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消极定型观念，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定型观念。这些刻板印象非常普遍，以至于仅仅提醒某人他们的年龄，性别或种族就可能对他们在具有挑战性的考试中的表现产生负面影响。这种对心理能力的负面刻板印象与科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）学科中女性和少数民族的代表性不足有关。此外，与技术打交道的人代表性不足和缺乏多样性，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，以打击对妇女和代表性不足的少数群体的刻板印象的负面影响，这些刻板印象目前阻止他们参与STEM学科。虚拟现实技术使其用户能够通过他人的眼睛看到世界，并呈现他人的某些行为特征。该项目将通过研究虚拟现实的能力，通过简单地呈现其他人的特征来缓冲人们对负面刻板印象的影响，从而促进对虚拟现实影响的理解。这种虚拟视角的变化预计将限制刻板印象威胁的负面影响，阻止学生从代表性不足的群体主修STEM学科，因此增加了STEM学科代表性不足的群体的招聘和保留。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定型观念和偏见的负面影响的影响。该项目将1）证明化身可以积极地以影响虚拟环境之外的持久态度变化的方式调解隐式行为，2）基于不同的硬件规范制定用于诱导持久行为变化的协议，3）产生一种新颖的方法，用于个性化化身和环境规范，给出个人的独特特征，以及4）部署将虚拟现实技术应用整合到课堂的课程指南，以积极影响群体行为，并增加STEM学科中代表性不足的群体的保留率。个性化的虚拟体验，沿着课程部署指南，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生成和评估：私立文理学院，公立州立大学和社区学院。这个多机构实验的结果将被用来评估和证明虚拟现实的潜力，调解由刻板印象威胁和隐性偏见造成的负面影响。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

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.