorization tasks to ones that require deeper understanding and the use of reasoning that can improve science literacy. Such assessment items are usually performance-based constructed responses and need technology involvement to ease the burden of scoring placed on teachers. This study responds to this call by examining the use and accuracy of a machine learning text analysis protocol as an alternative to human scoring of constructed response items. The items we employed represent multiple dimensions of science learning as articulated in the 2012 NRC report. Using a sample of over 26,000 constructed responses taken by 6700 students in chemistry and physics, we trained human raters and compiled a robust training set to develop machine algorithmic models and cross-validate the machine scores. Results show that human raters yielded good (Cohen's k = .40-.75) to excellent (Cohen's k > .75) interrater reliability on the assessment items with varied numbers of dimensions. A comparison reveals that the machine scoring algorithms achieved comparable scoring accuracy to human raters on these same items. Results also show that responses with formal vocabulary (e.g., velocity) were likely to yield lower machine-human agreements, which may be associated with the fact that fewer students employed formal phrases compared with the informal alternatives.

Maestrales, Sarah & Zhai, Xiaoming & Touitou, Israel & Baker, Quinton & Schneider, Barbara & Krajcik, Joseph. (2021). “Using Machine Learning to Score Multi-Dimensional Assessments of Chemistry and Physics”. Journal of Science Education and Technology. 30. 10.1007/s10956-020-09895-9. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, research teams in the United States and Finland were collaborating on a study to improve adolescent academic engagement in chemistry and physics and the impact remote teaching on academic, social, and emotional learning. The ongoing “Crafting Engaging Science Environments” (CESE) intervention afforded a rare data collection opportunity. In the United States, students were surveyed at the beginning of the school year and again in May, providing information for the same 751 students from before and during the pandemic. In Finland, 203 students were surveyed during remote learning. Findings from both countries during this period of remote learning revealed that students' academic engagement was positively correlated with participation in hands-on, project-based lessons. In Finland, results showed that situational engagement occurred in only 4.7% of sampled cases. In the United States, students show that academic engagement, primarily the aspect of challenge, was enhanced during remote learning. Engagement was in turn correlated with positive socioemotional constructs related to science learning. The study's findings emphasise the importance of finding ways to ensure equitable opportunities for students to participate in project-based activities when learning remotely.

Sarah Maestrales,Rachel Marias Dezendorf,Xin Tang,Katariina Salmela-Aro,Kayla Bartz,Kalle Juuti,Jari Lavonen,Joseph Krajcik,Barbara Schneider, “U.S. and Finnish high school science engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic”, International Journal of Psychology, 01 August 2021,

https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12784

Abstract

This study investigated gender differences in the experience of situational anxiety (referred to as ‘state anxiety’) among a sample of 268 US and 202 Finnish lowerand upper-secondary-school / high-school students (51.0% female; 177 ninthgraders, 218 tenth-graders, 37 eleventh-graders, 38 twelfth-graders, 10 unspecified grade). Three main research questions guided our study: 1) Do male and female students differ in their anxiety during science lessons if in-the-moment state measures are used?; 2) How does anxiety affect motivation in science classes?; and 3) Does the relationship of anxiety to motivation differ by gender We employed the experience sampling method (ESM), a form of time/diary instrument, to assess experiences of anxiety in the moment in which they occur, in different contexts, e.g., in and out of school and in specific science lessons. Males and females did not differ in mean levels of state anxiety with in-the-moment measures, which corroborates previous findings. Females tended to experience less positive affect and intrinsic motivation, and more negative affect and withdrawal motivation in anxious states across all their everyday life experiences. In science lessons, the only consistent finding was that females tended to experience more stress in anxious situations than males. The findings suggest that previously found gender differences in math and science anxiety might be due to biases in the applied measures (see Goetz et al., 2013), which has important theoretical and practical implications for the assessment and interpretation of gender differences in science classrooms. 

Citation: Moeller, J., Salmela-Aro, K., Lavonen, J., & Schneider, B.. "Does anxiety in science classrooms impair math and science motivation? - Gender differences beyond the mean level," International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, v.7, 2015, p. 229. 

Abstract

Project-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach to science teaching that supports the Next Generation Science Standards. Here, Touitou et al introduce an additional tool, the activity summary board (ASB). The ASB is a classroom organizational tool that summarizes what students do and figure out in the classroom as they take on the role of scientist or engineer to make sense of the phenomenon or problem. 

Citation: Touitou, I., Barry, S., Bielik, T., Schneider, B., & Krajcik, J.. "The Activity Summary Board: Adding a visual reminder to enhance a project-based-learning unit.," Science Teacher, 2018. 

Abstract

This study seeks to understand how different scientific practices in high school science classrooms are associated with student situational engagement. In this study, situational engagement is conceptualized as the balance between skills, interest, and challenge when the reported experiences are all high. In this study, data on situational engagement were collected using the experience sampling method (ESM) from 142 students in southern Michigan (the United States), resulting 993 ESM responses, and 133 students in southern Finland, resulting 1,351 responses. In both countries, scientific practices related to developing models and constructing explanations were associated with higher student situational engagement than other practices. In southern Finland, using a model was also associated with a high level of student situational engagement. The results indicate that students may experience situational engagement more often in science classrooms that use models than those that do not employ such practices. Thus, scientific practices related to models should be used frequently in science classrooms to situationally engage students while learning science. 

Citation: Inkinen, J., Klager, C., Juuti, K., Schneider, B., Salmela‐Aro, K., Krajcik, J., & Lavonen, J. (2020). High school students' situational engagement associated with scientific practices in designed science learning situations. Science Education, 104(4), 667-692. 

Abstract

This study examines the association between student situational engagement and classroom activities in secondary school science classrooms in Finland and the U.S. Situational engagement is conceptualised as times when students feel that a task is interesting and challenging to them and that they have the skills to complete it (see Schneider et al., 2016. Investigating optimal learning moments in U.S. and Finnish science classes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(3), 400–421. doi:10.1002/tea.21306). Data on situational engagement and classroom activities were obtained using the experience sampling method (ESM) from 247 Finnish students in 13 secondary science classrooms and 281 U.S. students in 18 secondary science classrooms. In both samples, the students tended to be situationally engaged only a small proportion of the time during their science classes. However, the Finnish students were more likely than the U.S. students to report being situationally engaged. To investigate when the students were most likely to report being situationally engaged, hierarchical logistic regression models were employed, which suggested that some classroom activities were associated with higher levels of student situational engagement than others. The Finnish students were more likely to report being situationally engaged when calculating and presenting scientific information. In the U.S., the students were more likely to report being situationally engaged while discussing scientific information and less likely when listening to the teacher. The results suggest that situational engagement is momentary and associated with specific science classroom activities. 

Citation: Inkinen, J., Klager, C., Schneider, B., Juuti, K., Krajcik, J., Lavonen, J., & Salmela-Aro, K.. "Science classroom activities and student situational engagement.," International Journal of Science Education, v.41, 2019, p. 316.

Abstract

This study contributes to the research on student engagement in three ways: 1) by combining questionnaire and situational measures of engagement using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), 2) by applying a demands-resources model to describe the positive and negative aspects of student engagement, and 3) by adopting a person-oriented approach to describe subgroups of students with different profiles of engagement and burnout symptoms. Two studies were conducted: sample one comprised 255 US high school students (45.5% female, 9th – 12th grade), and sample two 188 Finnish comprehensive and high school students (59.6% female, 9th to 10th grade). Latent profile analyses (LPA) of person-level measures of schoolwork engagement and burnout in the US and Finland revealed four profiles: 1) engaged, 2) engaged-exhausted, 3) moderately burned out (risk for burnout) and 4) burned out. These four groups were identified in both samples, but differed in their prevalence. The groups differed in their state experiences of situational demands, resources and engagement at school. Engagement is not wholly an experience of ‘flourishing’: some students experienced elevated levels of both engagement and burnout. Thus, positive and negative aspects of engagement should be studied and modeled together. 

Citation: Salmela-Aro, K., Moeller, J., Schneider, B.; Spicer, J., & Lavonen, J.. "Integrating the light and dark sides of student engagement with person-oriented and situation-specific approaches.," Learning and Instruction., 2016. doi:EARLI doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.01.001. 

Scientific modelling plays a crucial role in students’ science learning. Modelling proficiency and literacy development reinforce each other. This study investigates the relationship between teacher support of student literacy development and their modelling proficiency in the context of elementary project-based learning science environments. To explore the relationship, we sampled 557 students from 24 classrooms in 12 different schools. Data were analysed by multilevel mixed linear regression model analysis. Teaching strategies for teacher support of students’ literacy development were identified based on our observation field notes. The findings suggest that teacher support of students’ literacy development to engage them in the modelling practice is positively associated with their students’ modelling proficiency. With teacher support of literacy development, elementary students are able to develop models that provide scientific explanations for phenomena related to core learning goals of the unit.

Li, T., Miller, E., Chen, I. C., Bartz, K., Codere, S., & Krajcik, J. (2021). “The relationship between teacher’s support of literacy development and elementary students’ modeling proficiency in project-based learning science classrooms”. Education 3-13, 49(3), 302-316.

We study the long-term effects of a psychological intervention on longitudinal academic outcomes and degree completion of college students. All freshmen at a large public university were randomized to an online growth mindset, belonging, or control group. We tracked students’ academic outcomes including GPA, number of credits attempted and earned, major choices, and degree completion. We found no evidence of longitudinal academic treatment effects in the full sample. However, the mindset treatment improved term GPAs for Latinx students and the probability for Pell-eligible and Latinx students to major in selective majors. We also found no evidence of increased rates of on-time graduation, however, the treatment raised the probability to graduate with selective majors in four years, especially for Latinx students.

Kim, Soobin; Yun, John; Schneider, Barbara; Broda, Michael; Klager, Christopher; Chen, I-Chien, The effects of growth mindset on college persistence and completion, 2022, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979, this article examines the relationship between adolescents‘ educational and occupational expectations, and how they correspond to their subsequent labor market outcomes in adulthood. We show that over-aligned adolescents, those who expect to obtain more education than is necessary for their desired occupation, are predicted to have hourly wages 30% higher than under-aligned adolescents, whose educational expectations are lower than their occupational expectations. The misalignment of educational and occupational expectations is not related to the probability of being employed through individuals’ early twenties to late forties. However, over-aligned individuals are predicted to have more prestigious occupations than under-aligned individuals, suggesting that those in the over-aligned group sorted into better jobs over their careers. We also show that the effects of misaligned expectations on labor market outcomes change over the years, indicating that having high and aligned expectations are even more important for labor market outcomes than previously estimated.

Soobin Kim, Christopher Klager, Barbara Schneider. (2019) “The Effects of Alignment of Educational Expectations and Occupational Aspirations on Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from NLSY79”. The Journal of Higher Education 90:6, pages 992-1015.

This article examines the impacts of the Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC), a statewide college-preparatory curriculum that applies to the high school graduating class of 2011 and later. Our analyses suggest that the higher expectations embodied in the MMC had slight impact on student outcomes. Looking at student performance in the ACT, the only clear evidence of a change in academic performance comes in science. Our best estimates indicate that ACT science scores improved by 0.2 points (or roughly 0.04 SD) as a result of the MMC. Our estimates for high school completion are sensitive to the choice of specification, though some evidence suggests that the MMC reduced graduation for the least prepared students.

Jacobs, Brian; Dynarski, Susan; Frank, Kenneth; Schneider, Barbara “Are expectations alone enough? Estimating the effect of a mandatory college-prep curriculum in Michigan” 2017, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 

Most adolescents, regardless of their occupational aspirations, are educationally ambitious. However, these high education ambitions are often unaligned with their occupational ones. This misalignment between students’ educational expectations and their desired careers can be personally and institutionally costly. In contrast to earlier studies of educational attainment and occupational status, which relied independently on educational expectations and occupational aspirations, this study views alignment as related and co-developing. Results show that educational expectations and occupational aspirations co-develop during high school. Misalignment between educational and occupational expectations is a significant determinant of eventual educational attainment and has implications for future labor market outcomes.

Barbara Schneider, Soobin Kim & Christopher Klager (2017) Co-Development of Education Aspirations and Postsecondary Enrollment Especially Among Students Who Are Low Income and Minority, Research in Human Development, 14:2, 143-160, DOI: 10.1080/15427609.2017.1305811

The transition to adulthood is not easily marked by specific life events such as completing school, getting married, or having children. Variations in timing and the economic and social pressures associated with the traditional signs of adulthood make young people’s decisions about their futures complex and uncertain. Experiences vary by gender, race, and ethnicity and by social, economic, family, and community resources. Rather than trying to define what adulthood is, institutions such as school and colleges should focus on customizing programs to meet the unique needs of specific populations. Better support systems should focus on the social and emotional needs of young people, to help them plan and execute a successful life course. Promising programs should be studied with more attention to the science of implementation and improvement.

Schneider, Barbara, Klager, Christopher, Chen, I-Chien, “Transitioning Into Adulthood: Striking a Balance Between Support and Independence” Policy insights from the Behavioral and Brain sciences, 2016,