Robert M. Capraro

Texas A&M University | TAMU · Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture

Many researchers have debated potential differences between male and female students’ mathematical performance. One important factor that can impact performance is perception of the content. The purpose of the study is to investigate factors that impact high-ability male and female students’ perspectives of mathematics. Participants ( n = 12; n f =...

The Dynamic and Interactive Mathematical Expressions (DIME) Map system automatically generates DIME maps, which are personalizable and manipulable concept maps that allow students to interact with the mathematical concepts contained in any portable document format (PDF) textbook or document. A teacher can automatically upload a PDF textbook chapter...

The Journal for Urban Mathematics Education editorial team is responsible for deciding which manuscripts will be published, with guidance from the editorial board and external reviewers. In the present editorial, we provide readers, authors, and other editors an overview of the critical elements of editorial ethics that guide the Journal for Urban...

This study examined the student-level (i.e., gender, home language, and immigration status) and school-level (i.e., school economic disadvantage status) variability of the students’ affective mathematics engagement. It was hypothesized that there is a school effect that contributes toward explaining differences in affective mathematics engagement b...

This study examines the perspectives and lived experiences of 10 urban secondary mathematics teachers from two epicenters of COVID-19 in the United States regarding their transition to digital learning during the 2019–2020 academic year. We use case study methodology with phenomenological interviews to gather insights into the teachers’ efforts to...

hank you to all our reviewers, editorial board members, authors, and those who chose the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education (JUME) as their outlet of choice. In collaboration with the editorial team, we are releasing critical data concerning the performance of our journal for the 2021 calendar year. As such, the editorial team seeks to uphold o...

The science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field is a crucial global driver for the development of various aspects of modern society, such as the economy, technology, education, and skills of the 21st-century workforce. All countries strive to produce STEM talent to meet future economic markets. Sustained professional development...

Preparing students with knowledge and expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is vital in meeting the demand for digital age career opportunities. Nevertheless, there is sparse research on teachers' views of student preparedness and teachers' knowledge of STEM in classroom instruction. The present study examines second...

The purpose of this study was to examine Black girls' performance on advanced placement (AP) exams. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers are lucrative, and there are opportunities to participate through both short-term and 4-year college degree paths. However, poor K-12 (i.e. U.S. primary through secondary school) prepar...

Purpose In distinguishing the education of adults from the education of children, a gray area lies on where to classify gifted and honors students. The purpose of this study was to determine if the attitudes of students at an honors STEM summer camp paralleled the educational needs of adults, namely self-directed learning. Design/methodology/appro...

Researchers analyzed quantitative data from the Education Longitudinal Study (2002–2004) to investigate the relationship between the highest mathematics course taken and the achievement of 12th-grade students minoritized by their racial-ethnic and language backgrounds in urban schools. Employing hierarchical linear models, researchers analyzed the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the change in students' STEM perceptions in two different informal learning environments: an online STEM camp and a face-to-face (FTF) STEM camp. Design/methodology/approach For this quasi-experimental study, 26 students participated in an online STEM summer camp and another 26 students participated i...

This introductory piece to this special issue of the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education discusses important publication information for the journal for the year 2020, such as publication goals, average time to acceptance, and acceptance rates. The editorial team also introduces a new voluntary demographics survey for the journal and discusses t...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine a week-long science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) activity that integrates a new educational technology and the engineering design process to teach middle and high school students the concepts involved in rotational physics. The technology and teaching me...

This longitudinal study was designed to examine how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) affected the success of high school women in comparison with high school men in mathematics and science, with English performance as a control. We analysed the four-year performance, course-taking, and retention...

The increasing concern in North America regarding the workforce’s ability to maintain a competitive position in the global economy has led to an increased interest in effective science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of engaging in STEM project-based learning (PBL)...

The purpose of this study was to reveal both the effects of problem-posing interventions on the mathematical creative ability of students and how students’ creative self-efficacy in mathematics was related to their mathematical creative ability. Elementary school students (n = 205) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: problem-posing or cont...

Robert M. Capraro, the editor-in-cheif of the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, and Jonas Chang, copyeditor for JUME, introduce this special issue of the journal. Through discussion of the events that prompted the Black Lives Matter protests of Summer 2020 and the responses of several national organizations and corporations, they argues that...

Shared understanding is often achieved in communication interactions at the point in which the participants come to an agreement upon meaning. Without shared meaning, misunderstandings can lead to a breakdown in communication, and possibly failure on collaborative tasks. The purpose of the present study was to examine how students, preservice, and...

Previous research has shown knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes are essential factors during mathematics classroom instruction. The current study examined the effects of a 3-week fraction instructional unit using concrete models, problem-solving, and problem-posing to improve elementary preservice teachers’ knowledge, perceptions and attitudes to...

In this chapter, the authors outline key steps and considerations to take into account when entering into the realm of quantitative research. The primary question guiding this chapter is the following: “How does one conduct quality quantitative research as a novice researcher?” Several equally important questions are subsumed within this general qu...

Gender difference on spatial visualization has been considered an important factor that impacts the gender gap in academic performance in STEM-related disciplines. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the gender difference on spatial visualization between STEM and non-STEM undergraduate majors. Twenty effect sizes representing STEM majo...

Trends in curriculum reform recognise the need to develop skills and competencies in addition to specifying what knowledge should be taught and when. However, a balance between skills and knowledge is sometimes difficult to achieve. In this paper which takes mathematics as the focus, we consider reform currently underway in Wales, from the perspect...

The integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Project-Based Learning (STEM PBL) into educational curriculum has received much attention because of its strength in improving students’ affective engagement. We designed the present study to investigate the effectiveness of STEM PBL lessons on 9th grade students’ development of a...

The purpose of this study is to compare students’ mathematics achievement growth rate in Texas science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (T‐STEM) academies to students’ mathematics achievement growth rate in traditional public high schools. Forty‐six schools, 23 of which were T‐STEM academies and 23 of which were matched non‐STEM schools, w...

In the present study, researchers investigated pre-service teachers' subject matter knowledge (SMK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) including knowledge of content and teaching (KCT) and knowledge of content and students (KCS) in problem posing. Results indicated that pre-service teachers' SMK and KCT, SMK and KCS, as well as KCT and KCS sho...

Although algebraic reasoning has been considered as an important factor influencing students’ mathematical performance, many students struggle to build concrete algebraic reasoning. Metacognitive training has been regarded as one effective method to develop students’ algebraic reasoning; however, there are no published meta-analyses that include an...

Problem posing is the act of creating one’s own problems, unlike the traditional practice of solving problems posed by others. Problem posing is not a commonly taught topic. Though some students have difficulties acquiring problem-posing skills, the positive effects are far reaching. A quasi-experimental research design was used to determine the gr...

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides numerous provisions to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). These provisions do not necessarily address persistent achievement and opportunity gaps. We contend that if states, districts, and local schools capitalize on the autonomy provided in the ESSA, access, equity, and...

The purpose of this study was to proffer the idea to “gaze” past gender and racial achievement gaps by providing a growth-based assessment of the achievement of Black girls. The study aims to elucidate how alternatives to traditional achievement gap analyses can yield information relevant to addressing classroom challenges. This exploratory analysi...

This study aimed to investigate the performance of a charter school network, Harmony Public Schools (HPS), in a 3-year longitudinal student-level research study of high school mathematics, reading, and science performance using 2009-2011 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skill student data. Propensity-score-matched public (N = 19) and Harmony (N =...

The mathematics performance data from 12,738 high school students were examined to determine the relationship between students' racial-ethnic and linguistic background, participation in higher level mathematics courses, and performance on a norm-referenced measure of achievement, explicitly accounting for important urban school context indicators....

STEM disciplinary language is a necessary component for STEM success. It can be developed through experiences and attention to the development of STEM activities that are rich in language and can be acquired through practical experiences and systematic practice. Secondary students participated in an informal STEM summer camp where they learned to u...

In the past two decades, charter schools have become increasingly prevalent and popular in the U.S. education landscape. The purpose of this study is to examine the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills [TAKS] school level mathematics and reading test scores performances over time by school types. The specific research questions are: how does st...

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate Hispanic students’ mathematics achievement growth rate in Inclusive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high schools compared to Hispanic students’ mathematics achievement growth rate in traditional public schools. Twenty-eight schools, 14 of which were Texas STEM (T-STEM) academies a...

Prospective engineering students often have difficulty with study expectations when transitioning from high school to college. Mathematics is particularly challenging for those who have been successful in high school without needing to study. Engineering mathematics college courses tend to cover twice the volume of material in 60% of the class time...

Previous research identified a strong correlation between mathematics and science performance albeit for small samples of students. Even though there was a high correlation between mathematics and science performance, researchers examining students' STEM achievement investigated mathematics and science achievement separately. The present study brin...

The purpose of this study is to determine what previous studies have found to be factors that contribute to a child’s initial communication development and previously identified effects of reading mathematics storybooks to toddlers or preschoolers. Therefore, it follows that the earlier a preschooler is exposed to mathematics vocabulary, the easier...

The purpose of the study was to explore the development of discourses that emerge as a result of inservice teachers being engaged in a richly situated technological task that incorporated geometric spatial sense development and the engineering design processes. Typically, learning has been approached as a discrete set of tasks to be mastered withou...

STEM disciplinary language is a necessary component for STEM success. It can be developed through experiences and attention to the development of STEM activities that are rich in language and can be acquired through practical experiences and systematic practice. Secondary students participated in an informal STEM summer camp where they learned to u...

Increasing rigor and keeping students engaged in the classroom has become essential in the education of today’s youth. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) has increasingly become more popular in education today as the demand for collaborative problem solvers increases in the job market. STEM PBL is...

Recruiting and retaining engineering majors in colleges to meet the workforce demand for engineers continues to be challenging. Success in the engineering calculus course sequence is vital to the attainment of this goal. The purpose of the study is to compare engineering calculus success, throughout the sequence of three courses, between students w...

To be successful in a STEM career, not only STEM knowledge and skills but also creativity is required. Therefore, the arts have been integrated into STEM disciplines and subsequently designated as STEAM education (Sousa & Pilecki, 2013). One example of informal learning environments that STEAM education provided is a summer camp. In this study, mid...

The purpose of this study was to investigate how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project based learning (PBL) affected high-need students in the United States (U.S.) in terms of their academic achievement. Among high-need students in the U.S., we focused on two student groups: Hispanic and at-risk students. The participants...

STEM interested students and graduates shape the future of a country. However, in the U.S., the number of STEM graduates was not sufficient; therefore, to increase this number, STEM school designation started. The number of STEM schools has been increasing and Texas was one of the states showing growth over time. STEM schools in Texas (T-STEM) were...

Recent studies on professional development programs indicate these programs, when sustained, have a positive impact on student achievement; however, many of these studies have failed to use longitudinal data. The purpose of this study is to understand the how one particular instructional practice (STEM PBL) used consistently influence student achie...

STEM education has received greater attention with increasing need of technology and engineering knowledge; therefore to improve young adults' knowledge in STEM, schools have been designated as STEM academies all over the world, especially in the US. The authors examined and compared Texas STEM (T-STEM) academies and non T-STEM schools' achievement...

The need for a diverse engineering workforce requires the recruitment and retention of university students from all ethnicities and both genders. Engineering calculus proficiency is critical to success in most engineering majors. The Department of Mathematics at Texas A&M University created a bridge program to support incoming freshmen by improving...

Sustained professional development can support STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) reform. The authors describe a 3-year study of sustained professional development for 3 diverse urban schools across the salient factors of fidelity of implementation of project-based learning, development of professional learning communities, an...

In this article the principle investigators of the various projects that comprise Aggie STEM at Texas A&M University discuss the impact and cross pollination of having graduate students from Turkey working and conducting their research as part of the multi-college Aggie STEM project. Turkish students have been engaged in instrumental roles since th...

The integration of project-based learning in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics activities has received much attention because of its potential in engaging students with real-world problem solving. This study was designed to examine the effectiveness of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics project-based learning lessons...

Traditional assessment techniques were designed in limited perspectives to reflect students’ conceptual and procedural understanding in mathematics. There are many purposes for assessment, including general mathematical knowledge about a topic as well as problem solving ability, identification of misconceptions, depth of knowledge, ability to gener...

This text contains 25 Project-Based Learning (PBL) lessons written by a combination of undergraduate preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and graduate students. Everyone who wrote a chapter strives to improve STEM education to help others implement standards-based STEM instruction that takes learning in isolation to greater accountability throu...

The purpose of the present paper was to summarize exploratory second and third-order factor analyses and explain interpretation strategies for the higher-order factors, specifically, Gorsuch’s product matrix, the Schmid and Leiman solution, and Thompson’s orthogonally rotated product matrix solution. Exploratory factor analysis is a multivariate te...

The combination of mathematics and reading in family reading time can positively impact children’s ability to make sense of representations in both mathematics and reading. Four families volunteered to participate in this field based inquiry to learn how to integrate mathematics and reading in parent-supported activities. Four parents and their pre...

Time series analysis is an underused method in educational research. It is powerful for building a clear picture of school variable trends. It is through time series analytic methods that more vivid pictures of school funding, student learning, teacher development, and other important aspects of the educational process emerge. Through a deeper unde...

Women are underrepresented in STEM fields, and their attrition from the STEM pipeline begins in high school. In this study, the performance, attrition, and course selection of women in mathematics and science subjects were examined in a school where STEM Project Based Learning was introduced. A four-year longitudinal study was conducted. Data from...

Mathematics apps support learning by providing an adjustable learning pace, difficulty level, content-based engaging activities and at times instant feedback. This paper summarizes an attempt to help teachers assess the usefulness of iPad apps for possible use in their classroom. Through a teacher grant middle school mathematics teachers were given...

Mathematics continues to be a major hurdle for engineering students. The authors presented results of a pilot precalculus summer program at FIE 2014. In the current paper, we examined longitudinally the results of the institutionalized version of the precalculus summer program over four years. Students who scored less than 22 on the Mathematics Pla...

Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) are increasingly emerging in the research literature and have yielded promising effects on students' science and mathematics achievement [1; 2; 3]. ISHSs emphasized STEM preparation for underrepresented subpopulations and offered open enrollment. In the present study, we selected 17 ISHSs in Texas and divided tho...