Projects

eSTEeM is providing a mechanism for professional development through practice-based scholarship within a mentored community. Much of our work is organised on a project basis with project management aimed at the delivery of new educational outcomes and scholarship outputs. 

eSTEeM supports a rolling portfolio of approx. 80 active scholarship projects under a number of themes which include:

  • Access, Participation and Success
  • Innovative assessment
  • Online/onscreen STEM practice
  • Supporting students
  • Technologies for STEM learning

To learn more about our projects, please click on the project titles or use the search feature below by entering keywords. To search by the name of a project leader, please use the 'Filter by Project Leader' tab on the right-hand side of this page.

Search results

34 results found

Improving and evaluating inclusivity in group project work for distance-learning engineering students

Alice Moncaster Hedieh Jazaeri

Projects and teamwork are the predominant context in which most engineers work. Providing supported learning experience of such contexts supports employability for our students.

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SiSE only tutor groups and the effect on SiSE students and their tutors

Laura Alexander Linda Moore Victoria Nicholas

Normally at the Open University Students in Secure Environments (SiSE) are allocated in small numbers to standard tutor groups to form mixed groups of 20 students, of whom 1 or 2 would typically be SiSE students.

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Evaluation of D-flag students accessibility to and use of online tutorials and forums in L2 modules

Sarah Daniell Lorraine Waters

It remains the case that despite different initiatives to encourage tutorial attendance, few students attend live online tutorials in LHCS.

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Investigation into running course specific taster tutorials within prisons for non-OU students

Colin Blundell

Students in Secure Environments (SiSE) can typically have different issues to other students from pre-registration through to the end of their studies.

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Understanding the mental health attainment gap in Design modules

Nicole Lotz Muriel Sippel

Winner of the 7th eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Award 2024.

Retention and attainment of students with a mental health disability on Design modules is poor compared to other qualifications in Engineering and Innovation, STEM.

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Exploring the extent of maths anxiety within the STEM Faculty at The Open University

Sue Pawley

Winner of the 6th Best Poster Competition at the 10th eSTEeM Annual Conference, 30 June -1 July 2021.

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Understanding the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic attainment gap at the OU by means of quantitative and qualitative data analytics

Miriam Fernandez Martin Hlosta Tracie Farrell

Highly Commended at the 6th eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards 2023.

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Effective support for reflective writing: learning from improvers

Cathy Smith Charlotte Lighter

This report focusses on an in‐depth study of 12 students identified as ‘improvers’ in Mathematics Education modules.

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Barriers and enablers to higher education: the experiences of disabled students from minority cultural backgrounds

Chris Corcoran

The aim of this project was to look at processes and experiences that were either a barrier to students to joining the University or an enabler– another way of looking at this is what helped and what stopped students registering and joining their course.

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Decolonising Computing: A Resource for Educators

Mustafa Ali

Decolonising the curriculum (DTC) is a university-wide initiative within the broader decolonising the university (DTU) project overseen by the EDI Dean with mandate from the VC. The current focus of DTC work in the STEM faculty is on Level 1 modules in all schools.

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