Understanding Centrality and Marginalization in Undergraduate Physics Teaching and Learning to Enhance Student Persistence and Success

本ECR项目将探讨本科物理课堂和实验课程中的教育策略、工具和材料在多大程度上以一些学生为中心，而使另一些学生边缘化。该项目将确定教学策略、工具和材料，以传达谁是受欢迎的、重要的和有影响力的物理学者，以及哪些特征对物理的成功是有价值的和必要的。本科物理学的教学方式可能会导致女性和未被充分代表的种族和少数民族对物理学的坚持和兴趣降低，这一点很重要，因为各级STEM劳动力的多样性已被证明有利于科学研究的成果。与全国总人口和接受高等教育的人口相比，物理学是女性和有色人种在所有科学中所占比例最低的。非裔美国人、西班牙裔美国人和印第安人总共只获得了美国11%的本科物理学学位和6%的博士学位，而女性在这两个级别的学位中都只获得了19%的学位。该项目将有助于STEM学习环境的ECR重点领域，并扩大STEM的参与。该项目的目的是建立一个知识库，使人们认识到权力关系如何嵌入到物理教学和学习的方式中。这个项目的数据将包括本科物理课程的视频，对物理教师和学习者的反思性访谈，以及教学文物。方法将包括使用情境学习理论（SLT）方法和批判性白人研究（CWS），对谁是集中的（或边缘化的）以及如何在教学环境中使他们成为中心（或边缘）的经验观察。本项目将借鉴CWS的观点来展示特权如何在本科物理教学和学习中运作。SLT提供了一种权力关系的视角，其中权力由中心性表示，学习是STEM身份发展的一个过程，该过程将学习者从学习环境的外围参与转移到中心参与。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This ECR project will explore the extent to which educational strategies, tools, and materials in undergraduate physics classrooms and laboratory sessions center some students and marginalize others. This project will identify teaching strategies, tools, and materials that communicate who is welcome, important, and influential in physics and what characteristics are valued and necessary for success in physics. The ways that undergraduate physics is taught may lead to reduced persistence and interest of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in physics, which is important because diversity in the STEM workforce at all levels has been shown to benefit the outcomes of scientific research. Physics has among the lowest representation of women and people of color of all the sciences compared to the total population in the country as well as the population enrolled in higher education. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans collectively earn only 11% of undergraduate physics degrees in the US and only 6% of doctoral degrees, and women earn about 19% of degrees at both levels. This project will contribute to the ECR focus areas of STEM learning environments and broadening participation in STEM. The aim of this project is to develop a knowledge base that could lead to awareness of how power relations may be embedded in the way physics is taught and learned. Data for this project will include video of undergraduate physics classes, reflective interviews with physics instructors and learners, and instructional artifacts. Methods will include empirical observations of who is centralized (or marginalized) and how they are made central (or marginal) in instructional settings, using Situated Learning Theory (SLT) methodology and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). This project will draw on CWS perspectives to show how privilege operates in undergraduate physics teaching and learning. SLT offers a vision of power relations, in which power is indicated by centrality and learning is a process of STEM identity development that moves learners from peripheral to central participation in learning environments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.