In a "Scientist Spotlight" Intervention, Diverse Student Identities Matter

Few LGBTQ+ Science and Engineering Instructors Come Out to Students, Despite Potential Benefits

LGBTQ+ undergraduates have higher attrition from science and engineering (S&E) than straight and cisgender undergraduates and perceive that having LGBTQ+ instructors would benefit them. However, it is unknown how many S&E instructors are LGBTQ+, the extent to which they disclose this information to students, and how disclosure affects all students, both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+. In study I, we surveyed 108 LGBTQ+ S&E instructors across the U.S. to explore the extent to which they reveal their LGBTQ+ identities across professional contexts and why they reveal or conceal their identities to undergraduates. Overall, 75% of instructors came out to at least some colleagues but only 48% came out to any undergraduates. Instructors most commonly chose to conceal LGBTQ+ identities from undergraduates because they perceived their identities to be irrelevant to course content and anticipated negative student reactions. In study II, 666 introductory biology undergraduates were randomly assigned to evaluate one of two identical teaching demonstration videos except the instructor revealed her LGBTQ+ identity in one but not the other. We assessed differences in students' impressions of the instructor across conditions. We found no differences in most ratings of the instructor except participants reported higher rapport with the instructor when she came out.

Investigating the Influence of Assessment Question Framing on Undergraduate Biology Student Preference and Affect

Nearly all undergraduate biology courses rely on quizzes and exams. Despite their prevalence, very little work has been done to explore how the framing of assessment questions may influence student performance and affect. Here, we conduct a quasi-random experimental study where students in different sections of the same course were given isomorphic questions that varied in their framing of experimental scenarios. One section was provided a description using the self-referential term "you", placing the student in the experiment; another section received the same scenario that used classmate names; while a third section's scenario integrated counterstereotypical scientist names. Our results demonstrate that there was no difference in performance throughout the semester between the sections, nor were there differences in students' self-reported stress and identity. However, students in all three sections indicated that they most preferred the self-referential framing, providing a variety of reasons that suggest that these variants may influence how well a student reads and processes the question. In addition, our results also indicate that the framing of these scenarios can also have a large impact on some students' affect and attitude toward the question. We conclude by discussing implications for the biology education research community and biology instructors.

Scientist Spotlights in Secondary Schools: Student Shifts in Multiple Measures Related to Science Identity after Receiving Written Assignments

Based on theoretical frameworks of scientist stereotypes, possible selves, and science identity, written assignments were developed to teach science content through biographies and research of counter-stereotypical scientists-Scientist Spotlights (www.scientistspotlights.org). Previous studies on Scientist Spotlight assignments showed significant shifts in how college-level biology students relate to and describe scientists and in their performance in biology courses. However, the outcomes of Scientist Spotlight assignments in secondary schools were yet to be explored. In collaboration with 18 science teachers from 12 schools, this study assessed the impacts of Scientist Spotlight assignments for secondary school students. We used published assessment tools: Relatability prompt; Stereotypes prompt; and Performance/Competence, Interest, and Recognition (PCIR) instrument. Statistical analyses compared students' responses before and after receiving at least three Scientist Spotlight assignments. We observed significant shifts in students' relatability to and descriptions of scientists as well as other science identity measures. Importantly, disaggregating classes by implementation strategies revealed that students' relatability shifts were significant for teachers reporting in-class discussions and not significant for teachers reporting no discussions. Our findings raise questions about contextual and pedagogical influences shaping student outcomes with Scientist Spotlight assignments, like how noncontent Instructor Talk might foster student shifts in aspects of science identity.

"No matter what your story is, there is a place for you in science": Students' Ability to Relate to Scientists Positively Shifts after Scientist Spotlight Assignments, Especially for First-Generation Students and Women

We evaluate the impact of a low-stakes easy-to-implement course-level intervention, Scientist Spotlight assignments, which feature personal and professional stories of diverse scientists. This work extends previous studies by examining whether shifts in relatability differ across student identities, particularly students who identify as first-generation students, a population that has not been the focus of previous investigations of this intervention. Using paired pre- and postcourse data from four implementations in an introductory biology course, we report a significant, positive shift in undergraduate students' self-reported ability to relate to scientists, and concomitant shifts in how students describe scientists after completing four or six Scientist Spotlight assignments.Importantly, our data demonstrate a disproportionate, positive shift for first-generation college students and for students who identify as female, a novel contribution to the body of literature investigating the Scientist Spotlight intervention. This study, along with previous reports of similar shifts in varying institutional contexts across different populations of learners, provides a strong argument that instructors interested in diversifying their course content to include representations of diverse scientists to enhance students' ability to identify a range of "types of people" who do science can do so successfully through incorporation of a small number of Spotlight assignments.

The PULSE Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Rubric: a Tool To Help Assess Departmental DEI Efforts

In an attempt to redesign science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments to be more inclusive of all student populations, institutions of higher learning are reviewing their programs, policies, and the ways they engage students. The Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE) has been working with STEM departments over the past 10 years to improve the student experience by incorporating evidence-based teaching practices and creating curricula with a deeper focus on conceptual understanding of scientific principles, competencies, and the process of science. PULSE created the PULSE rubrics, a set of five rubrics designed to assist life sciences departments in assessing their implementation of the recommendations of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Vision and Change report in the areas of curriculum, assessment, faculty practice and faculty support, infrastructure, and climate for change. An additional rubric, on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), is described in this paper. Each of the 13 criteria of the PULSE DEI rubric begins with a context section of background information with references and a scale of 0 to 4 (baseline to exemplar) with descriptors for each score. The PULSE DEI rubric has been added to allow departments to determine the starting point for their DEI work and reveal areas that require attention. All PULSE rubrics can be accessed from the PULSE Community website (https://www.pulse-community.org/rubrics).

The Core Concepts, Competencies, and Grand Challenges of Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy and Morphology

Core concepts offer coherence to the discourse of a scientific discipline and facilitate teaching by identifying large unifying themes that can be tailored to the level of the class and expertise of the instructor. This approach to teaching has been shown to encourage deeper learning that can be integrated across subdisciplines of biology and has been adopted by several other biology subdisciplines. However, Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy, although one of the oldest biological areas of study, has not had its core concepts identified. Here, we present five core concepts and seven competencies (skills) for Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy that came out of an iterative process of engagement with the broader community of vertebrate morphologists over a 3-year period. The core concepts are (A) evolution, (B) structure and function, (C) morphological development, (D) integration, and (E) human anatomy is the result of vertebrate evolution. The core competencies students should gain from the study of comparative vertebrate anatomy are (F) tree thinking, (G) observation, (H) dissection of specimens, (I) depiction of anatomy, (J) appreciation of the importance of natural history collections, (K) science communication, and (L) data integration. We offer a succinct description of each core concept and competency, examples of learning outcomes that could be used to assess teaching effectiveness, and examples of relevant resources for both instructors and students. Additionally, we pose a grand challenge to the community, arguing that the field of Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy needs to acknowledge racism, androcentrism, homophobia, genocide, slavery, and other influences in its history and address their lingering effects in order to move forward as a thriving discipline that is inclusive of all students and scientists and continues to generate unbiased knowledge for the betterment of humanity. Despite the rigorous process used to compile these core concepts and competencies, we anticipate that they will serve as a framework for an ongoing conversation that ensures Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy remains a relevant field in discovery, innovation, and training of future generations of scientists.

Promoting Achievement for Community College STEM Students through Equity-Minded Practices

Community colleges have an opportunity to promote achievement of more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students and meet larger goals of scientific advancement and educational equity. Understanding community college students' needs and backgrounds is key to increasing students' success in STEM fields and realizing this potential. The objective of this paper is to use data from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics and other sources to characterize community college students and their academic achievement and to offer equity-based approaches to increase success, particularly in STEM. Here, I document that community college students, who constitute approximately one-third of U.S. undergraduates, are a unique population with greater proportions of underrepresented STEM minorities, parents, and students requiring developmental education. They are also more likely to be older, working, part-time, low-income, and first-generation students and more likely to differ demographically from faculty. I also found lower rates of academic achievement among community college students, including lower rates of retention and STEM degree attainment with evidence of even lower achievement for STEM underrepresented groups. The data point to the need for equity-based strategies to address achievement disparities for STEM community college students, including increasing community college faculty diversity and sensitivity to diverse students' needs and experiences; adopting inclusive, active-learning pedagogies; and reforming developmental education.

AJEDI in Science: Leveraging Instructor Communities to Create Antiracist Curricula

Gateway college science courses continue to exclude students from science, disproportionately discriminating against students of color. As the higher education system strives to reduce discrimination, we need a deliberate, iterative process to modify, supplement, or replace current modalities. By incorporating antiracist, just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive (AJEDI) principles throughout course design, instructors create learning environments that provide an antidote to historically oppressive systems. In this paper, we describe how a community of microbiology instructors who all teach Tiny Earth, a course-based undergraduate research experience, created and rapidly integrated antiracist content and pivoted to an online format in response to the social unrest and pandemic of 2020. The effort strengthened an existing teaching community of practice and produced collective change in classrooms across the nation. We provide a perspective on how instructor communities of practice can be leveraged to design and disseminate AJEDI curriculum.

Juliana JR, Stovall DB, Whittington R, Zhong M, Ballen CJ. Context Matters: Social Psychological Factors That Underlie Academic Performance across Seven Institutions

To enhance equity and diversity in undergraduate biology, recent research in biology education focuses on best practices that reduce learning barriers for all students and improve academic performance. However, the majority of current research into student experiences in introductory biology takes place at large, predominantly White institutions. To foster contextual knowledge in biology education research, we harnessed data from a large research coordination network to examine the extent of academic performance gaps based on demographic status across institutional contexts and how two psychological factors, test anxiety and ethnicity stigma consciousness, may mediate performance in introductory biology. We used data from seven institutions across three institution types: 2-year community colleges, 4-year inclusive institutions (based on admissions selectivity; hereafter, inclusive), and 4-year selective institutions (hereafter, selective). In our sample, we did not observe binary gender gaps across institutional contexts, but found that performance gaps based on underrepresented minority status were evident at inclusive and selective 4-year institutions, but not at community colleges. Differences in social psychological factors and their impacts on academic performance varied substantially across institutional contexts. Our findings demonstrate that institutional context can play an important role in the mechanisms underlying performance gaps.

Student-Authored Scientist Spotlights: Investigating the Impacts of Engaging Undergraduates as Developers of Inclusive Curriculum through a Service-Learning Course

Scientist Spotlights-curricular materials that employ the personal and professional stories of scientists from diverse backgrounds-have previously been shown to positively influence undergraduate students' relatability to and perceptions of scientists. We hypothesized that engaging students in authoring Scientist Spotlights might produce curricular materials of similar impact, as well as provide a mechanism for student involvement as partners in science education reform. To test this idea and investigate the impact of student-authored Scientist Spotlights, we developed a service-learning course in which teams of biology students partnered with an instructor to develop and implement Scientist Spotlights in a biology course. Results revealed that exposure to three or four student-authored Scientist Spotlights significantly shifted peers' perceptions of scientists in all partner courses. Interestingly, student-authored Scientist Spotlights shifted peers' relatability to scientists similarly among both white students and students of color. Further, student authors themselves showed increases in their relatability to scientists. Finally, a department-wide survey demonstrated significant differences in students' perceptions of scientist representation between courses with and without student-authored Spotlights. Results suggest that engaging students as authors of inclusive curricular materials and partners in reform is a promising approach to promoting inclusion and addressing representation in science.

Meta-analysis of Gender Performance Gaps in Undergraduate Natural Science Courses

To investigate patterns of gender-based performance gaps, we conducted a meta-analysis of published studies and unpublished data collected across 169 undergraduate biology and chemistry courses. While we did not detect an overall gender gap in performance, heterogeneity analyses suggested further analysis was warranted, so we investigated whether attributes of the learning environment impacted performance disparities on the basis of gender. Several factors moderated performance differences, including class size, assessment type, and pedagogy. Specifically, we found evidence that larger classes, reliance on exams, and undisrupted, traditional lecture were associated with lower grades for women. We discuss our results in the context of natural science courses and conclude by making recommendations for instructional practices and future research to promote gender equity.

Antiracist Opportunities in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education: Considerations for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Authors in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education (JMBE) have demonstrated a clear commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through commentaries, instructional approaches, and research. However, analysis of JMBE literature using Kendi's antiracist framework (How To Be an Antiracist, 2019) offers additional opportunities for growth. These opportunities are discussed and framed under five emergent conceptual categories (ECCs). First, capitalistic goals (e.g., productivity) are often drivers for DEI initiatives but disproportionately benefit those with power. Humanity-centered reasons, like honoring community values, are also important motivations. Second, faculty are often targeted as primary agents of change for DEI, but more powerful stakeholders such as department and institutional leadership can also implement equitable policies and practices to widen the impact of DEI initiatives. Third, study scopes are sometimes focused on the outcomes of inequity (e.g., lower retention rates for students of color) rather than the systemic causes (e.g., exclusivity of science). While outcomes are important to research, studies should create clear connections and distinctions between the systems and symptoms of inequity. Fourth, active learning and authentic research experiences are not automatically inclusive and do not necessarily validate students' identities. Such approaches may be more impactful when tailored for context and student background. Finally, language and communication can have broad impacts on DEI efforts. As a community, we may need to be more critical of our shared language and communication. This review discusses the five ECCs in depth and offers next steps for supporting DEI across the biology and microbiology education community.

Scientist Spotlights: Online assignments to promote inclusion in Ecology and Evolution

Scientific disciplines face large diversity challenges, with the fields of ecology and evolution being among the most homogeneous-specifically with respect to race and ethnicity. These problems have been recently compounded by large-scale racial unrest, highlighting some of the underlying disparities that have led to these diversity challenges, and a global pandemic, which, by moving instruction online, has created new challenges for inclusive teaching. Among the inclusive-teaching techniques that can be implemented during remote instruction are Scientist Spotlights-role-model interventions that use available online materials to highlight the work of scientists representing multiple axes of diversity. We report here on the implementation of Scientist Spotlights in two courses, both of which emphasize ecology and evolution. We conclude with sample resources and suggestions for adopters.

A scientist like me: demographic analysis of biology textbooks reveals both progress and long-term lags

Textbooks shape teaching and learning in introductory biology and highlight scientists as potential role models who are responsible for significant discoveries. We explore a potential demographic mismatch between the scientists featured in textbooks and the students who use textbooks to learn core concepts in biology. We conducted a demographic analysis by extracting hundreds of human names from common biology textbooks and assessing the binary gender and race of featured scientists. We found that the most common scientists featured in textbooks are white men. However, women and scientists of colour are increasingly represented in contemporary scientific discoveries. In fact, the proportion of women highlighted in textbooks has increased in lockstep with the proportion of women in the field, indicating that textbooks are matching a changing demographic landscape. Despite these gains, the scientists portrayed in textbooks are not representative of their target audience-the student population. Overall, very few scientists of colour were highlighted, and projections suggest it could take multiple centuries at current rates before we reach inclusive representation. We call upon textbook publishers to expand upon the scientists they highlight to reflect the diverse population of learners in biology.