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

102 results found

Evaluating the outcomes of embedding coding activities in an advanced physics and astronomy module

Judith Croston

Two key barriers to student success in advanced physics and astronomy modules are (i) the abstract nature of key concepts that are far removed from everyday life, and (ii) the use of complex maths formalism that can obscure physical interpretation.

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How do students use tutorial recordings and which formats are most effective?

Cath Brown Catherine Onions

Post-pandemic, students’ live attendance at online tutorials has declined significantly but it is not uncommon to see hundreds of views of recordings.

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Mathematics support in LHCS

Eleanor Crabb Nicola McIntyre Cath Brown

Science students need to develop a level of competence in mathematics to succeed in their studies.  However, Open University students in chemistry, biology and health sciences may well be unaware of the need for mathematical skills prior to embarking on their studies, and given the open entr

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Supporting learning with a collaborative notetaking tool to work within a Jupyter Notebook environment

Oli Howson

At the moment M269 students work entirely within the Jupyter infrastructure. Notetaking is not built in to Jupyter, although a rudimentary plugin has been developed for students to do so.

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Improving completion of remote examinations in physics

Sally Jordan Jonathan Nylk Becca Whitehead

The project seeks to extend earlier investigations into the factors that enable students to do themselves justice in remote online exams in physics and related subjects, by encouraging them to attempt the exam in the first place and to complete a reasonable number of questions to an appropriate l

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Gamification to increase participation in maths practice quizzes in Level 1 Engineering modules

Silvia Varagnolo Zahra Golrokhi

The aim of this project is to improve students’ engagement with maths exercise through the gamification of existing practice quizzes. The specific context is T192 (the first module in the Engineering Qualification) which already features weekly maths practice quizzes.

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Students’ emotion regulation when learning online

Jake Hilliard

The purpose of this project is to explore students’ emotion regulation practices while studying online. Specifically, this study will investigate how and why students manage their own emotions, as well as examine whether they try to influence their peers' emotions in these learning settings.

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Exploring student’s self-efficacy in response to modular events during introductory level science modules

Sam Johnson

Self-efficacy is an individual’s belief that they can successfully complete a particular task. Self-efficacy has been shown to be strongly predictive of performance and retention. Current studies are largely cross-sectional and do not explore how self-efficacy changes throughout a module.

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Understanding the impact of ongoing support for students returning to study after reaching Restricted status

Elizabeth Shakespeare Anthony Short

Student retention and continuation are key drivers for this project. They are also key focus areas for the University.

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Identifying and supporting skills development needs for undergraduate science students transitioning between stages 1, 2 and 3 in Environmental Science

Fiona Aiken Iris Verhagen Chris Hutton

With ever increasing focus on the need to support progression in our diverse student body, we are seeking to identify the most important skills gaps that present challenges to students on environmental and Earth science modules in EEES as they move from stage 1 to stage 2 and from stage 2 to stag

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