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Despite broad consensus that highlighting counter-stereotypical scientist role models in educational materials promotes equity and success, the specific elements that make these materials effective remain untested. Are pictures of counter-stereotypical scientists enough to communicate to students that scientists come from a variety of backgrounds, or is additional information required? To parse the effects of including visual depictions and humanizing information about scientists featured in biology course materials, we distributed three randomized versions of assignments over several academic terms across 36 undergraduate institutions (n> 3700 students). We found that including humanizing information about scientists was key to increasing student engagement with the biology course materials. The positive effect of humanizing information was especially important for students who related to the scientists. Structural equation modelling revealed the extent to which students related to scientists mediated the positive effect of humanizing descriptions on student engagement. Furthermore, our results were strongest among students who shared one or more excluded identity(s) with the featured scientists. Our findings underscore the importance of providing students with examples of humanized and relatable scientists in classrooms, rather than simply adding a photo to increase representation.
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Evaluating Representation in Science through a Peer-Reviewed Research Study (Accepted)
The demographic representation of scientists featured in biology curricular materials do not match that of the undergraduate biology student population or of the U.S. population. In this lesson, we promote awareness of inequity in science through an exercise that encourages students to think about who is depicted as scientists in science curricular materials – specifically, biology textbooks. After a brief lecture on the scientific method, students read an excerpt from the introduction of a peer-reviewed publication that provides background information on the importance of representation in science. Next, students collect data from their own biology textbook about the representation of scientists who possess different identities and make a table depicting their results. Then, students fill in predictive graphs about demographic representation over time with respect to scientist identities including gender and race/ethnicity. Students compare their predictions with the results from the peer-reviewed article and discuss the implications of the results. Finally, students apply their new knowledge by designing an experiment that would examine representation of an alternative scientist identity, such as age. Students conclude by answering questions that gauge their knowledge of the scientific method. This activity uses a peer-reviewed publication as well as authentic data generated by the student to increase ideological awareness and teach societal influences on the process of science.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2011995
- PAR ID:
- 10464839
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- CourseSource
- ISSN:
- 2332-6530
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript
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