Supporting Student Agency in Undergraduate Biomedical Education

摘要 黑人、拉丁裔、美国土著和太平洋岛民学生在生物医学领域的代表性仍然不足 专业和研究职业。这个问题的部分原因是科学课程和职业介绍在 与URM学生的社会身份和价值观不符的方式。URM学生(特别是 URM女学生)觉得自己不属于科学领域，或者是科学领域的“冒名顶替者”，尤其是与 有代表性的(WR)白人和亚洲学生(特别是WR男性学生)。加强学生代理机构是 一个有希望的创新战略，可以解决这些问题。处于萌芽状态但正在发展的关联性和 实验研究表明，支持学生对中介的定向具有转变的潜力 学生的科学动机和科学课上的主观体验，以及教师的 实践与课堂氛围，使URM学生的科学教育协调一致 他们的目标和身份。这项调查的目的是检查一项 旨在促进不同大学生在入门课上的代理取向的干预措施 生物医学专业的必修课。纵向、整群随机、主动控制试验(N~90 班级和6,750名学生)将在多所大学进行，以检验这一假设 促进代理取向的干预措施(即，培训学生采用可伸缩的思维方式 科学动机和课堂环境，并使用各种代理参与策略)支持 从心理和环境看学生对生物医学科学的初步坚持和成就 进程(目标1)及其持续的坚持性和在开始后长达4年的成就 干预研究(目标2)。坚持不懈和成就成果包括课程成绩、GPA、课程- 攻读、生物医学学位获得和职业/研究生课程意向。近端过程变量 包括关于学生代理心态、参与度、兴趣、心理需求、自我效能、认同感 感知归属感、冒名顶替者的信仰和赋权，以及课堂激励气候报告和 观察。将以学生为中心的代理定向干预与 科学教师对激发学生主体、自主和动机意志的培训干预 提供机会来研究培训教师的额外好处，而不仅仅是 仅以学生为中心的干预(目标3)。最后，这项大型的、强有力的干预研究将允许 对以下假设进行检验：代理定向干预对URM与 WR学生和探索干预效果取决于其他特征的程度 学生(例如，性别、第一代人、个性、价值观)和课堂(教师的心态和 激励方法、班级规模、种族氛围)(目标4)。这项研究是创造成本的关键一步- 以及-时间高效、可扩展的干预措施，以支持学生在生物医学科学方面的坚持不懈。

ABSTRACT Black, Latinx, American Indigenous, and Pacific Islander students remain underrepresented in biomedical majors and research careers. Some of this problem is because science courses and careers are presented in ways that do not align with aspects of URM students’ social identities and values. URM students (particularly female URM students) feel like they do not belong or are “imposters” in science, especially when compared to well-represented (WR) white and Asian students (particularly male WR students). Bolstering student agency is a promising and innovative strategy that could address these issues. Nascent but growing correlational and experimental research suggests that supporting students’ orientation for agency has the potential to shift aspects of student motivation for science and subjective experience in science classes, as well as instructors’ practice and classroom climate, bringing the science education that URM students are provided into alignment with their goals and identities. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the effectiveness of an intervention designed to promote an agentic orientation among diverse college students in introductory classes required in biomedical science majors. A longitudinal, cluster-randomized, active control experiment (N~90 classes and 6,750 students) across multiple universities will be conducted to test the hypothesis that an intervention promoting an agentic orientation (i.e., training students to adopt a malleable mindset of their science motivation and classroom environment and use a variety of agentic engagement strategies) supports students’ initial persistence and achievement in biomedical science via psychological and environmental processes (Aim 1), as well as their sustained persistence and achievement up to 4 years following the start of the intervention study (Aim 2). Persistence and achievement outcomes include course grades, GPA, course- taking, biomedical degree obtainment, and career/graduate program intentions. Proximal process variables include reports of students’ agentic mindset, engagement, interest, psychological needs, self-efficacy, identity, perceived belonging, imposter beliefs, and empowerment, as well as classroom motivating climate reports and observations. The inclusion of a condition combining the student-focused agentic orientation intervention with a training intervention for science instructors on encouraging students’ agency, autonomy, and motivation will provide the opportunity to examine the added benefit of training teachers over and above the benefits of the student-focused intervention alone (Aim 3). Finally, this large, well-powered intervention study will allow for testing of the hypothesis that an agentic orientation intervention will be equally or more effective for URM vs. WR students and exploration of the extent to which intervention effects vary depending on other characteristics of students (e.g., gender, first-generation, personality, values) and the classroom (instructors’ mindset and motivational approach, class size, racial climate) (Aim 4). This research is a critical step toward creating a cost- and-time-efficient, scalable intervention to support student persistence in biomedical sciences.