Beyond the numbers: understanding how a diversity mentoring program welcomes students into a scientific community
Beyond the numbers: understanding how a diversity mentoring program welcomes students into a scientific community
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DOI：
10.1002/ecs2.3025
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发表时间：
2020-02-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Reynolds, Julie A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ahern-Dodson, Jennifer;Clark, Charlotte R.;Reynolds, Julie A.
旨在扩大科学参与的计划通常被认为是“成功的”，基于定量证据，如学生参与率，保留率和持久性。这些数字本身只能说明一个项目达到了它的目标;它们很少能批判性地解释这个项目是如何取得成功的。为了解决这一差距，我们研究了学生的观点和经验与美国的获奖教育和多样性指导计划，生态教育，多样性和可持续发展战略（种子）的生态社会。SEEDS参与者的生态持久率是全国平均水平的三倍，但仅凭数字并不能解释该计划的影响。我们通过收集定性数据作为直接证据，解释SEEDS如何影响参与者学习科学和从事科学事业的决定，以及由此产生的融入科学界的决定，探索了该计划如此成功的原因。我们对SEEDS校友的开放式调查回应进行了编码，该框架提出了预测学生融入科学社区的三个主要过程：科学自我效能感，科学身份和与科学界的共同价值观。我们不仅发现了所有三个过程的紧急证据，而且我们还更深入地了解了参与者自己的话-SEEDS如何取得成功。具体来说，种子成功地欢迎学生进入科学社区（1）提供广度和深度的编程，提供灵活的，多层次的方法来发展自我效能，以适应不同学生的需求，（2）使参与者能够将科学身份融入其他预先存在的身份，以及（3）实施有意识地帮助参与者有意识地将他们的价值观与他们社区的价值观联系起来的计划。
Programs designed to broaden participation in science are often deemed "successful" based on quantitative evidence such as student participation rates, retention, and persistence. These numbers alone only explain that a program met its goals; they seldom critically explain how, specifically, the program achieved its success. To address this gap, we studied students' perspectives about and experiences with the Ecological Society of America's award-winning education and diversity mentoring program, Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability (SEEDS). The persistence rate in ecology by SEEDS participants is three times greater than the national average, but the numbers alone do not explain the program's impact. We explored the reasons why this program has been so successful by gathering qualitative data as direct evidence explaining how SEEDS influenced participants' decisions to study science and pursue science careers, and the resulting integration into a scientific community. We coded open-ended survey responses from SEEDS alumni against a social influence theoretical framework that proposes three dominant processes that predict students' integration into a scientific community: scientific self-efficacy, scientific identity, and shared values with the scientific community. We not only found emergent evidence for all three processes, but we also gained a deeper understanding of how-in participants' own words-SEEDS achieves its success. Specifically, SEEDS successfully welcomes students into a science community by (1) providing both breadth and depth of programming that offers flexible, multilayered approaches to developing self-efficacy to fit the needs of diverse students, (2) enabling participants to integrate a science identity into other preexisting identities, and (3) implementing programming that intentionally helps participants to consciously connect their values with those of their communities.