Promoting Motivation for Underrepresented Groups in Undergraduate Biology and Chemistry Courses

促进本科生中代表性不足群体的积极性 生物和化学课程 摘要 我们的目标是通过干预扩大高危学生在生物医学领域的参与 在门户生物和化学课堂上。使用理论上有根据的效用价值 干预，我们的目标是缩小第一代(FG)学生的成就差距， 父母都没有获得四年大学学位的人，以及代表人数不足的少数族裔 (URM)学生。从我们以前资助的大规模双盲中吸取的教训 威斯康星大学生物学导论课程的随机野外实验 麦迪逊大学(UW)展示了效用价值干预(UVI)，学生在其中写作 关于课程材料的个人相关性，成功地降低了成绩 相对于学生总结的控制条件，URM学生的差距为40% 课程内容。对于FG-URM学生来说，这种影响甚至更大：差距缩小了 61%。我们在这些发现的基础上提出了一项研究，以(1)确定紫外线是否 威斯康星州记录的效果可以在不同类型的机构和课程中复制， 以及UVI是否可以适应更多样化的学生样本以及(2)系统地 通过继续测试潜在的动机来理解和提炼UVI的性质 理论和机制。为了实现我们的目标，我们在华盛顿大学的研究团队将首先进行一项 旨在优化材料和实施特点的一系列实验室实验 UVI创建了新版本的UVI，强调社区主题。我们从我们的 以前的工作表明，紫外线照射对那些有助人为乐动机的学生最有效， 对于FG和URM的学生，他们在论文中写了关于公共主题的文章。这就提高了 关于公共写作是否是联合国儿童基金会有效性的新问题 FG-URM学生以及我们是否会看到FG和URM的UVI效果更强 如果特别鼓励学生思考共同的主题，他们就会受到影响。我们已经开发出 使用多机构领域解决这些关键问题的实验设计 在生物课上提供复制和放大潜力测试的实验和 扩展到化学课，并找出影响最大的最佳方法 紫外线。我们测试新的公共UVI和原来的个人UVI，并控制书写 有近5,000名学生的作业，涉及6个学期的生物学和 两所独特的不同机构的化学：圣地亚哥州立大学和蒙大拿州 大学，它服务于相当数量的FG学生，并招收大量的 分别是拉丁裔学生和美洲原住民学生。

Promoting Motivation for Underrepresented Groups in Undergraduate Biology and Chemistry Courses ABSTRACT Our goal is to broaden the participation of at risk-students in biomedical fields with interventions in gateway biology and chemistry classes. Using a theoretically-grounded utility-value intervention, we aim to close achievement gaps for first-generation (FG) students, those for whom neither parent obtained a 4-year college degree, and for underrepresented minority (URM) students. Lessons learned from our previously funded large-scale double-blind randomized field experiment in introductory biology courses at the University of Wisconsin- Madison (UW) demonstrated that the utility value intervention (UVI), in which students write about the personal relevance of course material, was successful in reducing the achievement gap for URM students by 40%, relative to a control condition in which students summarized course content. This effect was even larger for FG-URM students: the gap was reduced by 61%. We build upon these findings by proposing research to (1) determine whether the UVI effects documented at Wisconsin can be replicated in different types of institutions and courses, and whether the UVI can be adapted for a more diverse student sample and (2) systematically understand and refine the nature of the UVI by continuing to test the underlying motivational theory and mechanisms. To accomplish our goals, our research team at UW will first conduct a series of laboratory experiments designed to optimize materials and implementation features of the UVI to create new versions of the UVI that emphasize communal themes. We know from our previous work that the UVI was most effective for students who were motivated to help others, and for FG and URM students who wrote about communal themes in their essays. This raises new questions about whether communal writing is integral to the effectiveness of the UVI for FG-URM students and whether we might see even stronger UVI effects for FG and URM students if they are specifically encouraged to reflect on communal themes. We have developed an experimental design to address these critical questions using multi-institutional field experiments that provide tests of replication and scale-up potential in biology classes and extension to chemistry classes, and identify the optimal approach for the greatest impact of the UVI. We test the new communal-UVI against the original personal-UVI and control writing assignments with nearly 5,000 students across 6 academic semesters of biology and chemistry in two uniquely diverse institutions: San Diego State University and Montana State University, which serve a significant number of FG students and enroll large populations of Latino and Native American students, respectively.