Yonas Azariah, Sleeth Margaret, Cotner Sehoya
Department of Biology Teaching and Learning, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2020 Apr 10;21(1). doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v21i1.2013. eCollection 2020.
We report on a brief, simple, online course intervention designed to reduce identity gaps and help students see their "possible selves" in working scientists. Students ( = 238) in a large-enrollment, introductory biology course for nonmajors were assigned nine podcasts, distributed throughout the semester. These podcasts each featured a scientist telling a "true, personal story about science," and we intentionally selected podcasts featuring scientists from diverse backgrounds. We hypothesized that this intervention would serve to broaden student perceptions of science and scientists, and we used a mixed-methods approach to analyze (a) survey data and (b) short written responses about how these podcasts impacted students' views of the people who do science. Student survey responses confirm that students overwhelmingly found the podcasts valuable, engaging, and relatable, and student impressions varied as a function of student identity (gender, religiosity, sexual orientation, etc.). Further, these podcasts changed student perceptions of the sort of people who do science. This work builds on earlier findings and expands the current work to include a look at how students from a range of different identities-hidden and visible-respond to a simple intervention designed to counter stereotypes about scientists.
我们报告了一项简短、简单的在线课程干预措施，该措施旨在缩小身份差距，并帮助学生在在职科学家中看到自己“可能成为的自我”。在一门面向非专业学生的大规模招生的生物学入门课程中，238名学生被分配收听九个播客，这些播客在整个学期内分发。每个播客都有一位科学家讲述一个“关于科学的真实个人故事”，并且我们特意挑选了来自不同背景科学家的播客。我们假设这种干预措施将有助于拓宽学生对科学和科学家的认知，并且我们采用了混合方法来分析：（a）调查数据，以及（b）关于这些播客如何影响学生对从事科学工作的人的看法的简短书面回答。学生的调查反馈证实，学生们绝大多数都认为这些播客有价值、引人入胜且易于理解，并且学生的印象因学生身份（性别、宗教信仰、性取向等）而异。此外，这些播客改变了学生对从事科学工作的人的认知。这项工作基于早期的研究结果，并扩展了当前的研究，以探讨来自一系列不同身份（隐藏的和明显的）的学生如何回应一项旨在消除对科学家刻板印象的简单干预措施。
