Cbe-Life Sciences Education最新文献

College and university campuses are complex ecosystems, and accounting for this complexity is crucial to understanding how to create conditions of equity and inclusion. Our academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) ecosystems are rooted in exclusionary norms and a false notion of being apolitical and fully objective, which has present-day negative consequences for our students. In this essay, we use a bioecological lens to better understand some of the factors that unfairly and disproportionately impact marginalized students in our STEM ecosystems. We focus our discussion on one component of the ecosystem, STEM faculty, and how they can serve as foundation species to direct our STEM ecosystems toward equity and empathy. We share how faculty can interrogate and take ownership for the ways that we perpetuate the exclusionary norms of STEM in our practice. We then propose specific strategies for faculty to nurture comprehensive niche-building to support students inside and outside of our classrooms. Although faculty instructional roles are the focus of this essay, we close with an acknowledgment of some additional opportunities for faculty to leverage their influence through research and institutional leadership to promote equity and inclusion in biology education and STEM ecosystems.

Teaching evaluation at many institutions is insufficient to support, recognize, and reward effective teaching. We developed a long-term intervention to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) department heads in advancing teaching evaluation practices. We describe the intervention and systematically investigate its impact on departmental practices within a research-intensive university. The outcomes varied considerably by department, with four departments achieving extensive teaching evaluation reform and seven departments achieving more limited reform. We used qualitative content analysis of interviews and meetings to investigate department head readiness for change and how it related to the reforms they achieved. All department heads perceived inadequacies in their current evaluation practices, but this dissatisfaction did not reliably predict the changes they pursued. Heads only pursued changes that they perceived to have clear benefits. All heads worried that faculty might resist new practices, but heads who were most successful in facilitating change saw ways to work around resistance. Heads who led the most change questioned their own expertise for reforming teaching evaluation and delegated the work of developing new evaluation practices to knowledgeable colleagues. We discuss emergent hypotheses about factors that support heads in challenging the status quo with more robust and equitable evaluation practices.

Integrating science education with social justice is vital for preparing students to critically address significant societal issues like climate change and pandemics. This study examines the effectiveness of socioscientific system modeling as a tool within Justice-Centered Science Pedagogy (JCSP) to enhance middle school students' understanding of social justice science issues. It focuses on how system modeling can scaffold students' reasoning about complex social systems, informed by their lived experiences, cultural backgrounds, and social identities. Our research involved 27 middle school students using system models to explore the societal and scientific dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic. By leveraging the experiences and insights of students, educators can create transformative learning environments that not only recognize but also utilize students' unique knowledge bases as legitimate contributions to classroom discourse. The implications for instructional design highlight the need for multifaceted, responsive activities that align with the principles of JCSP and empower students as agents of societal transformation. The research contributes to the ongoing discourse on enhancing science education through justice-centered approaches that address the complexities of socioscientific context and the cultural relevance of scientific knowledge.

The aim of inclusive education is to provide a supportive space for students from every background. The theory of intersectionality suggests that multiple identities intersect within social spaces to construct specific positionalities. To support the heterogeneity of all students, there is a need to understand who is in our Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses and how we would go about assessing this. This article problematizes the traditional approach to demographic data collection and presents the beginnings of an alternative approach. The study utilized qualitative and quantitative data in order to examine the way students self-describe within a large multi-institutional program. There were 2,082 students presented with 12 identity categories and asked to specify which of these identities were important to them for their own self-definition and then write an open self-description. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, comparative proportional usage analyses of identity categories by traditional demographic groupings, and hierarchical cluster analysis of identity variables. The results showed that the majority of students use multiple categories of identity in combination, that these identity preferences differ in relation to traditional demographic categories, and that there were four underpinning identity orientations consisting of a focus on heritage, health, self-expression, and career.

There is a growing emphasis for professional development programs that teach instructors about inclusive Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) practices and the impact of instructor and student identities on these practices. As instructors implement these practices, there is a need for instructors, departments, and faculty developers to measure instructor progress and to help identify next steps in improving inclusive STEM teaching. This study describes the development of the Faculty Inclusive Teaching Survey (FITS) using scale-development theory, frameworks using Clarke and Hollingsworth's interconnected model of professional growth and Dewsbury's Deep Teaching model, and higher-education STEM, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and professional development literature. Using data of three cohorts from an online national inclusive STEM teaching program, exploratory factor and confirmatory factor analyses and invariance measurements were conducted to evaluate the initial internal structure of the FITS, comprising four measures: Awareness and Impact of Identity, Confidence in Inclusive Teaching, Reflection on Inclusive Teaching, and Likelihood to Implement Inclusive Teaching. Our results provide initial evidence that the FITS could be used as one of the measurement approaches for instructor feedback and growth to support multidimensional and iterative learning about inclusive teaching in higher education. Implications and suggestions for practical use and future research are provided.

There are serious concerns about mental health on college campuses. Depression negatively impacts college student success. Women and transgender/gender-nonconforming students suffer from depression at higher rates than men. While undergraduate research is a high-impact practice, we know little about how depression affects outcomes among undergraduate researchers with different gender identities. To investigate this, we use data from n = 516 students participating in n = 78 Summer 2022 NSF REU Sites programs via the NSF-sponsored Mentor-Relate project. We used gender-stratified generalized estimating equations that nest students within their REU Sites to predict research gains for men and women and transgender/gender-nonconforming students. Greater depression was negatively associated with personal and skills gains for women and transgender/gender-nonconforming students (p < 0.05), but not men. Having a more competent faculty mentor was associated with greater gains for women and transgender/gender-nonconforming students, as well as men. In an interaction model, having a more competent mentor reduced the negative effect of depression on personal gains for women and transgender/gender-nonconforming students (p < 0.05). Results suggest practical actions including cultivating mentors' mental health literacy and peer support networks, boosting mentor competency through mentor training programs, and changing institutional reward structures to incentivize high-quality mentoring.

Quantitative reasoning (QR) is a key skill for undergraduate biology education. Despite this, many students struggle with QR. Here, we use the theoretical framework of student noticing to investigate why some students struggle with QR in introductory biology labs. Under this framework, what students notice when given new information and data influences how they process this information and connect it with other events to form new conceptions. Students must mentally isolate given features, create mental records of those features, and identify features or objects that they connect to existing knowledge. Identifying these features or objects is thus critical since they form the foundation upon which learning takes place. We conducted observations of groups in introductory biology labs involving QR, which informed follow-up interviews to examine what students notice, the level/relevance of their noticing, and factors that shape student noticing. We find that some students are noticing more perceptual features, often focusing on less relevant trends and features, with others noticing deeper, more relevant patterns that facilitate conceptual sensemaking. In addition, we find multiple factors, including students' expectations and their attitude toward QR and biology, that shape student noticing. We conclude with implications for instructors and the biology education research community.

A vibrant ecosystem of innovation hinges on undergraduate science programs that inclusively deepen conceptual understanding, develop scientific competencies, and spark wonder and appreciation for science. To create this ecosystem, we need to influence multiple components of the system, including faculty as well as culture (i.e., rules, goals, and beliefs giving rise to them). Here we describe and evaluate a multi-institution community of practice focused on transforming undergraduate biology programs' organizational practices, behaviors, and beliefs, as well as instilling a sense of agency in community participants. The approach drew on three change theories: Community of Practice, Participatory Organizational Change, and Organizational Justice. Via mixed methods, we found that participation in the community catalyzed the flow of tangible capital (knowledge resources), grew social capital (relationships and identity), and developed human capital (creative problem-solving and facilitative leadership skills; sense of agency). In participants' home departments, application of knowledge capital was associated with increased implementation of the principles of the Vision and Change report. Departmental change was enhanced when coupled with use of capitals developed through a community of practice centered on creative problem-solving, facilitative leadership, conflict resolution, and organizational justice.

Trans* and genderqueer student retention and liberation is integral for equity in undergraduate education. While STEM leadership calls for data-supported systemic change, the erasure and othering of trans* and genderqueer identities in STEM research perpetuates cisnormative narratives. We sought to characterize how sex and gender data are collected, analyzed, and described in biology education research. We reviewed and coded 328 original research studies published in CBE-Life Science Education from 2018 to 2022. Studies often relied upon binary classifications and conflated sex and gender. For instance, terms used to describe sex, such as "male" and "female," were frequently offered as gender options. Only 27 studies (8%) included trans* and genderqueer students in their analysis. Of those that excluded trans* and genderqueer students from analysis, only 23 (7.6%) acknowledged this as a methodological limitation. Further, there has been no temporal trend away from cisnormative language over the 5-year period we analyzed (OR = 1.0, p = 0.93). Our findings show the prevalence of cisnormative language and methodologies in biology education research and demonstrate a lack of representation of trans* and genderqueer individuals. Our results are a call for researchers to critically conceptualize whether and how they investigate gender data in future studies.

Previous research has shown that students employ intuitive thinking when understanding scientific concepts. Three types of intuitive thinking-essentialist, teleological, and anthropic thinking-are used in biology learning and can lead to misconceptions. However, it is unknown how commonly these types of intuitive thinking, or cognitive construals, are used spontaneously in students' explanations across biological concepts and whether this usage is related to endorsement of construal-consistent misconceptions. In this study, we examined how frequently undergraduate students across two U.S. universities (N = 807) used construal-consistent language (CCL) to explain in response to open-ended questions related to five core biology concepts (e.g., evolution), how CCL use differed by concept, and how this usage was related to misconceptions agreement. We found that the majority of students used some kind of CCL in the responses to these open-ended questions and that CCL use varied by target concept. We also found that students who used CCL in their response agreed more strongly with misconception statements, a relationship driven by anthropocentric language use, or language that focused on humans. These findings suggest that American university students use intuitive thinking when reasoning about biological concepts with implications for their understanding.