Gendered Performance Gaps in an Upper-Division Biology Course: Academic, Demographic, Environmental, and Affective Factors.

IF 4.6 2区 教育学 Q1 EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES
Victoria S Farrar, Bianca-Yesenia Cruz Aguayo, Natalia Caporale
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Despite the existent gender parity in undergraduate biology degree attainment, gendered differences in outcomes are prevalent in introductory biology courses. Less is known about whether these disparities persist at the upper-division level, after most attrition is assumed to have occurred. Here, we report the consistent presence of gender equity gaps across 35 offerings (10 years) of a large-enrollment upper-division biology course at a research-intensive public university. Multilevel modeling showed that women's grades were lower than men's, regardless of prior GPA. These gender gaps were present even when controlling for students' race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, first-generation college-going status, international status, and transfer status. Class size, gender representation in the classroom, and instructor gender did not significantly relate to course grades. Student questionnaires in a subset of offerings indicated gendered differences in course anxiety, science identity, and science self-efficacy, which correlated with grade outcomes. These results suggest that women experience differential outcomes in upper-division biology, which may negatively influence their persistence in STEM fields postgraduation. Our findings suggest that gender disparities are a systemic problem throughout the undergraduate biology degree and underscore the need for further examination and transformation of upper-division courses to support all students, even at late stages of their degrees.

高等生物学课程中的性别表现差距:学术、人口、环境和情感因素。
尽管在生物学学士学位获得方面存在性别平等,但在生物学入门课程中,成绩上的性别差异普遍存在。在大多数人员流失被认为已经发生之后,人们对这些差异是否在上级部门持续存在知之甚少。在这里,我们报告了一所研究密集型公立大学的35门(10年)高年级生物课程中持续存在的性别公平差距。多层次模型显示,无论之前的平均成绩如何,女性的成绩都低于男性。即使在控制学生的种族/民族、社会经济地位、第一代大学入学地位、国际地位和转学地位时,这些性别差距也存在。班级规模、课堂上的性别代表性和讲师性别与课程成绩没有显著关系。一部分课程中的学生问卷显示,课程焦虑、科学认同和科学自我效能感存在性别差异,这些差异与成绩相关。这些结果表明,女性在高等生物学领域经历了不同的结果,这可能会对她们毕业后在STEM领域的坚持产生负面影响。我们的研究结果表明,性别差异是整个生物本科学位的一个系统性问题,并强调了进一步考试和改造高年级课程的必要性,以支持所有学生,即使是在学位后期。
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来源期刊
Cbe-Life Sciences Education
Cbe-Life Sciences Education EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES-
CiteScore
6.50
自引率
13.50%
发文量
100
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: CBE—Life Sciences Education (LSE), a free, online quarterly journal, is published by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The journal was launched in spring 2002 as Cell Biology Education—A Journal of Life Science Education. The ASCB changed the name of the journal in spring 2006 to better reflect the breadth of its readership and the scope of its submissions. LSE publishes peer-reviewed articles on life science education at the K–12, undergraduate, and graduate levels. The ASCB believes that learning in biology encompasses diverse fields, including math, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science, and the interdisciplinary intersections of biology with these fields. Within biology, LSE focuses on how students are introduced to the study of life sciences, as well as approaches in cell biology, developmental biology, neuroscience, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, and proteomics.
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