GSE/RES: The Role of Social Interaction in the Development of Scientist Identities and the Retention of Undergraduate Women in Science Majors

这项研究将传统的启发(调查和访谈)方法与人种志研究相结合，对三个学科的本科生专业在正式和非正式教育背景下自然发生的社会互动进行了考察--物理、化学和数学(科学)--以确定在促进本科生女性科学家身份认同的发展并将她们保留在国家科学职业管道中最有效的互动类型。该项目利用加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的独特情况，通过各种途径向传统文学和理科学院以及小型创新学院的本科生提供科学指导。选择UCSB作为研究地点，可以比较课堂、实验室和非正式环境中出现的与科学相关的社会互动，同时保持许多相对恒定的变量，这些变量可能会干预跨机构比较。预计报告科学家身份将与通过语言特征互动地展示这样的身份相关。它还假设，科学家身份的展示将在研究环境等背景下受到青睐，这些环境允许学生提出主张或介绍新信息，而不是报告已经确定的事实。分析的主要焦点是女性在本科理科方面的经历和互动，但这三个群体中的男性本科理科专业的学生都被包括在内，以提供跨性别的比较。预计促进女性留住科学的互动也将促进男性，因此基于调查结果的教育建议不仅将帮助女性在科学职业生涯中进步，还将总体上扩大美国科学家的队伍。智力价值：详细了解鼓励女性采用科学家身份并坚持STEM专业的具体语言和互动实践，对于增加在STEM求职的女性数量至关重要。这项研究建立在现有关于社会互动在STEM留住大学生女性中的作用的研究结果的基础上，通过从已报道的经验领域扩展到迄今鲜有人探索的与科学相关的自然社交领域，为这一问题的研究提供了一个新的概念和方法方向。此外，之前关于性别和本科科学教育的大量研究强调了阻碍女性追求科学的因素，建议的研究重点是那些通过宣布攻读科学专业而对科学做出承诺的本科生女性，以发现日常与科学相关的社会互动如何有助于科学家身份的发展和在国家科学管道中的保持。更广泛的影响：拟议的研究的更广泛的影响将使研究结果对教育工作者有用，并对全国的学生有利。首先，这项研究的定量和定性相结合的方法对最终用户以及分析人员来说都是互补的：虽然定量数据的优势是允许进行概括，以指导教育政策和实践的广泛战略，但定性数据是具体的、具体的和背景丰富的，因此它们将比定量证据更有效地向教育工作者、家长和学生展示与女性保持科学技能相关的具体互动实践。这些成果将通过在高中的演讲、网站和信息视频向学术研究界传播。这些工具将把调查结果带给学生、家长、教育工作者和普通公众。

This study combines traditional elicitation (survey and interview) methodologies with the ethnographic examination of naturally occurring social interaction in formal and informal educational contexts among undergraduate majors in three disciplines in which they remain underrepresented--physics, chemistry, and mathematics ("science")--in order to determine the sorts of interactions that are most effective in facilitating the development of scientist identities among undergraduate women and retaining them in the national pipeline toward science careers. The project takes advantage of the unique situation of UC Santa Barbara, which delivers science instruction to undergraduates both in a traditional letters and sciences college and in a small, innovative college via a variety of pathways. The selection of UCSB as a research site allows for comparison of science-related social interactions that arise within classroom, laboratory, and informal settings while holding relatively constant many of the variables that would intervene in a cross-institution comparison.It is anticipated that reporting a scientist identity will correlate with displaying such an identity interactionally via linguistic features. It is also hypothesized that the display of a scientist identity will be favored in contexts such as research settings, which allow students to make claims or introduce new information rather than report already established facts. The primary focus of the analysis is on women's experiences and interactions in undergraduate science, but male undergraduate science majors in all three groups are included to provide a cross-gender comparison. It is expected that interactions that promote women's retention in science will also promote men's, and hence the educational recommendations based on the findings will not only help women advance in science careers but will also expand the ranks of U.S. scientists generally.Intellectual merit: A detailed understanding of the specific linguistic and interactional practices that encourage women to adopt scientist identities and to persist in STEM majors is of crucial importance in increasing the number of women seeking careers in STEM. The study builds on existing findings regarding the role of social interaction in undergraduate women's retention in STEM, yet offers a new conceptual and methodological direction for the investigation of this issue by expanding from the domain of reported experiences to the heretofore little-explored arena of naturally occurring science-related social interaction at the undergraduate level. In addition, where a great deal of previous research on gender and undergraduate science education emphasizes factors inhibiting women's pursuit of science, the proposed study focuses on undergraduate women who have made a commitment to science by declaring a science major, in order to discover how daily science-related social interactions contribute to the development of a scientist identity and to retention in the national science pipeline.Broader impacts: The broader impacts of the proposed study will make the findings useful to educators and beneficial to students nationwide. First, the study's combined quantitative and qualitative methods are complementary for the end user as well for analysts: while quantitative data have the advantage of allowing for generalizations that can guide broad strategies of educational policy and practice, qualitative data are concrete, specific, and context-rich, and hence they will be more effective than quantitative evidence in demonstrating to educators, parents, and students the specific interactional practices associated with women's retention in science. The results will be disseminated to the academic research community and through outreach via presentations at high schools, via a website and informational video. These tools will bring the findings to students, parents, educators, and the general public.