Studying Equity in Undergraduate Physics Labs

在美国国家科学基金会改善本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源（IUSE: EHR）的支持下，本项目旨在通过研究实验课上小组互动的公平性如何影响学生坚持学习物理的决定，为国家利益服务。尽管在改善科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育方面做出了广泛的努力，但许多在大学早期就选择STEM专业的学生并没有坚持到毕业。尽管影响学生坚持学习的许多变量错综复杂，但一个重要的观察结果是，学生不会仅仅因为成绩差而离开STEM。这项研究，在探索和设计层次的参与学生学习轨道，将评估实验室经验如何影响学生的观点，意味着什么是做物理，他们是否会继续这样做。这项工作将集中在实验课上，学生们一起进行实验，要求小组成员之间协调决策。该项目将通过在实验室对学生进行结构化观察，并对他们的经历进行采访，来收集有关学生经历的数据。通过将直接观察与访谈联系起来，这个项目提供了一个难得的机会，将持久性与实际的课堂活动联系起来。观察到群体互动中的不平等可能对某些学生群体（如女性和少数民族学生）的持久性产生更负面的影响，这一工作的重要性得到了加强。本研究旨在回答两个研究问题：1)公平的实验室小组和实验室活动的特征是什么？2)学生的实验室经历（公平与否）如何影响他们对物理研究意义的看法，以及他们是否会坚持物理研究？学生在小组工作中的经验将通过观察谈话时间和轮流、参与和排除的投标、担任领导角色、设备处理和想法的所有权来评估。有针对性的访谈和调查将探究学生对做物理意味着什么，谁能做，以及他们是否打算继续做物理学的看法，同时也将他们与实验室的小组工作经验联系起来。一个重要的重点将是评估持久性的共同预测因素（学生的自我效能感、归属感、科学认同感和代理感）与他们在实验室的经历之间的相互作用。这项工作的目标是产生一组关于实验室教学如何影响学生对STEM的坚持和改进物理实验室的建议的含义。它的研究方法将使研究人员能够探索实验室经验如何影响不同群体的学生，包括历史上在物理学中代表性不足的群体。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。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。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by studying how fairness in group interactions during laboratory classes affects students' decisions to persist in physics. Despite extensive efforts to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, many students who declare a STEM major early in their college years do not persist to graduation. Although the many variables that affect student persistence are complex and intertwined, an important observation is that students do not leave STEM simply due to poor grades. This study, in the Exploration and Design tier of the Engaged Student Learning track, will evaluate how lab experiences affect student perspectives of what it means to do physics and whether they will continue to do it. The work will focus on lab courses where students conduct experiments together, requiring coordinated decision-making between the group members. The project will gather data about student experiences though structured observations of students in labs, paired with interviews of their experiences. By linking direct observations with interviews, this project provides a rare opportunity to connect persistence to actual in-class activities. The significance of this work is increased by the observation that inequities in group interactions may more negatively impact the persistence of some groups of students, such as women and minority students. The proposed study aims to answer two research questions: 1) What are the characteristics of equitable lab groups and lab activities? 2) How do students' lab experiences (equitable or not) affect their perspectives of what it means to do physics and whether they will persist in physics studies? Students' experiences in group work will be evaluated through observations of talk time and turn taking, bids for inclusion and exclusion, assuming leadership roles, equipment handling, and ownership of ideas. Targeted interviews and surveys will probe students' views about what it means to do physics, who can do it, and whether they plan to continue to do it, while also drawing connections to their group work experiences in the lab. A significant focus will be on evaluating interactions between common predictors of persistence (students' self-efficacy, sense of belonging, science identity, and sense of agency) and their experiences in lab. The goal of this work is to generate a set of implications for how lab instruction can affect student persistence in STEM and recommendations for improvements to physics labs. Its research methodology will enable the investigators to probe how lab experiences affect different groups of students, including groups that have been historically underrepresented in physics. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.