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1. Women drive efforts to highlight concealable stigmatized identities in U.S. academic science and engineering

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287795  

   Busch, Carly A.; Cooper, Katelyn M.; Brownell, Sara E. (July 2023, PLOS ONE)

   Fontanesi, Lilybeth (Ed.)

   Concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) are hidden identities that carry negative stereotypes and can result in a loss of social status if revealed. Instructors often choose to conceal these CSIs due to anticipated negative student reactions, yet revealing CSIs can have a positive impact on undergraduates. Women are generally more likely to reveal personal aspects about themselves in social situations, but may face greater consequences for revealing a stigmatized identity to students given their already marginalized position in academic science and engineering. Therefore, in this study, we were interested in understanding to what extent there are differences between men and women science and engineering instructors in (i) the representation of CSIs, (ii) their decisions to reveal CSIs to undergraduates in their classes, and (iii) their perceived stigma of CSIs. Based on a national survey of over 2,000 instructors in science and engineering from very high research activity doctoral institutions, we found that women were more likely than men to report having depression, anxiety, or a disability. Of instructors who held CSIs, women had 1.5x higher odds than men of revealing their CSIs to some undergraduates compared to no undergraduates and perceived greater stigma associated with all CSIs. Despite perceiving greater stigma associated with concealable stigmatized identities, women are more likely to reveal their CSIs to college science and engineering students, leading the way to a more diverse and inclusive scientific community by demonstrating themselves as role models for these identities. 

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2. ROLE OF GRIT AND OTHER FACTORS IN MITIGATING MATH ANXIETY IN COLLEGE MATH STUDENTS

   Ogden, L; Darrah, M; Leppma, M (November 2023, Proceedings of the forty-fifth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2). University of Nevada, Reno.)

   Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)

   Math anxiety refers to feelings people get when facing computational challenges. The fear of failure often causes people to avoid activities, like taking challenging mathematics courses or choosing majors that require mathematics. Grit describes how people persist or persevere in the wake of failure. This article looks at factors that contribute to a person having grit and the interaction of grit and math anxiety. Students (N = 258) enrolled in college math classes at a large university completed a set of surveys that indicated their levels of self-compassion, mindfulness, self-efficacy, math anxiety, and grit. The analyses of the data found that grit predicted math anxiety, and that self-compassion, mindfulness, and self-efficacy predicted grit. The results of this study suggest that promoting factors that help students develop grit can in turn affect their math anxiety and thus their persistence in mathematics courses and STEM majors. 

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3. Effects of Research and Internship Experiences on Engineering Task Self-Efficacy on Engineering Students Through an Intersectional Lens.

   Kusimo, A.; Thompson, M.; Atwood, S.; Sheppard, S. (January 2018, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, June 24-27, 2018. Salt Lake City, Utah.)

   High-impact academic experiences, particularly research and internship experiences, have positive impacts for engineering students on engineering task self-efficacy (ETSE), a measure of students’ perception of their ability to perform technical engineering tasks. However, under- represented racial/ethnic minority students (URM) and women in engineering are found to have relatively lower self-perceptions across several academic and professional self-efficacy measures. Previous studies examined the impact of research and internship experiences on ETSE for students categorized by gender and URM status separately. The current study explores the impact of these experiences on ETSE for the intersection between these two identity categories. This study found that both non-URM and URM women that participated in research and internship experiences had lower ETSE scores than non-URM and URM men, respectively. However, URM women that participated in both research and internship experiences had a statistically similar ETSE score to non-URM men that had not participated in either. This study uses multiple linear regression to measure the association between engineering internships and student’s reported ETSE (effects of participating in research were not found to be significant across identities). Preliminary findings indicate that differences in ETSE between internship participants and non-participants are highest for URM women when compared to their counterparts. Consistent with the literature, this research finds that there is a greater positive effect in ETSE scores, as a result of participation in both research and internship experiences, for URM women than their majority counterparts. These preliminary results provide a foundation for further studies to causally investigate the link between academic experiences and self-efficacy levels for students who are underrepresented in engineering programs. Future implications of this work include the creation of targeted intervention efforts to increase support for all URM students’ access and participation in research and internship experiences. Additionally, this work seeks to challenge the bias towards monolithic interpretations of women and URM engineering students as separate categories and encourage intersectional perspectives when analyzing data to produce more inclusive results. Key Concepts: intersectionality, self-efficacy, engineering task self-efficacy, learning outcomes, academic pathways, inclusion, engineering experiences, research, internships 

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4. Qualitative Review of Interventions used to Mitigate Math Anxiety

   Ogden, L; Darrah, M (November 2024, Kent State University)

   Math anxiety is pervasive in our society, and it is causing problems for students who want to enter a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pathway. Recent research has suggested that math anxiety, and not math ability, is a better predictor of performance and perseverance in STEM. Interventions to mitigate this anxiety must get to the root of the problem and provide students tools to help ease these feelings when they come to disrupt performance. Our approach uses techniques from mindfulness and self-compassion, which have been linked to reducing anxiety. We have developed modules that can be used in a math (or science) courses to help students understand the anxiety they face. In this paper we examine one of the interventions used, the pre-exam writing, and how it showed a 75 percent increase in statements of confidence and a doubling of statements of positive feelings over the semester. 

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5. Intersectionality Between Race and Gender in LSAMP-NSF STEM Program Mentorship

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--43984  

   Ackerman, Jennifer; Soto-Arzat, América (June 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Undergraduate research experiences are important for students to gain better insight into what they want. Students are paired with mentors and this can lead to both positive and negative experiences. In engineering, especially, this is a chilly climate where if you are not an abled cis white male, it is almost inevitable that you will not be part of the majority in the field. This can lead to stress, anxiety, and feelings of isolation and hopelessness in a person’s academic and career pursuits. Race and gender disparities do exist in the field, where the intersectionality between women and students of color promotes the greatest achievement gap. These students, as well as faculty, are represented least in the field. Social, as well as institutional barriers, inhibit success, and our goal is to explore how we can reduce race and gender imbalance in the field of engineering. A solution is to see the intersectionality between race and gender in these women of color in STEM. “[R]esearch must focus on illuminating women of color as political subjects and the gender, racial, class, and sexual politics that impact their lives” (Crenshaw, 1991), and focus on illuminating women of color and their experiences. We have to take seriously the insights of women of color, effectively situating their work on intersectionality as subjugated knowledge (Leslie McCall, 2005). This qualitative research is based on 33 interviews of mentors and minorities protegés within the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) across four different universities within a statewide university system, in the United States of America. 

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