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Science identity is composed of three key components, including competence (possessing scientific knowledge), performance (the capacity to use scientific tools and language in appropriate settings), and recognition (earning validation from others in the field) (Carlone & Johnson, 2007). The significance of a strong science identity is in shaping a student’s future behavior, such as intent to graduate and pursue a STEM career (Chang et al., 2011; Chemers et al., 2011), which is particularly important for those with notable retention challenges within STEM like women, underrepresented minorities, first generation, and rural students (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012). The work of building students’ science identity and encouraging their development as emerging scholars and scientists relies on both classroom experiences and the form and quality of mentoring relationships with faculty (Kendricks et al., 2013). This study considers how students see their own science identity development, and which supports they believe most central to science identity.
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Fostering Science Identity Through Research Experiences in a National Park: Stories From a Keck REU Gateway Project
Identity and belonging are key components to student longevity in STEM and are particularly important for retaining BIPOC, low-income, and first generation students. Previous work emphasizes the importance of scientific competence, research performance, and recognition by scientific community members as key to building a STEM identity that persists (Carlone & Johnson, 2007), increasing the likelihood of retention into the STEM workforce. The Keck Geology Consortium REU, with funding from NSF, developed the Gateway program for rising sophomores in 2017 to support and build these three components of science identity for underrepresented undergraduates in the geosciences. Here we present stories from the Glacier National Park, Montana environmental geoscience Gateway project, alongside consortium-wide data, and consider ways in which scientific identity is developed. In summers 2018 and 2022 we brought together groups of 5-8 students, mostly from underrepresented groups, all of whom were finishing their first year of college. Students were from a variety of backgrounds and institutions, but primarily from SLACs, and had little/no prior research experience. Projects lasted 5 weeks, with one week of pre-field knowledge and skill development (competence) two weeks in the field in eastern Glacier National Park collecting data, and two weeks at the Continental Scientific Drilling (CSD) laboratory at the University of Minnesota analyzing sediment cores. Students presented their research at subsequent Geological Society of America meetings (performance and recognition). Survey results and anecdotal stories suggest all three key aspects of STEM identity-building were supported by the projects. In addition to identity and values activities at the project start, blogging and reflection activities supported development and integration of a science identity. Performance and recognition opportunities were threaded throughout; students shared their research with the public (Park visitors encountered in the field), with Park Rangers/Interpretive staff (during informal presentations), and with staff, students, and visiting scientists at the CSD (daily interactions in the lab). These less-official forms of performance and recognition greatly contributed to the students’ sense of ownership and expertise.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2050697
- PAR ID:
- 10508877
- Publisher / Repository:
- AGU Fall Meeting
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Offerdahl, Erika (Ed.)Despite the wealth of research exploring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identity and career goals in both formal and informal settings, existing literature does not consider STEM identity for undergraduate students pursuing health and medical careers through STEM pathways. We address this gap by examining the STEM identity of undergraduate STEM majors on pre-med/health tracks as it compares with that of other STEM majors, thus focusing on a population that is chronically understudied in STEM education research. We surveyed 440 undergraduate STEM students enrolled in entry-level STEM courses to assess their STEM identities and three identity precursors: interest, performance–competence, and recognition. Through regression analyses accounting for gender, major, and perceived home support around STEM, we found that pre-med/health students were more likely to have higher STEM identity and recognition scores than their peers; we did not detect a significant difference for performance–competence or interest in STEM. Although there is little tracking of pre-med/health students’ ultimate career attainment, the implications of our findings support a potential for sustaining pre-med/health students while simultaneously creating pathways to other STEM pursuits for the nearly 60% of those who do not enter medical school by offering participation in experiences that affirm their STEM identities.more » « less
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Seagroves, Scott; Barnes, Austin; Metevier, Anne; Porter, Jason; Hunter, Lisa (Ed.)Research suggests that developing an identity as a person in STEM is necessary for learners from marginalized groups to persist in STEM education and careers. These learners may perceive that their race, gender, or other characteristics make it difficult for their peers and supervisors to recognize them as scientists or engineers, thus disrupting their ability to maintain successful degree progress and to pursue their STEM career aspirations. Here we discuss the specific ways we designed inquiry workshops to not only clarify difficult core STEM content, but to also promote learners’ competence, performance, and targeted recognition as scientists. Our workshops were designed for students interested in chemistry, climate science, physics, and toxicology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), Workshops for Engineering & Science Transfers (WEST) 2019 program. In designing our workshops, we focused on promoting the scientific identities of our learners by incorporating authentic ways for students to receive recognition from both peers and instructional facilitators, as well as allowing students to tap into their own personal interests and values. Insights from our designed assessments for learners’ understanding of our content demonstrate the success of our initiatives and provide further areas of improvement. Our goals are to create inclusive workshops to support students from all backgrounds, with emphasis on underrepresented backgrounds (community college, first generation, students of color, women, and LGBTQ+ students, etc.) as well as support them in other contexts, such as when mentoring STEM students in academic laboratory settings.more » « less
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Measures of subject-related role identities in physics and math have been developed from research on the underlying constructs of identity in science education. The items for these measures capture three constructs of identity: students’ interest in the subject, students’ feeling of recognition by others, and students’ beliefs about their performance/competence in the subject area. In prior studies with late secondary and early post-secondary students, participants did not distinguish between performance beliefs (e.g., believing that they can do well in a particular subject) and competence beliefs (e.g., believing that they can understand a particular subject); therefore, performance/competence beliefs are measured as a single construct. These validated measures have been successful in predicting STEM career choices including physics, math, and engineering. Based on these measures of identity, literature on engineering identity, and my prior work on understanding engineering choice and belongingness through students’ science and math identities at the transition from high school to college, I developed a set of new engineering identity measures that capture and overall identification as an engineer, future engineering career identification, and students’ engineering-related interest, recognition, and performance/competence beliefs. I conducted a pilot survey of 371 first-year engineering students at three institutions within the U.S. during the spring semester of 2015. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to examine the underlying structure of the piloted questions about students’ engineering identity. The measures loaded on three separate constructs that were consistent with the hypothesized constructs of interest, performance/competence and recognition. The developed items were used in a subsequent study deployed in the fall semester of 2015 that measured more than 2500 first-year engineering students’ attitudes and beliefs at four institutions within the U.S. The data on engineering identity measures from this second survey were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results indicated that the developed measures do extract a significant portion of the average variance in the latent constructs and the internal consistency of the measures (Cronbach’s α) falls within the acceptable and better range. The development of these items provides ways for engineering education researchers to more deeply explore the underlying self-beliefs in students’ engineering identity formation through quantitative measures with strong evidence for validity.more » « less
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