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Background: STEM participation is often associated with the disenfranchisement of historically marginalized individuals. Disrupting these standing injustices to establish rightful presence with equitable opportunity, access, and cultural standing to shape and pursue STEM endeavors in ways that are inclusive of individuals' identities is a critical objective. However, research to understand and facilitate STEM experiences of queer youth what are also navigating their own relationships with gender- and heteronormativity is limited. Making—employing STEM to design artifacts in an informal learning environment—can disrupt conventional approaches to STEM activity in ways that support inclusive STEM engagement through crafting and personalized design. Method: This social design experiment examines the ways in which the design of maker activities and spaces can support queer rightful presence within STEM spaces. Findings: We found that maker communities can frame and collectively engage issues of identity formulation that are both dynamic and fluid in nature as part of bolstering STEM affinity. As participants' multifaceted identities unfolded through making projects that deliberately invited identity into design, they established rightful presence for intertwined queer and STEM identities. Contribution: This study extends the rightful presence framework to engage fluid, queer identities and illustrates making rightful presence practices that deliberately engage multifaceted identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This meta-analysis assesses the predictive validity of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) across outcome variables, including grade point average, for graduate students. In addition to aggregate effects, this paper also assessed changes in observed effects over time as related to increasing diversity in the graduate student population and as a function of gender and racial/ethnic composition of study samples. Framed using a lens of critical whiteness, this analysis examined n = 1,659 individual effects across k = 201 studies. Overall, 62.3% of reported effects were nonsignificant (i.e. no predictive value of GRE scores on student outcomes). Further, the magnitude of observed predictive relationships decreased significantly over time. The aggregate mean effect across all studies and outcomes was small, significant, and positive: GRE score predicted 3.24% of variance across measured outcomes, 4% of variance in overall GPA, and 2.56% of variance in first-year graduate GPA. Sample composition effects by race/ethnicity were notable under some conditions, but nonsignificant, with increasing proportions of people of Color within a study sample associated with poorer predictive validity for GPA. Likewise, the magnitude of negative effects where lower GRE scores predicted stronger student outcomes showed increasing trends from 0.16% of variance for all-white samples to 7.3% for samples comprised entirely of people of Color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of making activities in classrooms provides a crucial opportunity for all students to gain equitable participation access to learning activities. However, for making to be incorporated into more classrooms, teachers must be adequately prepared with relevant knowledge and skills. This study is the first to compare the science learning outcomes associated with making to those stemming from standard learning curricula and experiences within a classroom setting. We examine the learning outcomes of 219 students across multiple sections of one teacher's 9th-grade science classes. While five sections of students were taught using the school's standard learning curriculum, four sections of students engaged in an integrated maker curriculum. A mixed methods approach offers a comprehensive look at the affordances and limitations of maker-based classroom science instruction by coupling student science learning outcomes with student and teacher reflections on instruction and learning. Findings indicate that students had better learning outcomes in science class when learning occurred through maker technologies than the school's standard learning curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to understand the daily violence endured by queer youth. We use Queer Battle Fatigue, Ahmed's cultural politics of emotion, and STEM identity theories to make meaning of youth's experience. We draw from audio recordings and transcriptions of 15 queer youth over the course of a summer and fall LGBTQ + maker camp in a rural town in the Intermountain Western part of the United States. Findings show that the maker camp environment provided queer campers casual conversations about microaggressions and violence endured at school. In this context, STEM served as a cover (concealed goals) in three ways: emotion, validation/advice, and safety. This particular environment provided them recognition and validation of both their STEM and queer identities, allowing the group to be able to casually mention these instances of violence they had endured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although first-generation students represent a substantial proportion of doctoral students, few studies have examined their experiences and outcomes. We contribute to this nascent area of inquiry by comparing experiences and outcomes of first-generation and continuing-generation students during the first 3 years of doctoral education. Contrary to expectations, the results based on a national sample of PhD students in biology revealed remarkable similarity in experiences and outcomes between first-generation and continuing-generation students. One notable exception to this overall pattern of similarity was research productivity in the second year. By examining the relationships between students’ experiences and outcomes over time, the findings illuminate the unique ways in which socialization experiences are related to specific outcomes and the extent to which those relationships change across years. Thus, this study offers initial insights into the nuanced ways in which students’ socialization experiences contribute to various outcomes of doctoral education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Knowledge in Pieces (KiP) framework offers a powerful perspective to understand the dynamic nature of knowledge and knowledge development. However, there is still much we do not know about the mechanisms underlying the moment-to-moment knowledge construction process. The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which contextual knowledge elements support that process. According to KiP, a knowledge element, once activated, becomes part of the context that shapes the activation, configuration, and operation of other elements. Based on this assumption, we hypothesized that when the structural and operational characteristics of these contextual knowledge elements are compatible with those of the target concept, the contextual knowledge elements can support the knowledge construction process. This hypothesis was investigated in the domain of recursion, a fundamental but challenging programming concept. Sixty undergraduate computer science students completed four recursion evaluation tasks with varying likelihood to induce compatible contextual elements. Results showed that students performed better on high-compatibility tasks than on low-compatibility tasks at both the group level and individual level. Further qualitative analysis identified the knowledge elements involved and elaborated and refined the explanatory model for the contextual support effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shares findings from a multilevel analytic induction of administrators, teachers, and gifted students within specialized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) schools about their beliefs regarding the role of standards and standardized tests in the education of gifted learners. Sharing results from a cross-case analysis of six schools, we explore the ways in which student experiences of standards-based learning differ from the perceptions of their teachers and school administrators. We found that there is no consensus across administrators, teachers, and students regarding the impact that standards have in the educational process or on outcomes within specialized STEM schools, though all community members value and seek to create deep learning opportunities for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the biological sciences, very little is known about the mechanisms by which doctoral students acquire the skills they need to become independent scientists. In the postsecondary biology education literature, identification of specific skills and effective methods for helping students to acquire them are limited to undergraduate education. To establish a foundation from which to investigate the developmental trajectory of biologists’ research skills, it is necessary to identify those skills which are integral to doctoral study and distinct from skills acquired earlier in students’ educational pathways. In this context, the current study engages the framework of threshold concepts to identify candidate skills that are both obstacles and significant opportunities for developing proficiency in conducting research. Such threshold concepts are typically characterised as transformative, integrative, irreversible, and challenging. The results from interviews and focus groups with current and former doctoral students in cellular and molecular biology suggest two such threshold concepts relevant to their subfield: the first is an ability to effectively engage primary research literature from the biological sciences in a way that is critical without dismissing the value of its contributions. The second is the ability to conceptualise appropriate control conditions necessary to design and interpret the results of experiments in an efficient and effective manner for research in the biological sciences as a discipline. Implications for prioritising and sequencing graduate training experiences are discussed on the basis of the identified thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research indicates that modifying teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching (i.e. teaching orientation) may be a prerequisite to changing their teaching practices. This mixed methods study quantitized data from interviews with 65 graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to assess the relationship of participants' teaching experiences and available teaching support systems with changes in their teaching orientation over time. These individuals represent an important but understudied link in the STEM pipeline, because they serve as primary instructors in large, introductory science laboratory classes for undergraduates at large research universities. Mentor involvement in teaching and departmental/university training and support for teaching were significantly related to change in teaching orientation toward more student-centered beliefs. Consideration of why other factors failed to evidence a relationship with teaching orientations and recommendations for how study findings can influence policy and practice are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although learning to write for publication is an important outcome of doctoral education, it has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Within a socialization and supervisor pedagogy framework, this study uses narratives of faculty who regularly write with their doctoral students for publication to expose challenges students commonly encounter in the writing process. Common challenges include international students' ‘writing problem’, misconstruing the nature of disciplinary writing and not realizing that ‘public’ is part of publication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The development of research skills and scientific reasoning underpins the mission of graduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, yet our understanding of this process is mainly drawn from self-report and faculty survey data. In this study, we empirically investigate the pattern of research skill development using STEM graduate students' written research proposals. Analyses of proposal performance data suggest a potential developmental trajectory of research skills, in which the ability to effectively situate work in context using primary literature, and to generate testable hypotheses, emerge early in students' careers, while other skills, such as data analysis and forming conclusions from data, appear to develop later. We discuss these findings in relation to threshold concepts theory, a framework which posits that intellectual growth occurs in transformative leaps rather than a gradual progression, especially as it applies to graduate student research skill development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cognitive task analysis (CTA) captures unobservable cognitive processes, decisions and judgments of expert performance. Over 100 different CTA methods are identified in prior literature. However, existing classifications typically sort techniques by process rather than outcome, application or causal mechanism. Therefore, techniques can be misapplied and comparative analysis of methods made difficult. Based on the frequency distribution of CTA methods in 1065 studies, a subsample representing 60% of the most frequently published methods was coded based on elicitation and analysis techniques. Consistency of resulting applications was assessed. Inconsistent matching of CTA methods and subsequent applications indicate CTA is currently more craft than technology. Therefore, there is no robust basis for selecting one method over another for research or practice. Specific challenges include comparing the reliability and validity of individual methods and optimising selection of techniques for intended applications. Developing a causal taxonomy may facilitate such advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents the author's insights regarding University of Virginia (UVA) Bay Game, an agent-based simulation project at UVA that promotes interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching. The author explores the history and evolution of the project to highlight its productivity and durability in other interdisciplinary efforts. He relates the Bay Game to the learning outcomes and understanding of college students in complex systems and environmental issues including climate change and watershed conservation. He suggests that students should learn how to create decisions to prepare them as future leaders. Moreover, the author emphasizes the importance of simulation game in education.

Guided by theories of socialization and possible selves, this study examines how STEM doctoral students perceive their academic and professional trajectories. More specifically, we rely on four years of interview data from 66 doctoral students in the biological sciences to explore students' perceived trajectories, focusing on the salient identities and experiences that shape the way students identify and describe their graduate experiences over time. Findings reveal wide variation in terms of how students described their trajectories, with some students describing linear trajectories and/or unchanging career interests, while others described their developmental trajectories as highly turbulent and non-linear. These perceived trajectories were largely shaped by student-advisor interactions, the value students placed on becoming "independent" scientists, and the privilege students brought with them to their graduate programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using faculty narratives, this study identifies factors affecting the occurrence of faculty-doctoral student coauthorship. Norms of the discipline, resources, faculty goals for students, faculty goals for themselves, and institutional expectations emerged as dominant factors. Each factor is explored separately and as part of an interlocking holistic picture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undergraduate research experiences have been adopted across higher education institutions. However, most studies examining benefits derived from undergraduate research rely on self-report of skill development. This study used an empirical assessment of research skills to investigate associations between undergraduate research experiences and research skill performance in graduate school. Research experience characteristics including duration, autonomy, collaboration, and motivation were also examined. Undergraduate research experience was linked to heightened graduate school performance in all research skills assessed. While autonomy and collaboration were highlighted in student interviews, duration was most strongly correlated to significant increases in research skill performance. Based on these findings, we advocate for the inclusion of research experiences into the undergraduate science curriculum coupled with the creation of centralized offices of undergraduate research and faculty incentives for involving undergraduates in their research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]