3
Understanding Teaching, Learning, and Equity
Experts have developed a significant body of work on how people learn and what teaching strategies are most effective (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [National Academies], 2018, 2020). In the past few decades, scholarship that explores issues of equity and inequity in teaching and learning, in particular, has increased. The extent of research and scholarship in the fields of psychology, cognitive science, learning science, cognitive psychology, scholarship of teaching and learning, discipline-based education research, and other related fields that contributes to our understanding of how people learn is vast. The previous chapter gives a brief overview of the institutional context for teaching and learning in U.S. undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, raising many issues related to the diversity, opportunity, and challenges for institutions teaching undergraduate STEM education. While the diversity of students, instructors, and institutions means that decisions must be made with awareness of local context, extensive research provides strong evidence to help guide understanding and decision making. This chapter therefore provides an overview of what we know about how people learn, evidence for practices that support learning, and practices of particular concern in the STEM disciplines because they lead to inequity. This rich scholarship provides the grounding for this entire report and is drawn upon in Chapter 4 for the development of the Principles for Equitable and Effective Teaching.
LEARNING IS COMPLEX AND WELL STUDIED
Learning is a process of actively constructing knowledge through conceptual reorganization of ideas, not simply the accrual of information (Kober, 2015). The brain is a “dynamic organ;” even a mature brain is structurally altered during learning (National Research Council [NRC], 2000, p. 235). New knowledge is generated when the brain actively connects information to prior knowledge and experience (Kober, 2015; NRC, 2000).
Effective practices are student centered, learner focused, and grounded in research (e.g., with evidence from multiple studies showing student learning gains; NRC, 2012a, 2015). Evidence-based pedagogies are more cognitively engaging for students and show them the relevance of STEM concepts and skills. In particular, scholarship shows the benefits of taking a student-centered approach, where students actively engage in their own learning process (Bligh, 2000; Chi & Wylie, 2014; Theobald et al., 2020). Researchers have found that when students actively engage in learning they are more likely to develop robust conceptual understanding, be able to transfer learning across contexts, and retain ideas (Armbruster et al., 2009; Devlin & Samarawickrema, 2010; Ebert-May et al., 1997; Hogan & Sathy, 2022; Lyle et al., 2020; Watson et al., 2023). Students in large STEM courses that combine pre-class preparatory assignments and in-class active learning activities earn higher grades, have lower failure rates, and report an increased sense of community over courses that use simply lecture (Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Freeman et al., 2014). Studies also show that these approaches can increase the probability of equitable outcomes between underserved students and their peers (Dewsbury et al., 2022; Eddy & Hogan, 2014; Haak et al., 2011; Theobald et al., 2020). The above citations are only selected examples of the large body of the existing empirical research, which employs a range of methods—including randomized control trials, experiments, quasi-experiments, longitudinal, cross-sectional, correlational, and observational studies—to show that student-centered instructional approaches, often referred to as active learning, can have a positive effect on student learning.
However, despite this evidence and calls for reform, STEM instruction at the undergraduate level remains entrenched in ineffective practices, with traditional lecture primary among them (Egger et al., 2019; Harper et al., 2019; Stains et al., 2018). STEM teaching has historically been didactic, unidirectional, and instructor centered with in-person lectures being the dominant approach. While many effective teachers use a mix of techniques that include lecturing and employ approaches that make it possible for students to actively engage with content during traditional lectures, research has shown that relying solely on lectures or memorization is ineffective for and even alienating to many students (Dewsbury et al., 2022).
This approach to knowledge/skill acquisition is not consistent with what research and theories of learning say works best, and can perpetuate existing biases.
Research on Learning
As mentioned above, a great deal is known about how learning happens, with contributions from the fields of psychology, cognitive science, learning science, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, behavioral science, scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), discipline-based education research (DBER), and other related fields (e.g., National Academies, 2018). Together these fields provide evidence for teaching approaches that foster learning of particular relevance to this study; they capture information about inequities in STEM learning and provide information about teaching strategies that reduce inequity in STEM learning environments.
As defined in a 2012 National Academies report, “DBER investigates learning and teaching in a discipline using a range of methods with deep grounding in the discipline’s priorities, worldview, knowledge, and practices” (NRC, 2012b, p. 9). DBER investigations lead to generalizable findings that can improve teaching, learning, diversity and inclusion, and other aspects of the discipline.
SoTL involves taking a scientific approach to one’s own teaching—informed by prior scholarship on teaching and learning—and sharing the results broadly to serve as a model for others. Testing the impact of an intervention in a particular course or curriculum may not always provide generalizable findings, but it does provide evidence for the potential effectiveness of an approach by describing the criteria necessary for the intervention’s success.
Learning science is an interdisciplinary research area focused on the systematic study of how learning occurs in different settings, how to improve teaching, and how to help students learn more effectively (Sawyer, 2005). Most fundamentally, this work has established that learning is not a purely cognitive process, but instead is a dynamic, socio-cultural activity that is influenced by social, emotional, cultural, and physical factors (National Academies, 2018).
The strength of evidence produced by the range of methods has been characterized by the strength of evidence pyramid (St. John & McNeal, 2017), among other models. In this model, expert opinion and practitioner wisdom of disciplinary teaching form the base of the pyramid and can provide evidence for promising practices. Case studies and cohort studies build on this foundation to produce higher-quality evidence, and meta-analyses and systematic reviews at the top of the pyramid provide the strongest
evidence. In the present report, evidence comes from multiple STEM disciplines and studies within those disciplines, focusing on the higher levels in the strength of evidence pyramid. In some instances, we will also refer to promising practices, which may be supported by evidence from disciplinary and/or cohort studies.
Increased focus on equitable teaching practices and pedagogy—especially in STEM—has grown over the past decade in part driven by an effort to challenge deficit models of learning and cognition and a desire to mitigate educational inequality (Bell et al., 2017; Medin & Bang, 2014; Philip & Azevedo, 2017; Philip et al., 2018; Uttamchandani, 2018). Creating equitable and effective learning environments requires acknowledging and attending to all of the components of learning.
Understanding Mastery and Mindset
As described in How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures (National Academies, 2018, p. 117), “Goals—the learner’s desired outcomes—are important for learning because they guide decisions about whether to expend effort and how to direct attention, foster planning, influence responses to failure, and promote other behaviors important for learning” (Albaili, 1998; Dweck & Elliot, 1983; Hastings & West, 2011). Goals can be broadly categorized as mastery oriented (e.g., focused on achieving competence and understanding) or performance oriented (e.g., focused on appearing competent in relation to others; National Academies, 2018). A student with a mastery goal is typically working to master a skill or learn the material, either from intrinsic motivation or being able to use the skill or knowledge to accomplish a task, whereas a student with a performance goal is typically working to look good in comparison to others, often leading to a sense of competition. Instructors in the undergraduate STEM classrooms influence students’ learning by defining course-level learning goals and incorporating teaching practices and opportunities for students to achieve these learning goals. Instructors can choose goals and practices that focus on mastery of skills rather than performance in order to help students engage in higher-order cognitive skills, persist in the face of failure, and retain knowledge and skills over the long term (Henry et al., 2019; Hernandez et al., 2013).
Mastery goals are often discussed in relation to growth mindset beliefs that all students can learn with effective effort, good strategies, and help from others (Dweck, 1999; Henry et al., 2019; Limeri et al., 2023; National Academies, 2018). When students endorse growth mindset beliefs, they experience a stronger sense of belonging, higher course grades, and greater intent to persist (Limeri et al., 2023). Moreover, interventions employing randomized controlled trials have yielded impressive results
including improving grades and persistence in science and closing achievement gaps, though some student-focused growth mindset interventions have shown mixed results (Canning & Limeri, 2023). In addition, the impact of STEM instructors’ mindset beliefs and the mindset culture they create through their teaching practices, policies, and interactions with students has been shown to influence students’ learning experiences and performance (Muenks et al., 2020), and influenced, too, the magnitude of racial and class-based achievement gaps in STEM classes (Canning et al., 2019, 2024). Helping STEM instructors adopt more growth-minded beliefs and teaching practices—including designing learning goals that provide multiple opportunities for learning and improvement in various different ways, and assessment practices to match the learning goals (Hecht et al., 2022; Kroeper et al., 2020a,b)—is important to support the goals, learning, and achievement of all students in STEM.
ACTIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCES IMPROVE STUDENT UNDERSTANDING
As we will discuss in the section on Principle 1 in the next chapter, active engagement is critical in the learning process. Here we discuss the related concept of “active learning,” which has been frequently used in conversations about improving undergraduate STEM education. The phrase has been so well used that it sometimes seems to mean any practice that deviates from traditional lecturing. The approach of Lombardi et al. (2021) uses a “construction-of-understanding ecosystem” model to illustrate the contrast between traditional learning situations and the active learning environment. In the traditional learning environment, direct experiences with phenomena, working with data and models, and engaging in discipline-based practices are all mediated by the instructor and transmitted to the student. In the active learning environment, the students themselves engage in discipline-based practices with their peers to make sense of data and models, which provides direct experience with the practices of the discipline—including the social component. The committee sees ways of applying this way of thinking to a large range of disciplines and modalities. Active learning approaches have been studied in a variety of STEM disciplines (Apkarian et al., 2021; Driessen et al., 2020; Laursen & Rasmussen, 2019). It can be thought of as a commitment by the instructor to intentionally build in time, opportunities, and activities that allow students agency and direct experience with the practice of the relevant STEM discipline. Students can build agency in their own learning in a large lecture, a small seminar, a fully online course, or any other modality, and the specific approaches an instructor chooses will depend on their local context and goals for student learning.
Not all approaches that have been labeled as active learning necessarily engage students actively in their own learning. Strategies such as the use of clicker questions in lectures, laboratory activities, and a “flipped” classroom disrupt traditional lectures and can be aspects of active learning but do not necessarily meet this definition of active learning. Clicker questions can contribute to engaging students with deep concepts or they can focus on recall of obscure facts at regular intervals during a lecture; while both may serve the purpose of keeping students engaged in listening to the lecture, the latter does not help them focus on direct engagement with phenomena and data of the discipline. Similarly, laboratory activities can be confirmatory tests rather than the collection and analysis of new data. The key goal is to help students achieve learning goals by providing opportunities for them to engage repeatedly in the practices of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics within a disciplinary or interdisciplinary framework. This approach parallels the focus of A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (NRC, 2012a), which presents a vision in which students use disciplinary practices together with cross-cutting concepts to deepen their understanding of disciplinary core ideas.
While implementing active learning has been shown to increase student achievement and can reduce achievement gaps in undergraduate STEM courses it is still incumbent on instructors to implement active learning strategies in equitable ways that respect student identity (Dewsbury et al., 2022; Freeman et al., 2014; Theobald et al., 2020). It is also important for instructors to recognize that some active learning strategies, such as group work, can increase students’ anxiety (Cooper et al., 2018). Research has shown that some populations of students have encountered challenges in some approaches to active learning, for example LGBTQIA+ students (Cooper & Brownell, 2016; Voigt, 2022, 2024). Therefore, it is important to note that attending to equity is an important aspect of implementing active learning strategies.
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR LEARNING IN THE STEM DISCIPLINES
While pedagogical approaches have shifted some in recent years, didactic instruction remains the dominant way that STEM is taught (Stains et al., 2018). The use of ineffective teaching strategies persists in part because individual faculty work within a system that reinforces ineffective teaching practices or makes change difficult (Borrego & Henderson, 2014; Feola et al., 2023; Henderson et al., 2011; Riihimaki & Viskupic, 2019). A variety of individual and contextual factors have been correlated with instructors’ lack of adoption of evidence-based teaching practices; these factors include
departmental norms and negative attitudes and beliefs (Lund & Stains, 2015); large class sizes (Yik et al., 2022); inadequate learning spaces (Leijon et al., 2022); greater faculty engagement in research (Apkarian et al., 2021); a hiring, reward, and promotion system that focuses on research excellence over teaching (Dennin et al., 2017); fixed-minded beliefs about students’ abilities and potential (Canning et al., 2019; Muenks et al., 2020); beliefs that success in STEM disciplines requires natural genius and brilliance, rather than hard work and learning (Leslie et al., 2015); and lack of exposure to active learning as a student (Apkarian et al., 2021; Kraft et al., 2024a).
Furthermore, teaching excellence is often not selected for in the hiring process, nor is it taught systematically or rewarded, and institutions often rely on outdated methods of evaluation (Bradforth et al., 2015; Dennin et al., 2017). As a result, instructors can have little incentive to learn about and implement evidence-based teaching strategies. In some instances, STEM instructors do not employ teaching strategies shown to be effective simply because those strategies are not known to them: few receive preparation in effective and evidence-based teaching strategies prior to entering the college classroom (Austin et al., 2009; Golde & Dore, 2001), much less the role that dominant and privileged identities play in teaching (Duncan et al., 2023). All of these factors mean that instructors are more likely to rely on teaching strategies that are familiar to them even as such strategies are often less effective at supporting student learning (e.g., Stains et al., 2018). This can further marginalize underserved students and cause them to question their ability to succeed in STEM (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997; Seymour & Hunter, 2019; Tanner & Allen, 2007). These issues are discussed further in Chapter 8.
STEM disciplines remain exclusionary spaces, and STEM learning spaces, by extension, have the potential to perpetuate similar experiences for students. The legacy of systemic inequity can be seen, for example, in unidirectional delivery of course content that positions instructors as the sole experts (O’Neill et al., 2023); isolating research questions from their local context (Anthony-Stevens & Matsaw, 2020; McGinty & Bang, 2016; Medin & Bang 2014); framing content as race neutral (Gildersleeve et al., 2011; Haynes & Patton, 2019); conceptualizing success (and designing assessments) in highly individualized ways (Brayboy, 2005; Lopez, 2021); and presenting only White, Western thinkers in syllabi (Gonzales et al., 2024c; Grant, 2021).
Mitigating the impact of systemic inequities in undergraduate STEM classrooms involves challenging the established model of knowing and learning about the world (Bang et al., 2012). This requires instructors to acknowledge the affective dimensions of learning (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, etc.) and the essential role they play in STEM education (Dewsbury, 2020).
It also involves embracing broader paradigmatic shifts toward validating multiple ways of knowing, learning, and teaching STEM (e.g., Barron et al., 2021; Morton & Parsons, 2018). Decolonization and deconstruction of systemic structures of inequity are also critical in the development of more equitable and effective teaching and learning and involve transformative changes at the systemic level (e.g., Morton et al., 2023). The power of this tansformative change can cultivate the next generation of STEM experts to make a meaningful shift in the disciplines, but only if STEM learning spaces are designed appropriately.
Thus, there is substantial evidence that undergraduate STEM teaching has been both ineffective and inequitable in a wide variety of settings. Because of this, it is also important to note that undergraduate STEM education is not a monolith. While some research uncovers broad understandings about STEM learning as a whole and reveals STEM-wide challenges to equity and effectiveness, other studies show that there are differences between disciplines in their cultures, practices, accrediting bodies, and expectations for teaching and learning. In many disciplines, there is a distinction in the teaching that takes place in classes for majors and classes for general education (typically introductory courses). At various points throughout the following discussion, we highlight a few of the critical equity and effectiveness issues within individual disciplines (or subsets of disciplines) that exist as lasting implications of historical legacies of exclusion. Although this is not a comprehensive list, it includes issues that have been raised repeatedly in the committee’s work.
Foundational STEM Courses
Every STEM discipline has a foundational, introductory course or course sequence that serves as an entry to a major in the discipline. In addition, most STEM majors and programs have courses that serve as prerequisites for upper-level courses in the major, often year-long sequences of math, chemistry, and/or physics. These have sometimes been referred to as “gateway” courses (e.g., Koch, 2017), in the sense that all students must pass through these gates to progress along STEM pathways; however, we prefer the term “foundational,” which indicates that future learning and success will build upon these courses. Across STEM disciplines, systemic disadvantages lead to grade reductions (Castle et al., 2024), particularly in the large chemistry and calculus courses that are prerequisites for several disciplines (Weston et al., 2019). In particular, students’ experiences in foundational courses are especially important for their persistence in STEM, because, often, these courses act as gates and filter out students rather than deepen their engagement, interest, and understanding of STEM topics (Canning et al., 2018; Harris et al., 2020; Holland, 2019; Weston et al., 2019).
These courses are critical junctures where students can easily lose motivation to continue in their degrees or to take additional STEM courses if their grade does not reflect their learning or ability to succeed (e.g., Harris et al., 2020; Hunter, 2019). The impact of foundational courses is disproportionately skewed in favor of White male students: a large, multi-institution study showed that White male students who were intending on a career in STEM had a 48% chance of succeeding in that career path when they received a grade of C or better in all foundational courses. However, for women of color, the percentage dropped to 35%, and if at least one foundational course was less than a C, the probability dropped further to 21% (Hatfield et al., 2022).
Instructors in foundational courses across the STEM disciplines are more likely to emphasize content knowledge as the most important outcome for students, and to spend most of class time lecturing (Ferrare, 2019; Stains et al., 2018), including in chemistry (Wang et al., 2024) and the geosciences (Egger, 2019). Assessment practices in these courses typically focus on performance goals that measure lower-level cognitive skills (Momsen et al., 2013), including rote memorization and reliance on math skills that are not taught in the course, which can disadvantage certain students (Ralph et al., 2022). And yet, engaging students in collaborative group work and other interactive strategies in these foundational courses increases their interest, motivation, and persistence (Gasiewski et al., 2012).
So-called “weed-out” courses are a subset of these foundational STEM courses that are identified as such primarily by students. They can vary widely, but share several characteristics as defined by Weston et al. (2019): they are required courses (or course sequences) for a STEM major; they tend to be large, lecture-style courses; passing the course(s) is difficult (e.g., they award a large number of D, F, or incomplete/withdrawal grades [DFW]); and they are a strong predictor of success and persistence in a major. Weston et al. (2019) used these and other criteria, including a >20% DFW rate to identify weed-out courses at six institutions, and found calculus, chemistry, and computer science to be the most common, making up 60% of all weed-out courses identified. Students identify a course as a “weed-out” when they note misalignment between understanding and assessment practices (including curved grading), when the instructor is indifferent to learning, when there is a lack of organization, and/or when they experience a competitive class culture (Kardash & Wallace, 2001; Weston et al., 2019).
These courses have an impact on STEM beyond just poor grades for a large number of students. Students who receive a DFW from one of these classes are more likely to receive a similar grade in a second class, and more likely to switch out of a STEM major—and these students are more likely to be women, women of color, and from a lower socio-economic status
(Seymour & Hunter, 2019). Experiences in weed-out courses lead to a loss of confidence and lack of sense of belonging for students (Weston et al., 2019), and lead to maintenance and reinforcement of the existing structural inequities in the STEM fields. Modifying these critical foundational courses, which often serve programs in multiple departments (e.g., calculus is required for several STEM majors), requires concerted effort by or across academic units to be effective and make lasting change (Matz et al., 2018; see Chapter 6).
Curricula and Course Combinations
The curricular structures that emerge from an academic unit’s design of major programs produce a network of interdependent courses connected via prerequisite and corequisite requirements (Brown et al., 2018). The interdependencies create a complex organizational structure that students must navigate on their way to the degree. A strongly interdependent (e.g., complex) curriculum is going to be experienced differently based on a students’ background, social position, previous coursework, access to advising, willingness to accrue debt, and their experience of classroom climate (Harrison & Williams, 2023; see Chapter 7 for more).
This complexity can itself be a barrier for students, particularly when it is distinct from the content interests and needs of students and creates barriers to entry, persistence, and successful completion. Coursework in STEM can be relatively linear and sequential, which makes friction toward academic progress a bigger problem than in fields where students have more flexibility in their pathways. A student who finds themself struggling in one STEM course appears much more likely to struggle in related courses, producing a “snowball” effect of academic difficulty that has been observed in engineering and other courses (Brown et al., 2018). In addition, students can experience delays in making progress if courses with dependencies are offered irregularly, or they are encouraged to take courses in combinations that lead to high rates of failure (e.g., “toxic” course combinations). These particular course combinations may be especially problematic for underserved students and together these effects create a problem for momentum and navigation and can lead to students switching out of a STEM major into other degree programs (Brown et al., 2018; Hunter, 2019; Slim et al., 2014).
In addition to the official curriculum, there is also the “hidden” curriculum, which refers to the unwritten rules, values, and belief systems, and behavioral and social expectations that support student success, but are rarely explicitly discussed or taught (Andarvazh et al., 2017; Jackson, 1968; Snyder, 1971). In STEM disciplines, the hidden curriculum includes expectations about how to interact with instructors and teaching assistants
in office hours, the value placed on pursuing undergraduate research, knowing how and when to ask for letters of recommendation, and many more components that are discipline specific. Lack of awareness of the norms of a discipline, or of higher education in general, influences how students interact with professors, advisors, and each other. Advice for making the hidden curriculum more explicit often comes from fellow undergraduate students (e.g., Massey et al., 2022). In general, making both the hidden curriculum and the intended curriculum explicit and streamlining students’ pathways through both require combined efforts at the individual, departmental, and institutional levels (see Chapters 6 and 9 for more information). Recent efforts to demystify the hidden curriculum in geoscience graduate programs, called for by leaders in the geoscience community, can serve as a model for undergraduate programs more generally (Cooke et al., 2021; Pensky et al., 2021).
Math Course Sequences
While many disciplines require course sequences that can be problematic for students in their majors, students in virtually all STEM majors are required to traverse the mathematics course sequences, which are traditionally organized in a linear and hierarchical fashion (McFarland & Rodan, 2009). Mathematics frequently serve as the foundational courses to STEM majors (Ellis et al., 2016; Moreno & Muller, 1999; Sanabria & Penner, 2017; Weeden et al., 2020). These classes may serve to motivate or discourage students seeking to persist in any STEM field in college and beyond (Bressoud, 2014, 2021; Park et al., 2021), and research has shown that performance in mathematics classes is a predictor of student success and persistence in many contexts, and thus shaping students’ trajectories in significant ways (Cohen & Kelly, 2020; Evans et al., 2020; Hsu et al., 2008; Park et al., 2021). In particular, race/ethnicity, gender, and the intersection of the two have all been shown to be predictors of math performance and achievement leading up to college (Riegle-Crumb, 2006).
Many students experience misalignment between the courses they have taken in high school and the course they place into in college, with significant negative impacts on their success and persistence (Park et al., 2021). Underserved students often get assigned to remedial mathematics courses (e.g., “below” calculus) in college, and have limited opportunities to enroll in STEM courses within their intended major, significantly delaying their degree progression and/or pushing them to switch to another major (Boatman & Long, 2018; Cohen & Kelly, 2020; Weston et al., 2019). Though many reform efforts in mathematics sequences and developmental math have sought to address this issue, they tend to focus on general progress
without attending to the significant equity issues that are often a factor (Brathwaite et al., 2021).
Teaching and Learning in the Field
In some disciplines, notably the geosciences and biological sciences, field courses and experiences are valued by both instructors and students as critical components of undergraduate programs that produce both cognitive and affective gains for learners (Fleischner et al., 2017; Klyce & Ryker, 2023; Mogk & Goodwin, 2012; Mosher & Keane, 2021; O’Connell et al., 2022; Petcovic et al., 2014; Shafer et al., 2023; Stokes & Boyle, 2009). These experiences also have numerous potential barriers to participation and full engagement that produce systemic inequities in access and success with underserved students facing disproportionate financial, cultural, social, and physical barriers (Carabajal et al., 2017; Morales et al., 2020; Posselt & Nuñez, 2022). The geosciences in particular face inclusion challenges, including an emphasis on ableism (Carabajal & Atchison, 2020) and a historical legacy of exclusion and exploitation of marginalized groups (e.g., Marín-Spiotta et al., 2020).
The Principles for Equitable and Effective Teaching in the field are the same as in the classroom, but the circumstances surrounding their application require additional attention. Given the value that instructors, students, and employers all place on field experiences, recent research has focused on reducing barriers to participation, promoting inclusion, and providing equitable experiences. Recommended strategies to increase access include being intentional with the site selection and considering alternatives to traditional choices. Site survey, field activities design, and risk assessment can help to identify whether there are ways to mitigate potential negative physical or mental impacts (Carabajal & Atchison, 2020; Chiarella & Vurro, 2020). This research has led to the development of models and recommendations for designing undergraduate field experiences that are more likely to be inclusive and effective (Atchison et al., 2019; Gilley et al., 2015; Marshall et al., 2022; O’Connell et al., 2022; Stokes et al., 2019).
Learning and Technology: STEM Learning in a High-Tech World
Eight key affordances of learning technologies were identified by a National Academies consensus study: interactivity, adaptivity, feedback, choice, nonlinear access, linked representations, open-ended learner input, and communication with other people (National Academies, 2018, pp. 165–166). These affordances enable growth of learning technologies, online learning platforms, and adaptive testing. However, use of technology alone does not address the intertwined challenges of ineffective teaching and
systemic inequity described above. For example, although online courses and degree programs have the potential to broaden access to higher education, they consistently have higher attrition rates than in-person courses and programs (Bawa, 2016). Impacted by an increase in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, students reported they did not prefer online modes of instruction (National Academies, 2021). Many students face one or more components of digital inequality: unequal access to the internet and devices, discrepancies in digital skills and engagement, and unequal outcomes of their efforts to use technology (Katz et al., 2021).
Digital inequality means that not all learners can take advantage of the affordances of technology, and it becomes another site of systemic inequity and ineffective teaching (e.g., Laufer et al., 2021). In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Katz et al. (2021) found that connectivity challenges, device challenges, and communication challenges were all associated with lower remote learning proficiency, and that those challenges were experienced more commonly by students whose families were facing financial hardship and economic insecurity. Technology that is designed around accessibility, student-centered design, and effectiveness and equity has the potential to be a significant driver for improving undergraduate STEM education for all students.
PRACTICES COMMONLY USED TODAY CONTRIBUTE TO INEQUITIES IN STUDENT EXPERIENCES
There is substantial evidence for ongoing inequity in undergraduate STEM and hiring into the STEM workforce. This section presents evidence for some of those inequities, focusing on grade penalties, persistence to degree, and sense of belonging. Many datasets, longitudinal studies, and meta-analyses focus on inequitable outcomes where race/ethnicity and gender are the factors studied although a body of work is developing that analyzes demographic factors such as first-generation students and socio-economic status (Ives & Castillo-Montoya, 2020; O’Donnell & Blankenship, 2018; Reynolds & Cruise, 2020). Several recent books have explored equity issues in detail (Addy et al., 2024; Artze-Vega et al., 2023; Equity Based Teaching Collective, 2024). Further study on the full range of identities that students bring to their STEM education is needed. For examples of some potential research questions that emerged from the Committee’s study, see Chapter 10.
Grade Penalties
Evidence from across the STEM disciplines indicates that, when grouped by race/ethnicity or gender, students from underrepresented groups
receive proportionally more low grades than their overrepresented peers, even when controlling for other factors like academic preparation (Blatt et al., 2020; Denaro et al., 2022; Harris et al., 2020; Matz et al., 2017). Mean course grades in large STEM courses—primarily introductory courses—increase with the number of systemic advantages (gender, race/ethnicity, income, and first-generation status) that students have (Castle et al., 2024). These grade penalties for underserved students persist over time, and the penalties are the greatest in the STEM fields for first-generation, racial-ethnic minority students (Whitcomb et al., 2021).
Findings are similar within individual disciplines. In biology, performance gaps have been documented between underrepresented minorities (URMs) and non-URMs at inclusive and selective four-year institutions (Salehi et al., 2021) and between binary genders (e.g., students who identify as male or female) in upper-level courses (Farrar et al., 2023). In physics, White males show the greatest gains in common assessments in introductory courses, highlighting both gender- and race/ethnicity-based performance gaps that account for differences in pre-test preparation (Van Dusen & Nissen, 2020).
Persistence to Degree
Grades impact student motivation to persist on their pathway to a degree (Hunter, 2019; Thiry, 2019a); grades in foundational, introductory courses—such as mathematics, discussed above—are particularly critical in students’ decision processes (Weston et al., 2019). Many studies have found differences in STEM degree persistence, with Black and Latina/o students more likely to leave the STEM fields than their White peers (Chang et al., 2014; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2019), as are high-performing women when compared with high-performing men (Hunter, 2019). There is strong evidence that pre-college factors—such as high school preparation (Bottia et al., 2015; Salehi et al., 2019a)—have a role in persistence. Evidence that is less clear but still suggestive points to the influence of high school math self-efficacy, family income, and parents’ education level as other influences on post-secondary persistence in STEM (Evans et al., 2020; Reynolds & Cruise, 2020; Weeden et al., 2020). In addition, a substantial literature points to “within-college” factors—including earned credits in introductory STEM courses, participation in key academic activities, and hostile classroom environments as shaping students’ experiences, persistence, and performance (Barbera et al., 2020; Chang et al., 2014; Evans et al., 2020; Martin et al., 2017b). These within-college factors are correlated with higher rates of change of major out of the natural sciences for Black, Latina/o, and multi-racial students than for White and Asian students.
Several other factors can lead to a decline in motivation to pursue STEM. There is significant evidence for the role of stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995; Steele et al., 2002; Totonchi et al., 2021). Additional studies suggest the perception of instructor care and the level of interactivity in introductory courses (Rainey et al., 2019), and an institutional culture of independence (Stephens et al., 2012) are other factors to consider. Some students who switch out of STEM majors cite discouragement due to low grades, poor teaching, and a competitive, unsupportive culture as top reasons for their leaving a major (Hunter, 2019).
Sense of Belonging
Interviews and cohort studies have demonstrated a lack of sense of belonging in STEM for underserved students (Rainey et al., 2018), including Black women (Dortch & Patel, 2017); Latina students (Rodriguez & Blaney, 2021); lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic/agender, plus other related identities; and People of Color in the geosciences (Marin-Spiotta et al., 2023); and women in engineering (Glisson, 2023), physics (Seyranian et al., 2018), and chemistry (Edwards et al., 2023). A “chilly” and “hostile” climate in STEM classes and overall creates barriers to access (Jorstad et al., 2017; Marín-Spiotta et al., 2020) and leads students—especially, disproportionately, women and women of color—to switch out of STEM majors into other fields (Hunter, 2019). Sense of belonging is correlated with performance (Edwards et al., 2022; Fink et al., 2020; Master & Meltzoff, 2020). Interventions employed in randomized controlled trials to support students’ belonging have been shown to increase college students’ persistence and performance and reduce achievement gaps (LaCosse et al., 2020; Murphy et al., 2020; Walton & Cohen, 2011); thus, sense of belonging is an important component of persistence to degree. Although these studies are sometimes smaller and focused on a single discipline or demographic group, the consistency of the above findings across groups and disciplines strengthens the nature of the evidence.
Power and Privilege
In addition to the evidence for inequity in STEM courses and programs, there are issues regarding the centering of power and privilege. Many students perceive that the STEM disciplines privilege White males (Dancy et al., 2020), given their significant overrepresentation in the professorate and institutional leadership (NCSES, 2023a). Across higher education institutions in the United States, women are more likely to leave academic jobs and less likely to be promoted than men. Reasons given for leaving also differ by gender: women are more likely to feel pushed out of their jobs,
whereas men are more likely to feel pulled toward another job (Spoon et al., 2023). In their literature review, Fox Tree and Vaid (2022) document evidence for disparities between men and women and between White people and People of Color in virtually all factors that are critical to hiring and promotion, including research, teaching, and service factors. These privileges are both self-perpetuating and trickle down into undergraduate STEM as they lead to maintenance and reinforcement of systemic inequities in the hiring and career advancement of faculty and instructors (e.g., Dancy & Hodari, 2023).
Disciplinary and Institutional Norms
Academic units (often departments) are where disciplinary norms are communicated to students. It is the expectation of many STEM disciplines that students will develop a common set of competencies by taking certain required courses that (a) teach a predetermined amount of content and (b) use predetermined assessment strategies in a specific sequence (e.g., Yother et al., 2022). This rigidity limits the ability of instructors and academic units to deviate from these expectations and adopt equitable and effective teaching practices. When norms that underlie curricular decision making are harmful yet perpetuated without critical equity-minded interrogation, inequities are maintained (Posselt et al., 2020). Successful systemic change recognizes that instructors and academic units do not operate in a vacuum, but in contexts that vary in many ways; in addition to discipline, they vary by size, academic mission, location, and, of course, institutional type. Institutional teaching evaluation policies and processes can both propel and stymie change (see Chapters 6 and 9). In most research institutions tenure-system faculty members are not incentivized to invest much effort in improving their teaching (Braxton et al., 1996; Gonzales & Culpepper, 2024; Griffin et al., 2013; Park, 1996), especially in ways that may involve more emotional labor (Castillo-Montoya, 2020). In many university contexts, VITAL educators (who are more likely to be racially minoritized faculty; DiBenedetto et al., 2021; Wingfield, 2024) are doing the bulk of instructional and other student-facing work (Baldwin & Wawrzynski, 2011; Boss et al., 2019). These faculty are often devalued (Boss et al., 2019) and do not have the same autonomy or power that tenured or tenure-track faculty hold. Given this, if institutions do not have in place intentional language, metrics, and processes for supporting and evaluating equitable and effective teaching, instructors who make changes to their courses to support all students may not be given appropriate credit or recognition for their effort. Instructors who advocate for equitable and effective teaching practice on a wide scale may be viewed with skepticism or considered to be wasting their time.
EXISTING WORK TOWARD EQUITABLE AND EFFECTIVE TEACHING
Many individuals and groups have put significant work into improving undergraduate learning experiences and making them more equitable and effective. These efforts deserve to be honored and learned from so that more widespread change can be achieved. It is not possible for this report to include all efforts. The selected examples are provided to illustrate the variety of projects that inform our current knowledge and future efforts.
Groups and initiatives that have recognized and elevated the link between equity and excellence include a diverse set of actors from professional societies, disciplinary societies, and higher education societies. Some have a focus on research universities or preparing graduate students at research universities to teach. These include the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (AUERU;1 which grew out of the Reinvention Center that formed after the Boyer 2030 Commission [2022]), the Sloan Equity & Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses (SEISMIC) collaborative,2 and the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL).3 Other projects include the Inclusive STEM Teaching Project,4 and the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE).5 Project Kaleidoscope,6 now housed at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)7 has also focused on improving undergraduate STEM teaching. A recent publication, Equity-Based Teaching in Higher Education: The Levers that Institutions Can Use for Scaling Improvement, dives deeply into the meaning of equity-based education and its place in the ecosystem of higher education. The literature review performed for that project explores in great detail the publications on organizational policies, programs, and practices that can support equity-based teaching and makes recommendations for action based on their analysis of the literature and interviews the authors conducted (Equity-Based Teaching Collective, 2024). Forthcoming work from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) continues the work of their Faculty Success Initiative
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1 More information about the AUERU is available at https://www.ueru.org/home
2 More information about the SEISMIC collaborative is available at https://www.seismicproject.org/
3 More information about CIRTL is available at https://cirtl.net/
4 More information about the Inclusive STEM Teaching Project is available at https://www.inclusivestemteaching.org/
5 More information about ACUE is available at https://acue.org/
6 More information about the Project Kaleidoscope is available at https://www.aacu.org/initiatives/project-kaleidoscope
7 More information about the AAC&U is available at https://www.aacu.org/
to explore teaching in the context of other components of instructor responsibilities via a systemic change approach.8
Some initiatives have grown out of discipline-focused efforts, including biology’s Vision and Change project,9 the geosciences project on Vision and Change,10 BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium’ QUBES Hub Platform,11 and Carnegie Math Pathways,12 whereas others, such as Project Kaleidoscope, cut across STEM disciplines. Initiatives and groups focused on improving equity in undergraduate STEM education include the Equity Based Teaching Collective,13 and the toolkits developed by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)’s Blueprint for Student-Centered Strategic Finance.14 Multiple efforts focus specifically on community colleges, including a variety of programs from Achieving the Dream,15 initiatives that are part of The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program,16 and the Community College Presidents’ Initiative in STEM (CCPI-STEM),17 as well as other programs. The Supporting and Advancing Geoscience Education at Two-Year Colleges (SAGE 2YC) project focuses specifically on evidence-based instructional practices, broadening participation, and increasing STEM learning at community colleges.18 The Universal Design for Learning (UDL)19 approach works to make college and university learning more accessible for students with disabilities (CAST, n.d.). When operationalized proactively and intentionally by the instructors, UDL can lead to more equitable pedagogies due to its role in creating flexible and
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8 More information about the APLU’s Faculty Success Initiative is available at https://www.aplu.org/our-work/2-fostering-research-innovation/aplu-aspire/institutional-change-network/
9 More information about the Vision and Change project in biology is available at https://new.nsf.gov/news/vision-change-undergraduate-biology-initiative
10 More information about the Vision and Change project in the geosciences is available at https://www.americangeosciences.org/change/
11 More information about BioQUEST and Qubes is available at https://qubeshub.org/
12 More information about Carnegie Math Pathways is available at https://carnegiemathpathways.org/
13 More information about the Equity Based Teaching Collective is available at https://www.everylearnereverywhere.org/blog/new-playbook-outlines-an-ecosystem-approach-to-equity-based-teaching/
14 More information about NACUBO’s Blueprint for Student-Centered Strategic Finance is available at https://www.nacubo.org/Press-Releases/2024/NACUBO-Student-Success-Hub-Highlights-Financial-Links-to-Equitable-Student-Outcomes
15 More information about the Achieving the Dream program is available at https://achievingthedream.org/
16 More information about the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program is available at https://highered.aspeninstitute.org/
17 More information about CCPI-STEM is available at https://www.ccpi-stem.org/
18 More information about SAGE 2YC is available at https://serc.carleton.edu/sage2yc/index.html
19 More information about the UDL approach is available at https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
engaging learning environments (Almeqdad et al., 2023; King-Sears et al., 2023). UDL is discussed at greater length in Chapter 5.
These efforts have been organized and funded by a diverse array of actors. Funders include the National Science Foundation (e.g., Improving Undergraduate STEM Education, NSF INCLUDES, Advanced Technological Education, etc.), the Howard Hughes Medical Institution, the Gates Foundation, Ascendium Education Group, College Futures Foundation, Trellis Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, among others. Organizations, associations, and societies involved in organizing, coordinating, and providing connections for this type of work include APLU, Association of American Universities, American Association of Community Colleges, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, American Society for Engineering Education, National Association of Geoscience Teachers, National Association of Biology Teachers, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, etc. In addition, many recent publications written for college faculty focus on inclusive teaching strategies (Addy et al., 2021a,b; Hogan & Sathy, 2022; McNair, 2016; McNair et al., 2022).
Systemic change by its nature cannot be achieved by an individual. It is clear from these efforts that systemic change requires coordinated effort by multiple actors at colleges and universities and in outside organizations, foundations, and networks; and it is critical to recognize that the responsibility to provide equitable and effective learning experiences is collectively held by instructors and others at all levels of the higher education system.
SUMMARY
Extensive research on learning and teaching is available to inform decisions related to education at colleges and universities. Strong evidence also exists showing inequities in undergraduate experiences when data are disaggregated by factors such as race, ethnicity, and gender identity. There is also strong clear evidence that evidence-based teaching approaches can improve student learning experiences. The evidence is more mixed on the ability of evidence-based teaching approaches to address inequities in student experiences and more research on the best ways to decrease inequities in grading, persistence, belonging, and other areas would be beneficial. The current common approaches to foundational courses, prerequisites, course progressions, and course combinations complicate efforts to provide equitable and effective STEM education and there are several other special considerations that are relevant to students gaining understanding and navigating experiences in these fields, especially those that focus on labwork or fieldwork.
Conclusion 3.1: Learning in STEM involves a set of complex processes that are shaped by the identities, experiences, and backgrounds of learners and instructors, social interactions, and cultural context. Widespread use of teaching strategies that are not supported by research have contributed to the disparities in opportunity and outcomes for undergraduate STEM students.
Conclusion 3.2: Instructional practices that take students’ interests and experiences into account and empower them with authentic opportunities to engage with disciplinary content, practices, and analysis are more effective for a wider range of students than instructional practices that rely solely on lecture, reading, and memorization of content, procedures, and algorithms.
Conclusion 3.3: Students’ experiences in foundational courses are particularly important for their persistence in STEM. Often these courses filter out students rather than deepening their engagement, interest, and understanding of STEM topics. Improving instruction in these courses is an important lever for producing more equitable opportunities and outcomes for undergraduate STEM students.