Promising Practices for Addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine Opening Doors (2020) / Chapter Skim
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3 Educational Interventions to Improve Recruitment and Retention
3 Educational Interventions to Improve Recruitment and Retention
Pages 73-90
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From page 73... ...
. Women of color remain underrepresented among undergraduate degree earners in all STEMM fields, including those disciplines in which White women are well represented.
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From page 74... ...
in ways that can mitigate biases against women and improve self-efficacy, belonging, and performance in these disciplines. Interestingly, research shows that many of the interventions described in this chapter, such as growth mindset interventions, active learning, and communicating the societal impact of STEMM, can serve to make these fields more attractive to both women and men and can benefit a range of additional underrepresented groups in STEMM, including underrepresented minority men and first generation college students (i.e., whose parents did not attend college)
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. Thus, ensuring STEMM courses integrate active learning is one strategy to help retain women in STEMM majors throughout college.
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. Across many years of research, Dweck and colleagues have demonstrated that having a growth mindset increases academic performance among middle school, high school, four-year college students, and community college students (Dweck, 2006; Yeager and Dweck, 2012)
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From page 77... ...
scientists conduct research in STEMM increases beliefs that STEMM careers broadly satisfy communal ambitions and enhance both male and female students' positive attitudes toward those careers. Illuminating one such intervention, STEMM classes can incorporate helping-focused projects to encourage beliefs that STEMM fields value communal aims (Belanger et al., 2017)
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From page 78... ...
Changing the structure of STEMM classes requires the involvement and commitment of STEMM instructors, and some may not feel comfortable or know how to incorporate techniques that can support active learning or growth mindset in their courses. To address this issue, STEMM education researchers have developed successful training and workshops that can teach instructors about these classroom techniques.
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(2019) found that when students believed their STEMM instructors have a growth mindset compared to a fixed mindset, they are more likely to believe that STEMM environments afford communal goals, which ultimately relates to higher interest in STEMM majors and careers.
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demonstrated that women from community colleges are more likely to persist in STEMM fields if they are given BOX 3-1 The Importance of Considering Post-Traditional Students Historically, the conception of STEMM undergraduates has been that they are college ready, enroll in college or university full time, enroll the fall after high school graduation, live on campus, do not work while enrolled in school, and complete a bachelor's degree in 4 years (Brown, 2017)
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For instance, female students perform worse on a math test when they are in a setting with majority male students as opposed to majority female students (Inzlicht and Ben-Zeev, 2000)
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When it is not possible to have women majority groups, it also may be helpful to address the biases of the male students in STEMM classes. Women and underrepresented minority STEMM majors report facing unwelcoming environments in their STEMM class from fellow students (Hurtado et al., 2007; Robnett and Thoman, 2017; Steele et al., 2002)
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. Consequently, even brief exposure to a woman scientist role model enhances female students' identification with and interest in STEMM (Ramsey et al., 2013; Stout et al., 2011)
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This finding is pertinent to recruiting female engineering majors into the STEMM workforce, as well as retaining female engineers from college into STEMM careers. With regard to retaining female scientists after college, having supportive role models in their workplace also encourages belonging among women established in their STEMM careers (Richman et al., 2011)
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Nevertheless, these initial studies suggest that when presenting women with role models to broaden their future selves and spark self-efficacy, belonging, and interest in STEMM, it will be important that these interventions feature female scientists with multiple identities aside from gender. CREATING INCLUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH MENTORING Scientists can act as role models and impact women's perceptions of STEMM fields, even when women lack direct contact with the scientists.
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Beyond providing support and career advice, mentors can also help enhance female students' interest in STEMM by providing valuable research opportunities in STEMM laboratories. Research experiences in general encourage students (particularly those from underrepresented groups)
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From page 87... ...
. The Investing Now program, also managed through the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering, is a college preparatory program created "to stimulate, support, and recognize the high academic performance of pre-college students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors and careers." Programming includes advising, tutoring, mentoring, workshops, summer enrichment programs, and parental involvement (University of Pittsburgh, 2019a)
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From page 88... ...
Mentors therefore may play a vital role in ensuring the success of women in STEMM; however, because of the pervasive masculine stereotypes in STEMM, both male and female STEMM faculty may be less interested in mentoring female students than male students (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012)
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, and hence researchers should continue testing how male scientists can effectively signal that they care about helping women in STEMM and are allies. FINDINGS: CHAPTER 3 FINDING 3-1: To improve the representation of women in STEMM will require interventions to improve recruitment and retention of female students throughout their STEMM educational careers, including K-12.
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From page 90... ...
as opposed to how (i.e., running experiments) scientists conduct research in STEMM increases beliefs that STEMM careers broadly satisfy communal ambitions and enhances both male and female students' positive attitudes toward those careers.
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