UA Science Education Faculty Awarded $2.1 Million Grant from National Science Foundation

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A pair of University of Alabama faculty members has been awarded a $2.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct a national study to investigate the impact of undergraduate entry-level science courses on college students.

Drs. Dennis Sunal and Cynthia Sunal, both professors in the department of curriculum and instruction in UA’s College of Education, will oversee the five-year study. It aims to measure the short term impact the entry-level courses have on college students in all majors, in addition to looking specifically at the long term impact on pre-service, K-6 teachers of science who have completed the courses.

The University of Alabama is the lead institution in a consortium of universities conducting the study. The consortium also includes Kansas State University and San Diego State University.

Extensive visits will be made to a national sample of undergraduate science courses at universities and colleges, as well as to classrooms of 180 teachers. The visits will focus on the teachers’ use and performance of science within their classrooms.

“Higher education faculty members are under pressure to create increasingly effective science teaching to address recommendations found in major national reports over the past 25 years,” said Dennis Sunal. “Undergraduate science teaching should be an extension of standards-based K-12 reform for effective science education,” said Cynthia Sunal.

“There is a critical shortage of qualified science teachers nationwide, and Alabama is no exception. I applaud Drs. Dennis and Cynthia Sunal for not only investing years of their professional lives addressing the problem themselves, but for continuing to seek and obtain external funds to study and alleviate this problem,” said Dr. Jim McLean, dean of the UA College of Education.

Sixty undergraduate science courses, 30 reformed, plus 30 others, will be randomly selected from among the colleges and universities that participated in a faculty professional development program developed by UA for NASA’s pre-college program, Opportunities for Visionary Academics, or NOVA.

Since 1995, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s NOVA has implemented this standards-based, professional development reform model with 167 undergraduate science courses in 102 colleges and universities in the United States.

“Comparisons will be made between undergraduate science courses that have been changed to exemplify the best research evidence of quality teaching and learning and other standard courses offered across a national sample of colleges and universities,” Dennis Sunal explained.

College faculty classroom teaching practices, curriculum planning, and classroom learning climate will also be examined to determine and compare key characteristics of the science courses’ learning environment and course structure, and the extent of each science faculty member’s teaching knowledge and collaboration experience.