This NSF IUSE project is designed to explore bias in instructor exams in introductory biology. This collaborative project will analyze questions on introductory biology course exams taught by different instructors, specifically examining the relationships between different types of questions, student scores on the questions, and student understanding of the concept that the question is supposed to test. This information has the potential to help biology instructors more fairly and accurately test student understanding of biology.
The goal of this NSF RCN-UBE network incubator grant is to bring together experts in evolutionary biology, education education, educational psychology, and psychometrics to consider current instruments to measure student acceptance of evolution and identify ways in which we can improve these measures.
This HHMI IE project aims to change the culture of Arizona State University science units to promote greater access, equity, and inclusion in our online degree programs and online course offerings. By identifying inequities in our current course offerings and trying to lessen these inequities through intervention studies, we hope to make online education more inclusive.
Low acceptance of evolution among undergraduate students remains a challenge and religious beliefs are a major factor that influence student acceptance of evolution. Notably, although national data show that a large percentage of undergraduate students in evolution courses are religious, most college instructors teaching evolution are not. Research suggests that the differences in religious beliefs of instructors and students may lead to instructors teaching evolution in ways that are not culturally inclusive, and this may lead to fewer students accepting evolution.
The goal of this NSF INCLUDES Planning grant is to convene a network of people who are interested in making undergraduate STEM education more inclusive for students with disabilities, specifically considering classroom pedagogy, interactions among the disability resource centers, students, and instructors, and the physical and virtual classroom environments.
The goal of this NSF RCN-UBE network incubator grant is to bring together experts in psychology, psychiatry, student services, and biology education to identify sources of anxiety in active-learning biology classrooms, design interventions to help lessen student anxiety, and to spur new research related to student anxiety in this unique context.
Individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and otherwise non-straight and/or non-cisgender (LGBTQ+) have often not felt welcome or well-represented in the biology community and are less likely to persist in STEM majors than their straight and cis-gender peers. Same-identity instructor role models can positively impact students, particularly those with marginalized and underserved identities. However, it is unclear to what extent LGBTQ+ students know out LGBTQ+ instructors in biology, and how knowing out instructors impacts students’ experiences in college.
Imagine sitting in the audience at a large conference and you had a question. You think to yourself, “should I ask it?” but then overthinking, nervousness, and anxiety come to play, forcing a larger part of your consciousness to rely on someone else to ask that question for you. This is a decision that students in your classes are experiencing, and not all students experience this to the same extent.