RCN-UBE Incubator: Equity and Diversity in Undergraduate STEM (EDU-STEM)

本科生STEM（EDU-STEM）的公平和多样性是一个合作网络，将实施基于证据的方法，以消除科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）领域的公平障碍，最初侧重于生命科学。具体而言，EDU-STEM合作伙伴将把从心理学中吸取的经验教训应用到大规模招生的入门课程中，这些课程通常会选择历史上代表性不足的学生，如女性和代表性不足的少数民族（URM）。这些学生面临着与学术能力无关的挑战，如歧视、被排斥感和冒名顶替综合症，这些都是造成成绩不佳和高流失率的原因。EDU-STEM网络将首先评估妇女和URM学生的地位，将来自不同机构的教授入门科学课程的个人聚集在一起：大型公立大学，社区学院，常春藤盟校和少数民族服务机构。导致表现或代表性差距的潜在机制将通过调查三个广泛的指标在不同的人口统计数据中进行量化：学习成绩，全班参与和情感措施（即，那些与绩效结果没有直接关系的因素，如信心、兴趣和包容感）。通过让来自不同机构的一系列教育工作者参与进来，这一网络将在通常不从事教育研究或循证教学技术的教师群体中建立平等意识。该网络试图以经验为依据记录影响STEM参与的因素，以扩大STEM学习的机构能力，最终促进代表整个国家的STEM劳动力，具体而言，EDU-STEM旨在：（1）揭示STEM学科中妇女和少数民族文化氛围的区域差异（如果存在）;（2）发展一个教师社区，可以在他们的家乡机构和全国范围内担任包容性教学和评估的领导者;（3）增加美国熟悉STEM包容性障碍的教师数量，并可以应用基于证据的技术来应对已知的障碍。参与者将参加“STEM包容性”研讨会，包括讨论课堂参与，表现和情感指标（如对刻板印象威胁的敏感性）的比较数据。网络数据将确定性别和族裔之间差异的基线衡量标准（如果存在），并查明任何区域或体制差异。初步研究结果将检验以下假设：区域因素（如性别差距指数或特定少数群体的代表百分比）导致参与差异、对刻板印象威胁的敏感性以及STEM的包容感。这将为利用这些数据规划网络伙伴所在机构的现场干预措施奠定基础，从而使科学教师更多地参与科学教学和基于学科的教育研究。 该项目由生物科学理事会（BIO），生物基础设施司和教育和人力资源理事会（EHR），本科教育司共同资助，作为他们努力应对本科生物学教育中的愿景和变革所带来的挑战的一部分：行动呼吁（http：//visionandchange.org/finalreport/）。

Equity and Diversity in Undergraduate STEM (EDU-STEM) is a collaborative network that will implement evidence-based approaches to counter barriers to equity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, with an initial focus on the life sciences. Specifically, EDU-STEM partners will apply lessons learned from psychology to large-enrollment, introductory courses that often select against historically underrepresented students such as women, and underrepresented minorities (URMs). Such students face challenges unrelated to academic competency, such as discrimination, feelings of exclusion, and imposter syndrome that contribute to well-documented underperformance and high attrition rates. The EDU-STEM network will first assess the status of women and URM students by bringing together individuals that teach introductory science courses from a diverse range of institutions: large public universities, community colleges, Ivy League schools, and minority-serving institutions. The underlying mechanisms that lead to gaps in performance or representation will be quantified among different demographics by investigating three broad metrics: academic performance, whole-class participation, and affective measures (i.e., those that do not directly relate to performance outcomes, such as confidence, interest, and feelings of inclusion). By involving a range of educators from a diverse set of institutions, this network will establish tendrils of equity awareness among groups of faculty not typically engaged in educational research or evidence-based teaching techniques. The network seeks to empirically document factors that affect participation in STEM in order to broaden institutional capacity for STEM learning, ultimately contributing to a STEM workforce that is representative of the nation as a whole.Specifically, EDU-STEM aims to: (1) reveal regional differences, if they exist, in the cultural climate for women and minorities in STEM disciplines; (2) develop a community of faculty that can serve as leaders--at their home institutions and nationally--in inclusive teaching and assessment; and (3) increase the number of faculty in the US that are familiar with barriers to inclusion in STEM, and can apply evidenced-based techniques for countering known barriers. Participants will engage in an "Inclusivity in STEM" workshop, including a discussion of comparative data on in-class participation, performance, and affective metrics such as susceptibility to stereotype threat. Network data will establish baseline measures of disparities between genders and ethnicities, if they exist, and detect any regional or institutional differences. Initial findings will test the hypothesis that regional factors (such as the Gender Gap Index, or the percentage representation of a given minority group), contribute to disparities in participation, susceptibility to stereotype threat, and sense of inclusion in STEM. This will set the stage for leveraging these data to plan on-site interventions at the home institutions of network partners, leading to greater engagement of science faculty with scientific teaching and discipline-based educational research. This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange.org/finalreport/).