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

这个ECR项目将探讨在多大程度上教育策略，工具和材料在本科物理教室和实验室会议中心的一些学生和边缘化他人。 该项目将确定教学策略，工具和材料，沟通谁是受欢迎的，重要的，在物理学和有影响力的特性是有价值的，在物理学的成功是必要的。 本科物理学的教学方式可能会导致女性和代表性不足的种族和少数民族对物理学的持久性和兴趣降低，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。 与全国总人口以及接受高等教育的人口相比，物理学是所有科学中妇女和有色人种代表性最低的学科之一。 非裔美国人，西班牙裔美国人和美洲原住民总共只获得美国11%的本科物理学位和6%的博士学位，女性获得这两个级别学位的比例约为19%。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。 这个项目的目的是开发一个知识库，可以导致权力关系如何嵌入物理学的教学和学习方式的认识。 这个项目的数据将包括本科物理课程的视频，与物理教师和学习者的反思性访谈，以及教学文物。 方法将包括谁是中心化（或边缘化），以及他们是如何在教学环境中的中心（或边缘化），使用情境学习理论（STEM）的方法和批判性白度研究（CWS）的实证观察。 这个项目将利用CWS的观点来展示特权在本科物理教学和学习中的作用。 该奖项提供了一种权力关系的愿景，其中权力由中心性表示，学习是一个STEM身份发展的过程，将学习者从边缘参与到学习环境的中心参与。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响力审查标准进行评估来支持。

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.