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1. Perceiving Advancements: An Exploration of Positive Experiences that Strengthened Undergraduate STEM Students’ Motivation during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

   https://doi.org/10.63504/jstem.v25i3.2630  

   Lamssali, Mehdi; Odori-Boadu, Andrea; Ferguson, Alesia C; Deng, Dongyang; Bock-Hyeng, Christian (November 2024, Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research)

   Raju, P K (Ed.)

   The COVID-19 pandemic was highly disruptive and Institutions of Higher Education struggled to effectively educate undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students, who were facing unique challenges in their modified learning environments. While some research has focused on educational challenges encountered in high-risk pandemic environments, limited empirical evidence exists to provide insights into the positive experiences of STEM students during the pandemic. Considering that motivation and positive psychology theorists emphasize that positive processes strengthen the optimal functioning of people and institutions, the purpose of this present research was to explore positive experiences that strengthened undergraduate STEM students’ motivation to complete their STEM course requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Data was obtained from an open-ended Qualtrics-based survey question requiring research participants to explain why salient positive experiences influenced motivation. An inductive thematic analysis method was adopted to analyze statements from 131 STEM students enrolled in six U.S. institutions.  Utilizing the NVivo-12 qualitative analysis software, data analysis involved coding and theme development. Grounded in the data, the emergent theme, Perceiving Advancements, explained specific experiences that were described as positive and motivated the completion of STEM educational requirements. Drawing from previous lived experiences and expectations, STEM student motivation was attributed to the perceived capacity or potential of positive experiences to advance to academic, career, and personal goals. Theoretical insights contribute to understanding motivation in STEM students during high-risk contexts, while practical implications inform interventions for resource optimization and improved STEM student and institution resiliency in high-risk contexts such as pandemics. With caution, findings may be extended to inform positive psychology and motivation research, policies, and practices of non-STEM, non-undergraduate, and non-U.S. populations. 

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2. Strategies for Effective Engagement and Learning in the COVID-19 Environment

   A. Aji, Chadia; Khan, M. Javed (January 2021, American Society for Engineering Education, 2021)

   null (Ed.)

   The COVID-19 pandemic forced the move from a traditional face-to-face classroom to a remote learning model. The success of the remote learning model is contingent upon several factors including appropriate learning materials. Instructors who were entrenched in the face-to-face teaching method had to make rapid adjustments to deliver learning materials and to engage students remotely. In contrast, instructors who had been using techniques to prepare students virtually before class time meeting were better positioned to pivot to the remote learning approach. The techniques and the materials developed by faculty from mathematics and aerospace engineering at an HBCU for effectively engaging students which include virtual pre class preparation were adapted for the remote learning method during this pandemic. These techniques and materials were made available to faculty to assist their move from face-to-face to remote learning. The approach is shared in this paper. Math and aerospace engineering students’ satisfaction with the approach was measured and the results are also included in this paper. 

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3. Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Sense of Belonging in Higher Education for STEM Students in the United States and Mexico

   https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416627  

   Morán-Soto, Gustavo; Marsh, Aradaryn; González Peña, Omar Israel; Sheppard, Matthew; Gómez-Quiñones, José Isabel; Benson, Lisa C. (December 2022, Sustainability)

   The COVID-19 pandemic generated worldwide negative effects on college students’ stress levels and motivation to learn. This research focuses on the lack of development of a sense of belonging in engineering students due to online classes during the pandemic and possible differences experiencing online classes between students from different contexts and cultures. Data were collected from 88 Mexican and 139 U.S. engineering students during the Spring 2021 semester using ten survey items asking students’ perceptions of the effects of taking online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic on their sense of belonging in their major. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted, aiming to determine the effects of taking online classes on students’ sense of belonging in engineering. Findings stressed the poor sense of belonging that engineering students may have after taking online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic when they missed opportunities to develop meaningful relationships with their peers and professors due to the lack of good communication. Consequently, students had uncertainties about successful learning during the pandemic in both Mexico and the U.S. Thus, activities such as accessible office hours, study groups, and meetings with mentors and tutors should be promoted to help students recover from the lack of a sense of belonging in the engineering major generated during online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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4. Why Did Students Report Lower Test Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

   https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00282-21  

   Ewell, Sharday N.; Josefson, Chloe C.; Ballen, Cissy J. (April 2022, Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education)

   ABSTRACT Test anxiety is a common experience shared by college students and is typically investigated in the context of traditional, face-to-face courses. However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the closure of universities, and many students had to rapidly shift to and balance the challenges of online learning. We investigated how the shift to online learning during the pandemic impacted trait (habitual) and state (momentary) test anxiety and whether there was variation across different demographic groups already vulnerable to performance gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. Quantitative analyses revealed that trait and state test anxiety were lower in Spring 2020 (COVID semester) than in Spring 2019 and were higher overall in women than men. We did not find a difference in either trait or state anxiety in first-generation students or among persons excluded because of ethnicity or race. Qualitative analyses revealed that student priorities shifted away from coursework during Spring 2020. While students initially perceived the shift to online learning as beneficial, 1 month after the shift, students reported more difficulties studying and completing their coursework. Taken together, these results are the first to compare reports of test anxiety during a traditional, undisrupted semester to the semester where COVID-19 forced a sudden transition online. 

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5. A latent class analysis approach to the identification of doctoral students at risk of attrition

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280325  

   Stevens, Samantha M.; Ruberton, Peter M.; Smyth, Joshua M.; Cohen, Geoffrey L.; Purdie Greenaway, Valerie; Cook, Jonathan E. (January 2023, PLOS ONE)

   Benetreau, Yann (Ed.)

   To advance understanding of doctoral student experiences and the high attrition rates among Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) doctoral students, we developed and examined the psychological profiles of different types of doctoral students. We used latent class analysis on self-reported psychological data relevant to psychological threat from 1,081 incoming doctoral students across three universities and found that the best-fitting model delineated four threat classes: Lowest Threat , Nonchalant , Engaged/Worried , and Highest Threat . These classes were associated with characteristics measured at the beginning of students’ first semester of graduate school that may influence attrition risk, including differences in academic preparation (e.g., amount of research experience), self-evaluations and perceived fit (e.g., sense of belonging), attitudes towards graduate school and academia (e.g., strength of motivation), and interpersonal relations (e.g., perceived social support). Lowest Threat students tended to report the most positive characteristics and Highest Threat students the most negative characteristics, whereas the results for Nonchalant and Engaged/Worried students were more mixed. Ultimately, we suggest that Engaged/Worried and Highest Threat students are at relatively high risk of attrition. Moreover, the demographic distributions of profiles differed, with members of groups more likely to face social identity threat (e.g., women) being overrepresented in a higher threat profile (i.e., Engaged/Worried students) and underrepresented in lower threat profiles (i.e., Lowest Threat and Nonchalant students). We conclude that doctoral students meaningfully vary in their psychological threat at the beginning of graduate study and suggest that these differences may portend divergent outcomes. 

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