Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Stem Opportunities - High School 2019, Huey-Xian Kelly Wong, Madeleine Rauhauser, Annie Morgan Nelson

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

This publication details the lesson plan for the “Opportunities in STEM” club for the summer of 2019. This club began out of a desire to educate high school students about the opportunities and careers available in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Often, students feel that the prospect of entering a STEM field is daunting and out of their grasp. What it means to be a scientist is often unclear, and students never consider opportunities out of the fear of the unknown, particularly when science is associated with complexity and difficulty. This lesson plan integrates experiments with a wealth …

The Impact Of Mentoring On Life Science Undergraduate Mentors, Kari Nelson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Universities are increasingly encouraging their undergraduates to become mentors to others, yet relatively little research has been done to empirically understand the impact of this work on the mentors themselves. Therefore, the overall goals of this work were: (1) To evaluate the types of studies that have been conducted on the impacts of serving as an undergraduate mentor; (2) To examine the methodological rigor of recent studies and make recommendations for improvement; and (3) To asses if serving as an undergraduate mentor impacted the critical thinking of the mentors, using a valid and reliable instrument, the California Critical Thinking Skills …

Successful Female Students In Undergraduate Computer Science And Computer Engineering: Motivation, Self-Regulation, And Qualitative Characteristics, Melissa Patterson Hazley

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) fields typically have not been successful at recruiting or retaining women students. Research indicates several reasons for this shortage but mainly from three perspectives: social issues, exposure/prior knowledge and curriculum issues in K-12 settings. This mixed-methods research addresses a gap in the literature by investigating the motivation and self-regulation behaviors of successful female students who are studying computer science and computer engineering. The findings in phase one of this study indicated that learning and performance approach goals predicted adaptive strategic self-regulation behaviors including strategy use, knowledge building and engagement. Learning avoidance goals predicted …

Making Their Own Way: The Experiences Of Gay Male Students In Stem Fields, Adam R. Smith

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis focuses on the experiences of gay male undergraduate students in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. These fields are often thought to be very masculine or hyper-genderized, which could conflict with the dominant culture’s perception of a gay student’s identity. It follows, then, that a hypergenderized environment could have negative effects on those who do not identify strongly with the hegemonic masculine identity that may be present in the classroom.

Using phenomenological principles, students were asked to participate in a series of three interviews, which included two reflective exercises designed to explore their experiences in and …