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

51 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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Investigating the motivations of female students choosing an open versus named qualification

Elaine McPherson Mary Keys

UK universities (including the OU) have continued to struggle to recruit women to certain subjects within STEM despite best efforts to address this gender imbalance. In 2017, the OU introduced a ‘BSc (Hons) Combined STEM’ degree (R28) alongside its single and joint honours degrees in STEM.

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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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Understanding factors influencing BAME students’ achievements within Engineering and Innovation

Carol Morris Rachel Slater

Students from BAME groups appear to perform less well than their white counterparts across all modules in E&I.

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Evaluating the increase in student wellbeing brought about by informal online sessions and computer generated worked examples on a level 3 pure maths module

Hayley Ryder Tacey O'Neil

Issue: student well-being and anxiety. Accessibility of tutorial type resources.

Many students experiencing problems with abstract mathematics either already experience maths anxiety or develop it. They can also lack self-efficacy and mathematical resilience.

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