CAREER: Virtual Body Ownership Illusions for Bias Reduction and Fostering Inclusivity in STEM Classrooms

社会上普遍存在着许多众所周知的负面成见，包括关于年龄和技术能力、性别和数学能力以及种族和智力的成见。这些刻板印象是如此普遍，以至于仅仅提醒某人他们的年龄、性别或种族都会对他们在具有挑战性的考试中的表现产生负面影响。这种关于智力的负面刻板印象与妇女和少数民族在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)学科中的代表性不足有关。此外，在从事技术工作的人中，代表性不足和缺乏多样性已被证明限制了技术领域的创新和创造力。该项目将调查虚拟现实技术的新用途，以消除对妇女和代表性不足的少数群体的陈规定型观念造成的负面影响，这些陈规定型观念目前阻碍他们参加STEM学科。虚拟现实技术使其用户能够通过其他人的眼睛来看待世界，并呈现出其他人的某些行为特征。这个项目将通过研究虚拟现实的能力，通过短暂地呈现他人的特征来缓冲人们的负面刻板印象，从而促进对虚拟现实影响的理解。这一虚拟视角的改变预计将限制陈规定型威胁的负面影响，这种威胁会阻止代表性不足群体的学生主修STEM学科，从而增加STEM学科中代表性不足群体的招聘和留住。该项目整合了研究和教育举措，调查虚拟化身对减少课堂上陈规陋习和偏见的负面影响的影响。该项目将1)证明虚拟化身可以以影响虚拟环境外持续态度变化的方式积极地中介内隐行为，2)根据不同的硬件规范制定诱导持久行为变化的协议，3)根据个人的独特特征制定个性化化身和环境规范的新方法，以及4)部署将虚拟现实技术应用程序整合到课堂中的课程指南，以积极影响群体行为，并增加STEM学科中代表性不足群体的留存率。个性化的虚拟体验以及课程部署指南将通过从三个不同机构的计算机科学入门课程的多机构实验中收集的数据来生成和评估：一所私立文科学院、一所公立州立大学和一所社区学院。这一多机构实验的结果将被用来评估和展示虚拟现实在调解由刻板印象、威胁和隐性偏见造成的负面影响方面的潜力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

There exist numerous well-known negative stereotypes that are prevalent in society, including those about age and technical ability, gender and mathematical ability, and race and intelligence. These stereotypes are so prevalent that simply reminding someone about their age, gender, or race can negatively affect performance on a challenging exam. Such negative stereotypes about mental aptitude have been linked to the underrepresentation of women and minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Further, this underrepresentation and lack of diversity in people working with technology has been shown to limit innovation and creativity in technological fields. This project will investigate novel uses of virtual reality technology to combat the negative effects of stereotypes about women and underrepresented minorities that currently deter them from participating in STEM disciplines. Virtual reality technology enables its users to see the world through the eyes of, and take on certain behavioral characteristics of, someone else. This project will advance the understanding of the effects of virtual reality by investigating its ability to buffer people from negative stereotypes by briefly taking on the characteristics of someone else. This virtual perspective change is expected to limit the negative effects of stereotype threat that deter students from underrepresented groups from majoring in STEM disciplines, and therefore increase recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines. This project integrates research and education initiatives investigating the effects of virtual avatars on reducing the negative effects of stereotypes and biases in the classroom. The project will 1) demonstrate that avatars can positively mediate implicit behavior in ways that affect attitudinal changes lasting outside of virtual environments, 2) formulate a protocol for inducing lasting behavioral changes based on different hardware specifications, 3) produce a novel methodology for personalizing avatar and environment specifications given an individual's unique characteristics, and 4) deploy curriculum guidelines for the integration of virtual reality technology applications into classrooms to positively affect group behavior and increase retention for underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines. Personalized virtual experiences, along with curricular guidelines for deployment, will be generated and evaluated through data collected from a multi-institutional experiment in introductory computer science courses at three different institutions: a private liberal arts college, a public state university, and a community college. The results of this multi-institutional experiment will be used to assess and demonstrate virtual reality’s potential to mediate negative effects caused by stereotype threat and implicit bias.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.