STEM education provides both technical training and the development of cognitive skills, such as designing experiments, testing hypotheses, and analyzing data. While traditional STEM training is essential for developing a highly skilled technical workforce, the cognitive skills developed through this training are beneficial in almost every type of career. To provide cognitive skills training to undergraduates in psychology, who typically do not receive this type of education, this project will develop a computer program, named TELLab, that allows psychology students to design experiments and gather data using the internet. Using this program, students will have the opportunity to experience first hand the challenges of doing science, learning skills and concepts, and most importantly, formulating and solving problems of personal interest to them.
To this end, the proposal has three broadly defined goals: (1) Up-scaling and maturation of TELLab, so that it can handle hundreds of thousands of users, in countless numbers of classrooms, with students at all levels - all at the same time, (2) evaluation of TELLlab-based pedagogy in diverse settings, including evaluating STEM competencies in non-STEM students, particularly those in undergraduate psychology classes, and (3) advancing the effort to create an open source community of faculty and students across the nation to develop and sustain collective expertise. Through a collaborative partnership across a variety of institutions, TELLab modules will be developed and deployed in a variety of psychology courses. These modules will allow students to design experiments and test hypotheses, providing immersion in the cognitive skills that are at the core of STEM education. Course instructors and participating students will be evaluated to identify and assess the factors that influence student experiences and learning.
