Mini-Grants

Identity (net)working to Support Under-represented STEM Students

Allison Gonsalves & Hannah Chestnutt (McGill University)

2019 Mini-grant Project

Increasing the number of under-represented students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is imperative for furthering Canadian innovation and productivity by increasing the diversity of ideas, experiences and perspectives in STEM fields. Many post-secondary campuses have STEM initiatives to support students by creating a space where a unique set of resources can flow between individuals.

However, few studies have examined the roles that faculty members play in these networks, and their influence on students’ identity work as they move through their academic programs. Using a social network approach, social interactions can be captured to illuminate the …

Updates and Project Proposal

Project Status to Date

All data collection from faculty members is now complete!

We are in the process of completing analysis of survey data and are now doing the qualitative analysis of interview data.

One manuscript has been submitted to The Physics Teacher, and is in review.

We hope to have the qualitative and quantitative analyses completed by February 2020.

The Next Step

Quantitative analysis (survey data, whole network analysis) – this will happen within the next two months.

Qualitative analysis (interview data) will happen within the next two months as well.

Lessons Learned so Far

Survey data collection in the summer is incredibly difficult and attrition from research in the summer time is quite high. Presentations of preliminary data have been met with great interest, especially by members of the Canadian Association of Physicists and the International Network for SNA.

A mixed methods approach in combination with an as yet not used theoretical approach, has made the study difficult to conceptualize at times.

Project Deliverables

We hope a manuscript in submission will be accepted by The Physics Teacher and we have two more manuscripts in preparation for submission to the International Journal of Science Education and The Journal of Further and Higher Education.

More to Share with the SALTISE Community

Preliminary findings have been presented at the following conferences:

SALTISE conference (Montreal, QC)
Canadian Association of Physicists (Burnaby, BC)
Canadian Society for Studies in Education (Vancouver, BC)
Sunbelt International Network for Social Network Analysis (Montreal, QC)
European Science Education Research Association (Bologna, Italy)
Manuscript for publication has been submitted to The Physics Teacher (Coming soon).

Project Status to Date

The first stage of our project involved creating a survey and distributing it to members of a Womens’ Physicists Group (pseudonym) which included physics students, physics faculty and one administrator. The survey was used to evaluate members’ experiences, motivation of participation and the network connections they made.

We administered the questionnaire using LimeSurvey and included questions about who they go to for advice or discussions regarding their physics research and regarding equity issues. The most challenging aspects of this stage of the research was trying to get participation from individuals during the summer months. The other challenge included the time required to learn the ins and outs of using a new survey platform – LimeSurvey

The Next Step

The next phase of this project will involve interviewing faculty. Faculty will be invited to answer questions and invited to construct their own network using paper and pencil to place alters at perceived relational proximity from themselves on a sociogram consisting of a suite of concentric circles. Participants will be asked specifically about who they speak with about research and equity.

These themes were chosen because they emerged as the most salient issues from the preliminary analysis of the survey. The video and audio-recorded interviews will provide qualitative data to aid in establishing explanations for the qualitative SNA findings and a means of checking the results of the qualitative findings related to SNA.

Lessons Learned so Far

So far, we have learned a few lessons that will help us to answer our project question. Our research question is the following:

How do the network positions of university instructors foster or inhibit their access to recognition regarding equitable practices?

Our preliminary findings suggest that when faculty have access to relationships with students through the Womens’ Physicist Group opportunities arise for the brokering of diverse perspectives to foster equity. (Please see file on deliverables for more information.)

Project Deliverables

So far, we have observed the brokering activities of a faculty member whose involvement in the Womens’ Physicists Group appears to be contributing to the fostering of a counter-space. This counter-space appears to be providing students with access to key resources to support their identity work as female physicists.

More to Share with the SALTISE Community

We presented our preliminary findings at the SALTISE conference in June.

Description

[url=/my_lightbox_contents.php?lightboxID=15695804][IMG]http://www.agencija-sk.net/lightbox/moreclips.jpg[/IMG] [/url] — Group of young students using a digital tablet while studying in the library.

Increasing the number of under-represented students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is imperative for furthering Canadian innovation and productivity by increasing the diversity of ideas, experiences and perspectives in STEM fields. The proposed project will collect evidence regarding resources accessed by university instructors to promote more equitable education practices in STEM.

By exploring the networking activity and network structures that support university instructors’ development of equitable practices this study will address the following question: How do the network positions of university instructors foster or inhibit their access to recognition regarding their equitable teaching practices?

This study will thus examine the resources available to instructors through social interactions and the influence of these resources on the development of equitable teaching identities. Participants of this study will be 10 STEM faculty members. Participating faculty will be recruited from the department of Physics, and the Faculty of Engineering – disciplines where women and other minoritized students are historically under-represented. Data collection will focus on their networks within and beyond the boundaries of their faculty.

Data will be collected at two time points: first, from a survey emphasizing social networks faculty draw on when designing courses and seeking out support for equitable instruction. The SNA survey will use a fixed-choice bounded approach for collecting network data and analysed using UCINET. Second, after the first survey is administered, participants will be interviewed using semi-structured interviews focussed on teaching practices and their perspectives on equity and inclusion. Research ethics approval for this study has already been obtained.

This research will be of value to those engaged in faculty development and professional learning communities in STEM disciplines. It will give insight into the development of practices for equitable STEM education at post-secondary level. It is expected this study will generate insights for SALTISE’s community of educators, funders of equity STEM programs, and the wider research community.

Project Evaluation

As this is a research proposal, data will be analyzed through UCINET using social network analysis metrics, and qualitative data will be analyzed thematically to assess how social networks can support faculty identities as equity-minded STEM instructors. Results will be presented at conferences and workshops and will be submitted for peer-review.

Resources

The funds from this project will be used to hire a research assistant to conduct the data collection and analysis. Research assistant will take the lead on collecting data related to this research question, and will assist in analysis and production of conference presentations/workshops and one peer-reviewed article for submission to a higher education journal.

Research team will present results at SALTISE and at McGill in the months of June and July.

Resources Produced

With whom do you discuss issues related to physics research or equity?

Renée’s ego network (Conversations about research and equity)

[easy_media_download url="/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Saltise_MG_GonsalvesChestnutt_2019-.pdf" text="Download" target="_blank" force_dl="1"]

Knowledge and Skills Brought to the Project

Allison Gonsalves is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. Her research explores students’ identity work in relation to science, with an emphasis on understanding the experiences of under-represented students in STEM. Dr. Gonsalves is presently the PI on an FRQSC-funded study examining science major’s engagement in outreach and the impact this has on their career-minded science identities. She is also the PI on a SSHRC-funded study aimed at developing strategies to support novice teachers as they navigate multiple epistemologies of science in their teaching practices with non-dominant youth in outreach contexts. Drs. Gonsalves and Chestnutt have collaborated since 2018 on research examining the role of social networks in under-represented graduate students’ identity work in physics.

Hannah Renée Chestnutt is a researcher and instructor in McGill University’s Department of Integrated Studies in Education. She graduated with a PhD from the University of Glasgow where her doctoral research used a social network analysis approach to explore the potential of professional learning partnerships to ameliorate educational inequity in Scottish schools. Before undertaking doctoral work Dr. Chestnutt was a teacher in Scotland, the United States and Canada. Her experience of more than a decade of teaching young people from diverse backgrounds led to her current interests in equity in education and the use of innovative methodologies such as social network analysis to study inequity.