This investigation tests a college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) student buy-in framework and contributes to understanding the social and cognitive factors influencing students in evidence-based teaching contexts. Students’ level of commitment to instructors’ teaching practices can be key to attaining many desired student outcomes of undergraduate STEM education reform.
This methods essay describes a three-stage method for developing progressively less complex visualizations to improve communication about program evaluation with wider audiences by engaging each stakeholder with respect to his or her knowledge of the program and/or his or her knowledge of the evaluation process.
In response to the outbreak of COVID-19 the national landscape of higher education changed quickly and dramatically to move “online” in the Spring semester of 2020. While distressing to both faculty and students, it presents a unique opportunity to explore how students responded to this unexpected and challenging learning situation. In four undergraduate STEM courses that incorporated course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs)—which are often focused on discovery learning and laboratory research—we had an existing study in progress to track students' interest development at five time points over the Spring 2020 semester. Via this ongoing study we were able to investigate how students stay engaged in their college science courses when facing unexpected challenges and obstacles to their learning. Longitudinal survey data from 41 students in these CURE courses demonstrated that students' situational interest dropped significantly when their CURE courses unexpectedly shifted from hands-on, discovery-based, and laboratory-based instruction to online instruction. Although we observed a dramatic decline in student interest in general after the CURE courses moved fully online, the decline rates varied across students. Students who were able to make meaningful connections between the learning activities and their personal or career goals were more likely to maintain a higher level of interest in the course. Implications for practice are discussed.
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