Highlighting Prosocial Affordances of Science in Textbooks to Promote Science Interest

Abstract

Science stereotypes include robust beliefs that science fields lack opportunities to fulfill prosocial goals. These beliefs reduce student interest in science-especially for racial/ethnic minorities. Highlighting the prosocial utility value of science in textbooks can change these beliefs to promote undergraduate student interest.

Students’ beliefs about agentic engagement: A phenomenological study in urban high school physical science and engineering classes.

“…Consistent with prior research, programs or interventions should also consider appealing to students’ communal motivations for helping others in encouraging them to agentically engage (e.g., “Sharing what you do or do not like will help the teacher better teach you, and it might help your classmates learn better, too”). Though prior research suggests that students from all backgrounds benefit from prosocial or communal rationales (Brown et al, 2015); some research suggests that these may be especially impactful for Latino, Black, and Native/Indigenous groups of people (e.g., Zambrano et al, 2020).…”

“…Consistent with prior research, programs or interventions should also consider appealing to students' communal motivations for helping others in encouraging them to agentically engage (e.g., "Sharing what you do or do not like will help the teacher better teach you, and it might help your classmates learn better, too"). Though prior research suggests that students from all backgrounds benefit from prosocial or communal rationales(Brown et al, 2015); some research suggests that these may be especially impactful for Latino, Black, and Native/Indigenous groups of people (e.g.,Zambrano et al, 2020).The question of what leads students to not implement agentic engagement while believing and stating its positive value was partially explained in this study. Students expressed the benefits of agentic engagement (see Rationales theme), but they also noted a variety of factors that interfered with (or facilitated) implementation in the classroom (see Criteria theme), such as the nature of the student-teacher relationship, student-teacher power dynamics, feeling shy, feeling judged or teased by their peers, and believing that teachers only want to hear from students that perform well in the class, among other factors.…”

“…First, although students may want to voice their opinions and express themselves in class, some female, Black, or Latino students may be reluctant to enact those behaviors due to worry about confirming negative societal and science-specific stereotypes about themselves or their social identity group (Crocker & Major, 1989; Steele et al, 2002). Second, it may be possible that the act of asserting one’s agency is not compatible with female, Black, or Latino students’ cultural or familial values and goals that emphasize communion and interdependence over agency and individualism (Boucher et al, 2017; Jackson et al, 2016; Tyler et al, 2006; Zambrano et al, 2020). Third, it may also be possible that teachers hold biases of female, Black, or Latino students in physical science and engineering, and may inadvertently fail to respond supportively or may ignore or suppress students’ agentic contributions.…”

Investigating engineering undergraduates’ agentic and communal career values in writing responses

“…On the other hand, educators and career counselors can help college students with communal values who are not yet majoring in engineering by showing them that engineering careers allow opportunities to fulfill other-oriented goals (Belanger et al, 2017;Brown et al, 2015;Clark et al, 2016;Diekman et al, 2011;Zambrano et al, 2020). In either scenario, educators and career counselors can leverage written reflections as a tool that offers opportunities for engineering college students to make their own connections between what engineering can offer and how they can find ways to self-actualize.…”

Mediation Analysis in Discipline-Based Education Research Using Structural Equation Modeling: Beyond “What Works” to Understand How It Works, and for Whom

“…For example, we can use mediation analysis to investigate the mediating impact of a student’s prosocial utility value beliefs of biology (using biology to fulfill goals of helping others) as a mediator for the effect of using a textbook with prosocial examples (or a neutral control; the independent variable) on a student’s interest in the topic of biology (dependent variable) ( 7 ). We hypothesize that the textbook condition (prosocial or control) predicts interest through prosocial utility value beliefs.…”