Science Identity among Latinx Students in the Biomedical Sciences: The Role of a Critical Race Theory-Informed Undergraduate Research Experience.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Camacho TC
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8734380 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Success and persistence in the life sciences is influenced by a student's self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and science identity. It has already been demonstrated that outreach experiences and service learning by graduate students in K-12 schools aid in the graduate students' confidence and intrinsic satisfaction. Others have shown the importance of engaging scientists in outreach activities, both for the benefit of the K-12 student and as a way to engage scientists with the community. We predicted it would also be beneficial for undergraduates to engage in service-learning activities during their coursework because working with K-12 students would solidify their scientific identity and sense of belonging while deepening their understanding of the course content. Consequently, we implemented service projects in our upper-level molecular biology and human physiology courses at a primarily undergraduate institution that focuses on five core values: Christian, Liberal Arts, Excellence, Community, and Service. Outcomes such as the undergraduate students' value of service, confidence in their knowledge of course content, ability to create effective lesson plans, and science identity were measured using anonymous surveys. Overall, students reported that they highly valued and enjoyed this unique experience. This type of activity could be used to increase future scientists' awareness of synergistic activities such as academic service and of the joy found in such activities. Future plans include measuring the effects on the participating high school and elementary school students and visiting schools with a high proportion of students from underserved populations.
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Project description:Using social-cognitive career theory, we identified the experiential sources of learning that contribute to research self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and science identity for culturally diverse undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and math (i.e., STEM) majors. We examined group differences by race/ethnicity and gender to investigate potential cultural variations in a model to explain students' research career intentions. Using a sample of 688 undergraduate students, we ran a series of path models testing the relationships between the experiential sources, research self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and science identity to research career intentions. Findings were largely consistent with our hypotheses in that research self-efficacy and outcome expectancies were directly and positively associated with research career intentions and the associations of the experiential sources to intentions were mediated via self-efficacy. Science identity contributed significant though modest variance to research career intentions indirectly via its positive association with outcome expectations. Science identity also partially mediated the efficacy-outcome expectancies path. The experiential sources of learning were associated in expected directions to research self-efficacy with 3 of the sources emerging as significantly correlated with science identity. An unexpected direct relationship from vicarious learning to intentions was observed. In testing for group differences by race/ethnicity and gender in subsamples of Black/African American and Latino/a students, we found that the hypothesized model incorporating science identity was supported, and most paths did not vary significantly across four Race/Ethnicity × Gender groups, except for 3 paths. Research and practice implications of the findings for supporting research career intentions of culturally diverse undergraduate students are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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Project description:Increasing biomedical workforce diversity remains a persistent challenge. Recent reports have shown that biomedical sciences (BMS) graduate students become less interested in faculty careers as training progresses; however, it is unclear whether or how the career preferences of women and underrepresented minority (URM) scientists change in manners distinct from their better-represented peers. We report results from a survey of 1500 recent American BMS Ph.D. graduates (including 276 URMs) that examined career preferences over the course of their graduate training experiences. On average, scientists from all social backgrounds showed significantly decreased interest in faculty careers at research universities, and significantly increased interest in non-research careers at Ph.D. completion relative to entry. However, group differences emerged in overall levels of interest (at Ph.D. entry and completion), and the magnitude of change in interest in these careers. Multiple logistic regression showed that when controlling for career pathway interest at Ph.D. entry, first-author publication rate, faculty support, research self-efficacy, and graduate training experiences, differences in career pathway interest between social identity groups persisted. All groups were less likely than men from well-represented (WR) racial/ethnic backgrounds to report high interest in faculty careers at research-intensive universities (URM men: OR 0.60, 95% CI: 0.36-0.98, p = 0.04; WR women: OR: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.47-0.89, p = 0.008; URM women: OR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.30-0.71, p<0.001), and URM women were more likely than all other groups to report high interest in non-research careers (OR: 1.93, 95% CI: 1.28-2.90, p = 0.002). The persistence of disparities in the career interests of Ph.D. recipients suggests that a supply-side (or "pipeline") framing of biomedical workforce diversity challenges may limit the effectiveness of efforts to attract and retain the best and most diverse workforce. We propose incorporation of an ecological perspective of career development when considering strategies to enhance the biomedical workforce and professoriate through diversity.
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Project description:Paranormal beliefs and magical thinking exist in the public, and amongst university students. Researchers have found that media can influence such beliefs. A 2012 study suggested pseudoscientific rationales can influence acceptance of reported paranormal phenomena. Using a paranormal belief survey and controlled experiment this work explores the paranormal beliefs and test the effects of three versions of a supernatural news story on undergraduate professional students. One version of the story presented a simple news article, another the same with a pseudoscientific rationale, and another gave a discrediting scientific critique. Results confirmed that many students do hold magical beliefs but discriminated between scientific and pseudoscientific narratives. However, pre-existing paranormal beliefs were associated with an increased likelihood of students finding paranormal reports scientific, believable and credible.
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Project description:Biostatistics courses are integral to many undergraduate biology programs. Such courses have often been taught using point-and-click software, but these programs are now seldom used by researchers or professional biologists. Instead, biology professionals typically use programming languages, such as R, which are better suited to analyzing complex data sets. However, teaching biostatistics and programming simultaneously has the potential to overload the students and hinder their learning. We sought to mitigate this overload by using cognitive load theory (CLT) to develop assignments for two biostatistics courses. We evaluated the effectiveness of these assignments by comparing student cohorts who were taught R using these assignments (n = 146) with those who were taught R through example scripts or were instructed on a point-and-click software program (control, n = 181). We surveyed all cohorts and analyzed statistical and programming ability through students' lab reports or final exams. Students who learned R through our assignments rated their programming ability higher and were more likely to put the usage of R as a skill in their curricula vitae. We also found that the treatment students were more motivated, less frustrated, and less stressed when using R. These results suggest that we can use CLT to teach challenging material.
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Project description:BackgroundThe cost of university presents various challenges with regards to students' daily learning activities. This is particularly evident in developing countries, where higher education students face acute financial problems that greatly affect their daily educational activities. In Ethiopia, public university students do benefit from governmental cost-sharing programs. Moreover, health sciences students have additional costs during their clinical placements that are above the common expenses for university students.ObjectivesAuthors aim to explore the challenges that undergraduate health sciences students in their clinical year face with limited pocket money, as well as how students perceive these limited funds affecting their learning activities and their ability to meet challenges.MethodsThis descriptive qualitative study was conducted at the Department of Medical Radiologic Technology, College of Health Sciences, at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Interviews were conducted between January 28, 2019 and February 1, 2019 with twelve students; and only ten participants were included in the study. The semi-structured questions explored participants' experiences and perceptions regarding the challenges of a lack of pocket money and its impacts on their learning activities. Their reaction to financial challenges was assessed.ResultsFour themes that are related to the impact of a lack of money on learning activities emerged from our interviews. First, students believed that their difficulty in obtaining pocket money from family or other funding sources contributed to their financial stress, which negatively impacted their learning. Moreover, their difficulty in affording the basic needs for a student greatly affected their learning abilities in the classroom as well as in their clinical placements. The ability to self-manage was also a significant concern for students, with the pressure to use self-control and proper money management adding to their financial stress. Lastly, students observed that the lack of pocket money affected their ability to make social connections at university, which they saw as negatively impacting their learning abilities.ConclusionEthiopian undergraduate health sciences students faced many challenges due to the lack of pocket money and these challenges affected student learning both directly or indirectly. Based on our data, we believe that the underlying causes of student financial hardship can be addressed by increasing public awareness of university expenses, clarifying the cost-sharing system to the public, redesigning the cost-sharing policy, and improving university services. Additionally, teaching students self-management skills is also another area that could increase student success.
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Project description:Science fairs offer potential opportunities for students to learn first-hand about the practices of science. Over the past six years we have been carrying out voluntary and anonymous surveys with regional and national groups of high school and post high school students to learn about their high school science fair experiences regarding help received, obstacles encountered, and opinions about the value and impact of science fair. Understanding what students think about science fairs will help educators make science fairs more effective learning opportunities. In this paper, we focus on the findings with two national groups of post high school students-undergraduate research fellows (SURF students) who did research at UT Southwestern Medical Center during 2014-2019 and undergraduates biology students attending the 2019 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance (SEA) summer symposium. About 25% of the students who completed surveys indicated that they had participated in high school science fair, but more than half attended high schools where science fairs were unavailable. Effectively, 6 out of every 10 students participated in science fair if available. Students who could have participated in high school science fair but chose not to do so identified not enough time and coming up with their project idea as major reasons why not. About half the SURF students favored requiring non-competitive science fair regardless whether they themselves had participated in science fair. On the other hand, less than 1 in 5 thought that competitive science fair should be required. Introduction to the scientific process and general learning were mentioned most frequently as the reasons to require non-competitive science fair; these reasons were mentioned rarely in connection with competitive science fair. Unlike the national cohort of high school students we surveyed previously, who mostly did science fair in 9th and 10th grades, SURF students participated in science fair throughout high school and were twice as likely as high school students to have carried out science fair more than once. In conclusion, our findings suggest that participation of the undergraduate bioscience majors in high school science fairs occurs far more frequently than recognized previously and provide insights into how these successful college students (gauged by the fact that they are doing summer science research) view science fairs. The findings emphasize further the importance of incentivizing rather than requiring science fair participation, especially in 9th and 10th grades, and the potential value of developing non-competitive science fairs.
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