COUNTERING STEREOTYPES AND SHOWCASING DIVERSITY: STUDENTS SHARE PREFERRED PATHWAY TO BROADENING THEIR VIEWS OF SCIENTISTS

Even at the college level, students still hold on to stereotypical views of scientist detailed by Chambers (1983) and others – a white male, in a white lab coat, in an indoor laboratory setting, etc. Efforts are underway in introductory-level STEM courses to introduce university students to diverse and underrepresented scientists and the range of science research environments. Schinske et al. (2016) focused on articles with other supporting sources for students to explore "Scientist Spotlights", while Yonas et al. (2020) utilized Story Collider audio recordings for all of their assignments.

Students in two different introductory-level Earth Science courses at Penn State Brandywine were given assignments to learn about scientists and their work through articles and websites, pre-recorded videos, and through live Zoom interviews. In the general education course Water: Science and Society, a survey at the end of the Spring 2020 semester completed by 47 students captured how students’ perceptions of scientists had changed, and their preferred way to learn about scientists. Students shared they are now aware that scientists are “not mindless drones doing the work, its real living people giving their time to improve our world,” and “many of the people we learned about had a very personal connection to the research they were doing or were very passionate about it, and it makes you want to listen to what they’re saying.” Twenty-eight percent of the students said that prior to the semester they had never had an in-person or virtual interaction with a scientist, and 40% of the students at the end of the semester said their perception of a scientist had not changed, “although I now know you don’t have to be in a lab wearing a lab coat all day to be a scientist.”

When asked to rank their preference for learning about scientists, the most preferred tool was a recorded video, followed by a live interview, a podcast, and then reading an article. Students stated ““A live interview makes this person seem more human” and “more reachable,” while several students said the recorded lecture allowed them to pause the video and go back to review segments as they were taking notes. While this information was collected during a semester with an abrupt transition from face-to-face to remote synchronous instruction, the data can inform future directions for introducing scientist profiles. Additional student feedback will be shared from Summer 2020 course on Food and the Future Environment, where the scientists are being presented through video and live Zoom discussions.