Cbe-Life Sciences Education最新文献

Mindset (beliefs about the malleability of intelligence) has been studied in a variety of contexts for decades. Recent research highlights the importance of contextual factors in moderating mindset's impact on student outcomes. The commonly-used original mindset measure is context-general. Recently, a mindset measure that is specific to science and math undergraduates was developed: the Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities (ULTrA) Survey. I hypothesized that a context-specific measure of mindset would associate more strongly with undergraduates' outcomes than a context-general measure. I surveyed 1537 undergraduates with Dweck's 3-item original mindset measure, ULTrA, and measures of outcomes (sense of belonging, goal orientation, self-handicapping, evaluative concern and intent to persist in science) and collected course grades. Structural equation modeling indicated that the fixed factor of the ULTrA exhibited stronger and more consistent relationships with outcomes than the 3-item original mindset measure and predicted unique variance in outcomes above and beyond what the original mindset measure accounted for. The academic outcomes (intent to persist and course grade) were significantly related to ULTrA, but not the original mindset measure. Our results provide evidence that the context-specific ULTrA survey can detect relationships with undergraduate outcomes that the context-general original mindset measure can fail to detect.

Undergraduate laboratory courses can provide opportunities for students to participate in science practices. This requires rethinking both curricula and instruction. Science practice-based courses require students to be positioned as epistemic agents, implying a shift in instructor role. Teaching assistants (TAs) are the primary instructors for laboratory courses. The current study aims to understand how TAs support students in science practices. Specifically, we sought to characterize variation in teaching and to understand how TAs learned and adapted their teaching approaches over time. Our study takes place in the context of a large, introductory laboratory course, Authentic Inquiry through Modeling in Biology (AIB-Bio). Our approach investigated the intersection between instructor reasoning and actions using stimulated-recall interviews, where instructors reflected on audio recordings from their classrooms. Application of our conceptual framework revealed that TAs' instructional roles and purposes were fluid and influenced how they supported students' science practices. We also showed how interactions with students cued fluctuations in TAs instructional approaches. Results include a case study that suggests potential mechanisms for TA learning. We propose a model to explain the variation in the enactment of a science practice-based curricula. We end with practical implications to consider when building professional development for science practice-based instruction.

Evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) have been shown to benefit students in undergraduate biology, but little is known about the degree to which community college (CC) biology instructors use EBIPs or the barriers they encounter. We surveyed CC biology instructors to characterize how they use EBIPs, their capacity to use EBIPs, and perceived barriers to their use, and to explore which factors are associated with EBIP use. CC biology instructors report using EBIPs to a similar degree as other populations of undergraduate biology faculty; they generally believe EBIPs to be effective and are motivated to use EBIPs. Consistent with the theory of planned behavior, instructor belief in EBIP effectiveness, collegial support, and perceived knowledge of and skill in using EBIPs positively influence their use. The main barriers to using EBIPs reported by CC instructors included the need to cover large amounts of course content, lack of time to prepare for using EBIPs, and student resistance. Our findings point to a number of approaches that may promote the use of EBIPs by CC biology instructors, including professional development to increase instructor knowledge and skill, addressing tensions between content volume and the use of EBIPs, and providing resources to make implementing EBIPs time efficient.

College students with identities traditionally marginalized in scientific disciplines are more engaged and more likely to remain in science if they feel that they belong in their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classes and departments. In this qualitative case study, we elevated marginalized student voices to learn how departmental experiences shaped their sense of belonging in curricular and co-curricular spaces. Our research team interviewed 27 undergraduate life science students at a large predominantly white, research-intensive university. Participants reflected on their lived experiences and feelings of belonging within a biology department and shared their perceptions of departmental efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Three themes emerged as being of value to undergraduate students while they navigated the sciences: 1) implementing inclusive pedagogies, 2) providing co-curricular resources and support, and 3) humanizing life sciences education. These stories illuminated the importance of authenticity and intentionality in the implementation of strategies related to these three themes. This study provides an example of the power of centering marginalized students' lived experiences to identify strategies that can be employed more broadly to improve our courses, our departmental cultures, and our institutional policies-strategies essential to supporting students with a diversity of identities in engaging, belonging, and persisting in STEM.

High levels of student anxiety are negatively related to degree persistence, academic achievement, and student perceptions of instructor support. Anxiety levels vary along many axes-among classes, within students in the same class, and over time-creating a dynamic emotional landscape in classrooms. In this study, we examined the relationship between student anxiety levels and perceptions of instructor support within three introductory biology classes at two timepoints during a semester. Data on student anxiety levels and perceptions of instructor support were supplemented by open-ended student explanations of instructor support characteristics. We found a significant negative correlation between student anxiety level and instructor support ratings at wk 4 for all three classes. By wk 14, this correlation persisted in classes 1 and 3 but not class 2, where support ratings no longer significantly varied with anxiety levels. Analyses of open responses revealed that lower-anxiety students in classes 1 and 3 were more positive about how the instructors answered questions and higher-anxiety students in class 2 were more positive about their instructor's pedagogical practices. We suggest that these instructor practices should be investigated as potential factors to equalize perceptions of instructor support by students with different anxiety levels in introductory biology.

Examining institutional data from seven cohorts of students intending to major in biology across five research-intensive institutions, this work analyzes opportunity gaps-defined as the difference between the grade received by students from the dominant and nondominant sociodemographic groups in institutions of higher education-at the course-section level across mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry disciplines. From this analysis, we find that the majority of course sections have large opportunity gaps between female and male students, students who are Black, Latino/a/e/x, or indigenous to the United States and its territories and students who are White or Asian, first-generation and non-first-generation students, and low-income and non-low-income students. This work provides a framework to analyze equity across institutions using robust methodology, including: using multiple approaches to measure grades, quantile regression rankscores which adjust for previous academic performance, and cluster analysis. Recommendations are provided for institutions to identify faculty who have equitable course sections, automate equity analyses, and compare results to other institutions to make a change toward more equitable outcomes.

Steeped in the AsianCrit theoretical framework, the current study examined how anti-Asian hate impacted the mental health of Asian and diasporic Asian doctoral women in STEM. Six emergent themes were identified: 1) Witnessing and Experiencing Anti-Asian Hate; 2) Lack of Institutional and STEM Departmental Support; 3) Impact of Anti-Asian Hate on Asian Women's Mental Health; 4) Protecting One's Mental Health; 5) Resist to Persist; and 6) Calls for Action to Combat Lack of Departmental Support. These findings highlight how Asianization through stereotypes such as the forever-foreigner status, viewing Asians as a monolith, the yellow peril stereotype, and model minority myth simultaneously rendered Asian graduate women hypervisible in the U.S. society and invisible in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Implications for teaching and mentoring are included. These highlight the need for faculty to challenge institutional norms that perpetuate the erasure of the toll that anti-Asian hate levied on Asian doctoral women in STEM.

Curricular content in undergraduate biology courses has been historically hetero and cisnormative due to various cultural stigmas, biases, and discrimination. Such curricula may be partially responsible for why LGBTQ+ students in STEM are less likely to complete their degrees than their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts. We developed Broadening Perspective Activities (BPAs) to expand the representation of marginalized perspectives in the curriculum of an online, upper-division, undergraduate animal behavior course, focusing on topics relating to sex, gender, and sexuality. We used a quasiexperimental design to assess the impact of the BPAs on student perceptions of course concepts and on their sense of belonging in biology. We found that LGBTQ+ students entered the course with a better understanding of many animal behavior concepts that are influenced by cultural biases associated with sex, gender, and sexuality. However, LGBTQ+ students who took the course with the BPAs demonstrated a greater sense of belonging in biology at the end of the term compared with LGBTQ+ students in the course without BPAs. We also show that religious students demonstrated improved comprehension of many concepts related to sex, gender, and sexuality after taking the course with BPAs, with no negative impacts on their sense of belonging.

Science is often portrayed as a meritocratic endeavor, but university biology programs exhibit high rates of student attrition, particularly among students of Color, despite similar interest and aptitude for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as White students. Culturally relevant pedagogy is associated with student persistence in STEM. One way to practice culturally relevant pedagogy in biology courses is to engage students in discussions of race, racism, or racial equity. Guidance exists to help instructors incorporate race-related topics into the biology curriculum, but the reasoning behind the decision of whether to adopt this practice is not well characterized. Understanding instructors' perceptions and experiences in implementing these topics will help identify supports and address barriers to instructor adoption. In this study, we examine university biology instructors' motivations for incorporating topics of race, racism, or racial equity in biology courses and contextual factors that influence this motivation. We found that the instructors were primarily motivated by intrinsic factors, desire to promote student learning and success, and social injustice events despite lacking external incentives. The instructors also held anti-racist perspectives when developing learning experiences for their students. How change agents can leverage these findings to promote rightful presence in biology courses is discussed.