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Executive Summary
The United States faces a great imperative to improve undergraduate
science and engineering education. Preparing a diverse technical workforce
and science-literate citizenry will require significant changes to undergradu-
ate science and engineering education. These changes include supporting an
emerging, interdisciplinary research enterprise that combines the expertise
of scientists and engineers with methods and theories that explain learning.
This enterprise, discipline-based education research (DBER), investigates
learning and teaching in a discipline from a perspective that reflects the dis-
cipline’s priorities, worldview, knowledge, and practices. Informed by and
complementary to research on learning and cognition, DBER already has
generated insights that can be used to better prepare students to understand
and address current and future societal challenges.
Recognizing DBER’s emergence as a vital area of scholarship and its
potential to improve undergraduate science and engineering education, the
National Science Foundation requested that the National Research Council
convene the Committee on the Status, Contributions, and Future Directions
of Discipline-Based Education Research to conduct a synthesis study of
DBER. Looking across physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, the geosci-
ences, and astronomy, the committee’s charge was to
• synthesize empirical research on undergraduate teaching and learn-
ing in the sciences,
• examine the extent to which this research currently influences
undergraduate science instruction, and
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2 DISCIPLINE-BASED EDUCATION RESEARCH
• describe the intellectual and material resources that are required to
further develop DBER.
DEFINING DBER
The committee defined DBER as a collection of related research fields.
DBER scholars in physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, the geosciences,
and astronomy study similar problems, use similar methods, and draw on
similar theories. However, the DBER fields also exhibit important differ-
ences that reflect differences in their parent disciplines and their histories
of development.
As defined by the committee, the goals of DBER are to
• understand how people learn the concepts, practices, and ways of
thinking of science and engineering;
• understand the nature and development of expertise in a discipline;
• help identify and measure appropriate learning objectives and instruc-
tional approaches that advance students toward those objectives;
• contribute to the knowledge base in a way that can guide the trans-
lation of DBER findings to classroom practice; and
• identify approaches to make science and engineering education
broad and inclusive.
To address these goals, DBER scholars conduct a wide range of studies
that includes basic and applied research. Both types of research are valu-
able and important.
High-quality DBER combines expert knowledge of a science or engi-
neering discipline, of the challenges of learning and teaching in that disci-
pline, and of the science of learning and teaching generally. This expertise
can, but need not, reside in a single DBER scholar; it also can be strategi-
cally distributed across multidisciplinary, collaborative teams.
SYNTHESIS OF THE LITERATURE
DBER scholars have devoted considerable attention to effective instruc-
tional strategies and to students’ conceptual understanding, problem solv-
ing, and use of representations. Key findings from DBER are consistent with
cognitive science research and studies in K-12 education.
To gain expertise in science and engineering, students must learn the
knowledge, techniques, and standards of each field. However, across the
disciplines, the committee found that students have incorrect understand-
ings about fundamental concepts, particularly those that involve very large
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3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
or very small temporal and spatial scales. Moreover, as novices in a domain,
students are challenged by important aspects of the domain that can seem
easy or obvious to experts, such as problem solving and understanding
domain-specific representations like graphs, models, and simulations. These
challenges pose serious impediments to learning.
DBER clearly shows that research-based instructional strategies are
more effective than traditional lecture in improving conceptual knowl-
edge and attitudes about learning. Effective instruction involves a range of
approaches, including making lectures more interactive, having students
work in groups, and incorporating authentic problems and activities.
To enhance DBER’s contributions to the understanding of undergradu-
ate science and engineering education, the committee recommended the
following:
• Research that explores similarities and differences among different
student populations
• Longitudinal studies—including studies of the K-12/undergraduate
transition—to better understand the acquisition of important con-
cepts and factors influencing retention
• More studies that measure outcomes other than test scores and
course performance, and better instruments to measure these
outcomes
• Interdisciplinary studies of cross-cutting concepts and cognitive
processes
INCREASING THE USE OF DBER FINDINGS
The committee concluded that DBER and related research have not yet
prompted widespread changes in teaching practice among science and engi-
neering faculty. Different strategies are needed to more effectively translate
findings from DBER into practice. These efforts are more likely to succeed
if they are consistent with research on motivating adult learners, include a
deliberate focus on changing faculty conceptions about teaching and learn-
ing, recognize the cultural and organizational norms of the department and
institution, and work to address those norms that pose barriers to change
in teaching practice.
To increase the use of DBER findings, the committee recommended
that current faculty adopt evidence-based teaching practices to improve
learning outcomes for undergraduate science and engineering students, with
support from institutions, disciplinary departments, and professional soci-
eties. Moreover, institutions, disciplinary departments, and professional
societies should work together to prepare future faculty who understand
the findings of research on learning and evidence-based teaching strategies.
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4 DISCIPLINE-BASED EDUCATION RESEARCH
ADVANCING DBER AS A FIELD OF INQUIRY
Advancing DBER requires a robust infrastructure for research that
includes adequate, sustained funding for research and training; venues for
peer-reviewed publication; recognition and support within professional
societies; and professional conferences. To these ends, the committee rec-
ommended that science and engineering departments, professional societies,
journal editors, funding agencies, and institutional leaders clarify expecta-
tions for DBER faculty positions, emphasize high-quality DBER, provide
mentoring for new DBER scholars, and support venues for DBER scholars
to share their research findings at meetings and in high-quality journals.
For their part, DBER scholars can increase their interactions and continue
drawing on related disciplines (e.g., cognitive science, educational and
social psychology, organizational change, psychometrics). Finally, Ph.D.
programs and postdoctoral opportunities in the individual fields of DBER
can advance DBER by educating scholars who will contribute to the edu-
cational research agenda and translate that research to others.
