Low-stakes Scientist Spotlight Assignment Demonstrates High Value and Multiple Effects for Introductory Biology Students

INTRODUCTION

Despite the fact that the number of people from minoritized groups, such as women and people of color, who choose STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) majors for their undergraduate degree is steadily increasing, retention rates continue to be lower for students from these groups. For some groups, the rates are as much as 50% lower than for corresponding nonminoritized groups (Institute of Medicine, 2011). These trends are concerning for the students themselves and for society because STEM degrees can be lucrative, there are projected shortfalls in the STEM workforce, and groups made up of diverse individuals are better able to solve problems (PCAST, 2012; National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2023). Therefore, increasing diversity by retaining students from minoritized groups remains a priority (Asai, 2020).

To create educational environments that foster diversity, equity, and justice, researchers have begun to design interventions that support a multicultural STEM education, such as representing diverse scientists in curricular materials. Multicultural learning is grounded in equity, centering culturally-diverse perspectives, funds of knowledge, and identities in order to promote empathy and strong STEM identity development among all future scholars (Casto, 2022). Traditional STEM curricular materials, such as textbooks, often reflect the historical dominance of white men in science fields instead of today's increasingly diverse scientific workforce (Wood et al., 2020). Unsurprisingly, many students believe that a majority of scientists conform to the image of a middle-aged, white male in a lab coat who works without the assistance of anyone else (Mead and Métraux, 1957; Schinske et al., 2015; Zuckerman and Lo, 2022). Holding these stereotypes has repeatedly been shown to be harmful to the development of STEM identity, belonging, interest, and self-efficacy for students in groups that are stereotyped to be “bad at STEM” (Cundiff et al., 2013; Starr, 2018; Lytle and Shin, 2020; Luo et al., 2021; Nguyen and Riegle-Crumb, 2021). That can contribute to deterioration of student interest and feelings of belonging in STEM (Seymour and Hewitt, 1997; Cheryan et al., 2009; PCAST, 2012; Master et al., 2016). Research on identity and belonging has identified that these feelings of not belonging in STEM are particularly widespread among students from minoritized backgrounds (Cheryan et al., 2009; PCAST, 2012). In contrast, in multicultural STEM education, instructors can provide examples of counterstereotypical individuals in STEM (Casto, 2022), which can shift student perceptions of what type of people do science and promote greater willingness to pursue STEM fields (Oyserman et al., 2002; Cheryan et al., 2013). If students have a strong sense of belonging, in other words if they feel that they themselves, their ideas and perspectives are valued in a given context, they are more likely to be retained in STEM and to have greater academic achievement, self-efficacy, and more (Chemers et al., 2011; Estrada et al., 2011; Wilson et al., 2015; Banchefsky et al., 2019; Xu and Lastrapes, 2022).

One intervention that has been introduced to enhance the representation of diverse scientists in science courses is the Scientist Spotlight. The Scientist Spotlight is a homework assignment that highlights a specific scientist of a minoritized or counterstereotypical background, their research or field of study, and a personal anecdote about them (www.scientistspotlights.org) (Schinske et al., 2016). Previous studies have found that Scientist Spotlights can reduce stereotypical perceptions of scientists in students and improve student grades (Schinske et al., 2016; Brandt et al., 2020; Yonas et al., 2020; Aranda et al., 2021; Metzger et al., 2023; Ovid et al., 2023).

These effects of Scientist Spotlights can be explained using the theory of “possible selves,” which has undergirded much of the previous research on the impact of Scientist Spotlights (Schinske et al., 2016; Aranda et al., 2021; Metzger et al., 2023; Ovid et al., 2023). Possible selves are the “hopes, fears, and fantasies” that an individual uses to define themselves (Markus and Nurius, 1986). Notably, possible selves can be greatly influenced by an individual's surrounding environment (Markus and Nurius, 1986). For instance, when students are exposed to rigid stereotypes about scientists, their possible selves can be narrowed, and this can therefore cause students from minoritized groups to see science careers as less possible (Lips, 2004; Wonch Hill et al., 2017). Possible selves theory also predicts that Scientist Spotlights, through highlighting counterstereotypical depictions of real scientists, could provide students with a broader range of possible selves. In alignment with this prediction, research on Scientist Spotlights has consistently shown that these assignments increase student perceptions of how relatable scientists are (Schinske et al., 2016; Brandt et al., 2020; Yonas et al., 2020; Aranda et al., 2021; Metzger et al., 2023; Ovid et al., 2023).

However, it is unclear whether the full impacts of Scientist Spotlights on students are captured by the theory of possible selves. For example, there is evidence that Scientist Spotlights can also increase self-efficacy in science: secondary school students presented with Scientist Spotlights had an increased sense of their own ability to do science (Ovid et al., 2023). Scientist Spotlights assignments might also increase student motivation to learn or study, given that students exposed to Scientist Spotlights rather than typical course-reader assignments had increased course grades (Schinske et al., 2016). The literature on providing diverse role models suggests that in general, these role models may increase motivation for pursuing the sciences through acting as behavioral models or being inspirational as well as representing the possible (Morgenroth et al., 2015). Previous studies on Scientist Spotlights might not have captured additional effects because most of them have either relied on close-ended survey questions or narrowly focused their open-ended questions on student perceptions of scientists (Schinske et al., 2016; Yonas et al., 2020; Metzger et al., 2023; Ovid et al., 2023). For example, the original paper describing Scientist Spotlights asked students to answer close-ended Likert-scale questions about science interest and to respond to the open-ended prompts, “Based on what you know now, describe the types of people that do science.” and, “Please explain your opinion of the statement, ‘I know of one or more important scientists to whom I can personally relate.’” (Schinske et al., 2016). Therefore, these studies might not have necessarily found effects beyond the ones the authors investigated.

To find additional impacts of Scientist Spotlights beyond those previously hypothesized, it is important to use an open-ended approach to allow the students to express their ideas about whether and how the assignments affected them (Birenbaum and Tatsuoka, 1987; Hubbard et al., 2017). One useful construct for thinking about the impact of an assignment is value because higher perceived value can be a crucial factor for motivating students to complete and learn from assignments (Wigfield and Eccles, 2000; Hulleman and Harackiewicz, 2009). A previous study did find that the vast majority of students in a biology course said that these Scientist Spotlight assignments were at least “somewhat valuable,” but it did not break down this value further (Yonas et al., 2020). One theory that characterizes value is expectancy-value theory, which has been used in past literature as an interpretative lens to assess student motivation, self-efficacy, science identity, and other constructs salient to a student's course experience (Hulleman et al., 2016). According to expectancy-value theory, value can be categorized into instrumental value, derived from external rewards like grades; intrinsic value, derived from being enjoyable or interesting; and attainment value, derived from a task's relationship to identity or self (Wigfield and Eccles, 2000). High instrumental value can sometimes motivate students to learn but can also diminish the effects of high intrinsic value, thereby making students less motivated overall (Deci et al., 1999; Liu et al., 2023). On the other hand, high intrinsic value correlates with focused attention, deeper information processing and increased learning outcomes (Renninger and Hidi, 2011), while high attainment value correlates with cognitive engagement and intentions to continue one's education (Eccles et al., 1993; Battle and Wigfield, 2003; Johnson and Sinatra, 2013). According to expectancy-value theory, then, Scientist Spotlights would then generally have low instrumental value because they usually are low-stakes and graded for completion (Schinske et al., 2016). However, previous literature indicates that their intrinsic and attainment values might be high. According to previous studies, students indicate that they enjoy these assignments (Brandt et al., 2020; Yonas et al., 2020), learn many lessons about scientists from them (Schinske et al., 2016; Yonas et al., 2020), and increase their perceptions of their own abilities as scientists (Ovid et al., 2023), an effect that might be more pronounced for students from minoritized groups (Yonas et al., 2020; Metzger et al., 2023).

If Scientist Spotlights do have high value to students, in what ways are they providing value? To categorize the multiple possible effects of the Scientist Spotlight assignment, we attempt to use the “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” framework (Bishop, 1990). This framework, which was originally developed to describe the impact of diversifying children's literature, describes different ways reading stories can positively impact students’ perceptions of themselves and the world around them. Some stories are “windows,” endowing a student with the ability to observe the realities of others; some stories are “mirrors,” giving a student the ability to see themselves reflected in the literature; and some stories are “sliding doors,” inviting students to “walk through and become integrated with” the world shown in the story (Bishop, 1990; McNair and Edwards, 2021). This framework has been enormously influential in K-12 education and has led teachers and libraries to intentionally provide children with books featuring diverse protagonists and environments (Cahill et al., 2021; McNair and Edwards, 2021). While this framework has rarely been applied in STEM or to higher education, there is reason to believe that it might be appropriate for college STEM learners. College students, especially those who are relatively early in their college careers, are still forming their STEM identities, and previous research has found that exposing them to counterstereotypical STEM researchers can influence their ideas about who belongs in STEM (Cheryan et al., 2013; Dika and D'Amico, 2016). According to this framework, for various students, Scientist Spotlights might function as a “window” into the lives of counterstereotypical scientists, a “mirror” for the diverse identities of students to be validated and represented, and a “sliding glass door” for students to walk through into the world of science. These functions are not mutually exclusive, and it is possible that, for example, students who experience the Scientist Spotlights as “sliding glass doors” also experience them as “windows,” just as sliding glass doors act as windows in real life (Bishop, 1990). Therefore, to understand the full value of Scientist Spotlights on students, it is useful to know whether students experience multiple effects from the Scientist Spotlights and, if so, how these effects relate to each other.

It is also important to understand what factors might influence which students find the Scientist Spotlights valuable. For example, possible selves theory might predict that Scientist Spotlights would be especially impactful for students with identities that match those of the featured counterstereotypical scientists. While some studies have shown larger effects for students who perceive that the Scientist Spotlights highlight scientists with whom they share identities (Yonas et al., 2020) or for students from particular minoritized groups (Metzger et al., 2023), other studies do not find such differences (Schinske et al., 2016; Aranda et al., 2021; Ovid et al., 2023). However, the “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” framework predicts that different students might find Scientist Spotlights assignments valuable for different reasons, so there might not be stronger effects for minoritized students.

Therefore, in this study, we seek to uncover novel impacts of Scientist Spotlights by analyzing whether and in what ways these assignments are valuable to students. To do that, we use a mixed-methods, grounded theory approach to analyze open-ended postcourse Final Reflections, a research design that can capture a full range of effects of these assignments. Our specific research questions are:

1. Did students mention Scientist Spotlights disproportionately frequently given the assignment's low instrumental value?

2. What effects did the students cite for Scientist Spotlights, how do these effects relate to each other, and how do these effects fit with the “mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors” framework?

3. To what extent does the frequency of mentioning certain effects of Scientist Spotlights vary by demographic characteristics?

We hypothesize that the Scientist Spotlight intervention, despite its low instrumental value, will be mentioned in many student's Final Reflection on the course, suggesting that these assignments are valuable to students overall. We also hypothesize that students will discuss the ways in which the assignment was valuable to them by mentioning a rich collection of impacts the Scientist Spotlights have had on them, including those relating to them being “windows” showing students the world of science, “mirrors” showing students that people like themselves can be scientists, and “sliding glass doors” encouraging students to enter science. Finally, because students from minoritized groups often see less representation of their identities in STEM, we predict that we will see these Scientist Spotlight–related ideas more frequently in their Final Reflections.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Positionality

Members of our research team have a variety of minoritized identities, including Hispanic, Asian, first-generation college-going, low-income, and queer. A.T.R. conceived this study after encountering Scientist Spotlight assignments in her undergraduate coursework. They allowed her to see herself, for the first time, as a possible scientist and inspired her to continue pursuing her STEM degree. She is now a doctoral student in developmental psychology and education. S.C. and J.K. are current biology undergraduates who were drawn to this study from their experiences growing up in nondiverse communities. S.C. feels that learning STEM is empowering, so equitable representation in STEM is important for an equitable world. M.T.O., a neuroscientist by training, is a discipline-based education researcher and biology instructor who has benefitted from having Asian and white parents who went to college and who valued and were able to financially support her excellence in school. She now recognizes her privilege and implemented Scientist Spotlights to show her students, many of whom do not share her background, diverse possible selves beyond herself. All of us are strongly committed to improving equity, diversity, and justice in STEM higher education.

Study Context and Population

Our study was conducted at a large, West Coast, public R1 university. Participants were students in a quarter-long introductory biology course for biology majors that focuses on animal and plant physiology. We chose this course because it contains many Scientist Spotlights and the students were generally early in their college biology careers, which might mean their science identities might still be forming (Dika and D'Amico, 2016). Student data were collected in the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 quarters. In Fall 2020, the course was taught remotely, while in Spring 2021, the course was taught in-person. Author M.T.O. taught the course in both quarters.

Nearly all the students in the course were included in the dataset. A total of 230 students were enrolled in the course across those two quarters. To be included in the Final Reflection analysis, students had to submit a Final Reflection assignment (described below). We found 208 students submitted a Final Reflection, for a participation rate of 90% (208/230). To be included in the demographics analysis, students also had to share their demographic information in a precourse survey meant to gain insight into their prior experience with biology. The survey was graded for completion, and the demographic questions were not required. Demographic data on participants are available in Table 1. Nearly all the students who wrote a Final Reflection also gave their demographic information: 98% shared their gender (204/208), 98% shared their first-generation college-going status (204/208), 98% shared their race (203/208), and 93% shared their LGBTQ+ status (194/208). Thus, only 16% (36/230) of students were excluded from any analysis for missing data.

Human Subjects approval was granted by UCSD IRB #170886. As part of the consent procedure, students were notified in the syllabus and at the beginning of the term that their survey responses and assignments, among other artifacts from the course, could be analyzed for research purposes. They were given the option to “opt-out” of having their data analyzed as part of the study by filling out a Google Form that was monitored by someone from outside of the research team. If any students had opted out, that person would have informed the research team after the term ended. No students opted out. To preserve confidentiality, before analysis, the instructor M.T.O. removed all personally identifying information, such as names and student ID numbers, from survey responses and Final Reflections. That information was replaced with a different, unrelated number that was unique to each student, allowing us to match the deidentified survey responses and Final Reflections.

Scientist Spotlight Assignments

Fall 2020 (Quarter 1) had seven Scientist Spotlights assignments, and Spring 2021 (Quarter 2) had eight Scientist Spotlights assignments. In some cases, some students saw different Scientist Spotlights than other students. The Scientist Spotlights used in the course were either created by authors M.T.O. or A.T.R. or modified from publicly available Scientist Spotlights on www.scientistspotlights.org. All followed the standard Scientist Spotlights template, which includes a photo, a brief biographical description of the scientist, links to a biographical source and the scientist's research or scientific work, and homework questions the student must answer, including those that are science-related and the metacognitive question, “What do these articles tell you about the types of people that do science?” (Scientist Spotlights Initiative, 2024). Students were told at the beginning of the term that these assignments should take roughly an hour each, but the assignments were not timed as students submitted them through uploading their final submission into the online learning management system. Scientist Spotlight assignments were graded only for on-time completion, not for correctness. An example Scientist Spotlight used in the course is available in the Supplemental Materials along with a list of all featured scientists (Supplemental Table S1). All Scientist Spotlights used in the course are available upon request.

Final Reflection Assignment

To qualitatively analyze student ideas and feelings, we investigated the student's responses to the course's Final Reflection assignment. At the conclusion of the term, students were asked to write at least 800 words in response to the prompt, “What did you learn from your experiences in [this course] this quarter that will continue to influence you for years to come?” The complete text of the assignment instructions is available in the Supplemental Materials. Final Reflections were due the weekend after the course's final exam to allow students to reflect on their entire course experience. The assignment was graded only for on-time completion and meeting or exceeding 800 words. Final Reflections were deidentified prior to study to protect student privacy.

Analysis of Final Reflections for Course Components

To qualitatively estimate the collective student-given value of Scientist Spotlights relative to their actual course point values, we measured how often the various components of the course were mentioned in the Final Reflections. We created a coding guide that included all the course components mentioned in the syllabus's “point breakdown” table that were worth more than 5% of the total points in the course and, separately, the Scientist Spotlights. (In the syllabus, the Scientist Spotlights were grouped together with other “Biologist Journal” prereading assignments.) The list of coded course components is included in Table 2.

Deductive coding was performed using the software QDA Miner. Coders S.C. and J.K. independently coded 10% of all Reflections, and their coding was compared. If the coders disagreed on more than 15% of the Reflections on any code, they discussed their coding and altered the coding guide to better define the codes. Then, the coders again coded an additional 10% of all Reflections, and inter-rater reliability was calculated again. This cycle was repeated until the coders could agree on each code more than 85% of the time. We then calculated Cohen's kappa, another measure of inter-rater reliability that takes into account agreement by chance (Cohen, 1977; Landis and Koch, 1977). Inter-rater reliability as measured by percent agreement ranged from 72 to 100% (Table 2), and Cohen's kappas ranged from 0.62 to 1.00 (Supplemental Table S2). The coders then coded the rest of the Final Reflections independently.

To identify the percentage of total points in the quarter that were assigned to each course component, we looked in the syllabus. For each quarter, the syllabus listed each course component, the total number of points available in the course, and what percentage of the course points was derived from each course component.

Qualitative Coding of Final Reflections for Ideas Related to Scientist Spotlights

We also conducted thematic analysis on the Final Reflections to find codes and themes relating to Scientist Spotlights or featured scientists (Saldaña, 2016). Qualitative coding was conducted using the software QDA Miner. In brief, an initial coder (A.R.) conducted a preliminary read-through of 10% of the Final Reflections and identified those Reflections that contained any ideas about Scientist Spotlights or the featured scientists. They then performed inductive coding, creating an initial “coding guide” with codes consisting of ideas that frequently emerged. We chose inductive coding because we wanted to capture the full variety of ideas that students shared about Scientist Spotlights without imposing a formal structure derived from any particular theory or framework. Segments of student responses could be coded for more than one code if the student expressed multiple ideas in that segment. To refine the coding guide and establish inter-rater reliability, an additional coder (S.C.) was trained. The two coders then independently coded an additional 10% of all Reflections, and their coding was compared. If the coders disagreed on more than 15% of the Reflections for any code, they discussed their coding and altered the coding guide to better define the codes. Then, the coders again coded an additional 10% of all Reflections, and inter-rater reliability was calculated again. This cycle was repeated until the coders could agree on each code more than 85% of the time. The final inter-rater agreement and Cohen's kappa were calculated using 20% of all Reflections. For these codes, inter-rater reliability as measured by percent agreement ranged from 88 to 100% (Table 3), while Cohen's kappas ranged from 0.00 to 1.00 (Supplemental Table S2). The coders then coded the rest of the Final Reflections independently. After finalizing the coding guide, the codes were grouped by hand into broader categories, here called themes.

Relation of Themes to Each Other

To analyze the relationship of our themes to each other, we first used chi-square tests to see whether students who cited a code in one of the themes were more likely to cite a code in one of the other themes. Effect sizes were calculated using Cramér's V in Google Sheets (Rea and Parker, 1992). To see whether these relationships were reciprocal, we calculated the percentage of students citing a particular theme who also cited another theme. For example, to calculate the percentage of students who cited theme A given theme B, we created a fraction where the number of students who cited both themes was the numerator and the number of students who cited theme B, regardless of whatever else they wrote, was the denominator.

Analyses of Demographic Data

We collected student self-reported demographic data using a precourse survey in Qualtrics. The precourse survey was a required assignment, but students did not have to answer every question to receive credit. The demographics questions in the survey are included as part of the Supplemental Materials. The analyzed demographic variables were gender, LGBTQ+ status, first-generation-college-going status, and race or ethnicity. Most students identified as either women or men for their gender, so we grouped students who identified as women or nonbinary into the minoritized group “non-men,” and the nonminoritized group “men.” For LGBTQ+ status, we grouped students into the minoritized group “LGBTQ+” and the nonminoritized group “non-LGBTQ+” for students who explicitly identified as such. Students who selected “Decline to state” were not included in the analysis. For race and ethnicity, we grouped anyone who selected any of the choices “Black/African-American,” “Latino/a/Chicano/Hispanic,” or “Native American/Alaska Native” together in the group “Racially and Ethnically Minoritized” (REM) regardless of which other ethnicities they selected. Students were categorized as non-REM if they only selected “Asian/Asian-American,” “Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander,” “SWANA (Southwest Asian/North African/Middle Eastern),” and/or “white/European-American.” Students who only chose “Decline to state” or who only wrote in an ethnicity that did not fall in the above categories were excluded from analysis.

Quantitative analyses were performed in Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, and JASP. Chi-squared tests were performed to find associations between the frequency of mentioning Scientist Spotlights at all or stating particular codes or themes with demographic groups. Kruskal–Wallis tests were performed to find associations between demographic groups and the number of codes, themes, or words students wrote per Reflection. Kruskal–Wallis tests were chosen because the distribution of codes, themes, and number of words was not expected to be normal. We adjusted p-values using Bonferroni correction.

RESULTS

Scientist Spotlights are Mentioned Disproportionately Often Relative to their Point Value

We first coded how often students mentioned various components of the course (Table 2). We discovered that despite Scientist Spotlights contributing on average only 5.2% to the overall grade, a notable 49.5% (103/208) of all students referenced them. Students in both quarters showed this trend: in Fall, 41.1% (44/107) mentioned Scientist Spotlights while in Spring 2021, 57.4% (58/101) of students mentioned Scientist Spotlights. In contrast, exams, comprising the highest proportion at 66.9% of the grade, were cited by a more comparable 73.6% (153/208) of students (Table 2).

The Scientist Spotlight Assignment Evoked Multiple Ideas about Diversity, Self-efficacy, and Humanizing Scientists

After using thematic analysis to find common codes and themes, we found 36 codes organized into three themes. A full coding guide is included in the supplemental materials, while the themes and the two most common codes in each theme are included in Table 3. The themes were diversity in science (cited by 38.9% [81/208] of all students), self-efficacy (27.4%, [57/208]), and humanizing scientists (25.5% [53/208]). Below, we will discuss the most common codes and illustrate them with student quotes; the bolded text in each quote directly reflects the discussed theme or code.

The theme diversity in science appeared most often in student responses. The codes in this theme represent a students’ realization that the field of science is diverse or that scientists have diverse or nonstereotypical qualities. In this context, “diverse” is defined as coming from a minoritized background or having qualities that the student deems to be nonconventional or nonstereotypical for scientists. An example of a code categorized under diversity in science is, “There's more than one path to do science.” This code was assigned this student quote about the featured scientist Vivien Thomas, who became a decorated scientist despite not having completed college: “Not going to medical school and having and acquiring the skills and knowledge that he had is amazing. … He proved to society that you do not need to be white or extremely educated in order to do science or to even learn at that.” In some cases, students explicitly highlighted minoritized identities. For example, one student said, “Before, I would see the science field as only a predominantly white cis-gendered male occupation. This was due to how the media portrays scientists to everyone around the world. I knew that this was not the case, but whenever I thought of science I thought of only white cis-gendered men,” a quote that was coded “Student had bias.” However, more often, students mentioned qualities that did not have to do with minoritized identities. The two most common codes within the diversity in science theme were also the two most common codes overall: “Scientists have non-identity qualities” (14.9% [31/208] of all Reflections) and “Generic/nonidentity diversity of scientists” (13.5% [28/208]). “Scientists have nonidentity qualities” was coded when a student stated that scientists possessed a discrete nonidentity-related quality, such as being hardworking or creative. We classed this code under the diversity in science theme because most of these qualities represented positive views of scientists that were not negative stereotypes. Examples of student quotes that represent this code are: “Another common thread I learned from the biologist journals was that you have to be ambitious and determined to make significant scientific contributions,” and “Learning more about what it takes to be a scientist/biologist captivated me because of the motivation and drive these individuals are so adamant about.” The second most prominent code, “Generic/nonidentity diversity of scientists,” was coded when a student talked about scientists’ diversity in general terms or in ways that did not mention demographic characteristics, such as scientists having diverse backgrounds. Examples of quotes that represent this code are, “The biologist journals made me realize how diverse and creative scientists are, they all came from different upbringings and somehow ended up in the same field researching what they were passionate about,” and “To start off, the most important thing I learned that was emphasized a lot was that the people who do science come from a variety of backgrounds.”

The second most common theme was self-efficacy. Codes within this theme relate to student's views of whether they or other people are capable of being scientists. An example of this is the code “Can be proud of identities and still do science,” which we found in this quote: “Dr. Guthman is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and, as a member of the community myself, I was deeply inspired by the work and representation that Dr. Guthman has provided. Dr. Guthman faced adversities and discrimination in her field and throughout her [life] but has still been able to make some incredible discoveries which has inspired me as a scientist to persevere through any hardships I might face.” The two most common codes within self-efficacy were, “Increase in confidence in their ability to do science” (10.1% [21/208] of all Final Reflections) and “Anyone can do science” (9.6% [20/208]). The code, “Increase in confidence in their ability to do science” was coded when the student had a positive shift in the way they would view their future journey in science. For example, this quote from a student demonstrates how reading about the scientists from the Spotlight assignment encouraged them to stay in STEM: “Reading about these scientists encouraged me to keep trying with my current STEM major rather than switching out. A lot of them faced bumps in the road prior to making their discoveries or becoming scientists, so I consider the struggles I'm going through right now as my bumps in the road.” The second most common code in this theme was, “Anyone can do science.” For this code, student responses expressed the idea that, regardless of identity or background, anyone could be in science. Students who referenced this idea often stated that, by seeing the diversity in the field of science depicted in the Scientist Spotlights assignment, they now believed that the field had room for anyone to succeed: “The reading assignments regarding the research done on scientists allowed me to understand that the world of science is not limited to a specific gender or race, but that anyone can perform science if they'd like.”

The third most prominent theme was humanizing scientists. This theme showcased responses where students referred to a quality or experience of a scientist and deemed it to be relatable to them. Its two most common codes were “Scientists face challenges” (9.6% [20/208]) and “Scientists are people” (6.7% [14/208]). For the code “Scientists face challenges,” students mentioned the concept that scientists struggle. Students often found that surprising because they implicitly assumed that scientists have perfect knowledge or a smooth path all of the time. An example student quote was, “But all of the Scientist Spotlight journals have highlighted that not only does everyone go through struggles, but also that there is so much to explore in science.” For the code “Scientists are people,” students mentioned a scientist's personal lives, hobbies, or identities that were not related to their scientific work. Students often believed that scientists are devoted to their science above all else, so they found these other aspects of their lives remarkable. An example is, “Not only that, but the scientists had other interests than whatever they were studying or researching which made them seem more human. I feel like knowing this makes me more comfortable with the word scientist and what it means.”

Most Students who Mentioned Codes Relating to Self-efficacy or Humanizing Scientists also Mentioned Codes Relating to Diversity in Science

We noticed that many students cited multiple effects of Scientist Spotlights and desired to know whether certain types of effects tended to occur together and, if so, whether those relationships were one-way or reciprocal. We found that the majority of the students who mentioned the Scientist Spotlights were affected by them in multiple ways, shown through the presence of several codes from different themes in a single response. Students who referenced Scientist Spotlights in their Final Reflections mentioned a median of 3.5 codes (first quartile (Q1) − third quartile (Q3) 2-5) across two themes (Q1−Q3 2-3). For example, one quote with multiple themes is: “I especially resonated with one of the people mentioned in the journal because as a child who comes from immigrant parents as well I related with his story and to see how far he was able to get it gives me hope that I could have success like that.” The part of the quote that says, “as a child who comes from immigrant parents as well I related with his story” was coded with the code “shared identity with a highlighted scientist” from the theme humanizing scientists, and the part of the quote that says, “to see how far he was able to get it gives me hope that I could have success like that” was coded with the code “increase in confidence in ability to do science” in the theme self-efficacy.

To see whether the frequency of a certain theme differed with the presence of other themes, we first performed chi-squared tests to see whether certain themes were more likely to be mentioned together within an individual student's Final Reflection. We found that among students who mentioned Scientist Spotlights, students who cited a code that fell under self-efficacy were also significantly more likely to cite a diversity-related code (p < 0.001) with a moderate effect size (Cramér's V = 0.39) (Rea and Parker, 1992). Similarly, students who cited a humanizing scientists-related code were also significantly more likely to cite a diversity-related code (p = 0.031) with a moderate effect size (Cramér's V = 0.25). However, students who cited a self-efficacy-related code were not significantly more likely to cite a humanizing scientists–related code (p = 0.19).

To explore whether these relationships were one-way or reciprocal, we calculated the percentage of students who mentioned each theme given mention of another theme (Figure 1). We found that out of the 57 students who mentioned a self-efficacy–related code, nearly all of them (93.0% [53/57]) also mentioned a diversity-related code. (In Figure 1, this calculation is represented as “Diversity Given Self-Efficacy.”) In contrast, out of the 81 students who mentioned a diversity-related code, only 65.4% (53/81) mentioned a self-efficacy–related code (Figure 1). Similarly, out of the 53 students who mentioned a humanizing scientists–related code, a substantial percentage of them (88.7% [47/53]) also mentioned a diversity-related code. However, only 58.0% (47/81) of the 81 students who mentioned a diversity-related code also chose to mention a humanizing scientists–related code (Figure 1). These large asymmetries were not observed in the relationship between the themes humanizing scientists and self-efficacy. Of the 53 students who mentioned a humanizing scientists–related code, 64.2% (34/53) also mentioned a self-efficacy–related code, while of the 57 students who mentioned a self-efficacy–related code, 59.6% (34/57) also mentioned a humanizing scientists–related code (Figure 1). Thus, most students who mentioned self-efficacy or humanizing themes also mentioned the diversity theme, but not the other way around.

The Emergent Themes can be Interpreted Through the Lens of the “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors” Framework

The three themes that emerged seem to roughly align with the “mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors” of the framework. Students who cited the theme humanizing scientists experienced the stories of scientists and found characteristics that made them believe that scientists were human beings like themselves (Table 3). This corresponds to the idea of Scientist Spotlights as “mirrors” reflecting a student's own life (Bishop, 1990). On the other hand, students who cited the theme diversity in science noted their surprise that the science field and scientists themselves were so diverse, therefore forging a “window” into the field of science (Table 3) (Bishop, 1990). Finally, students who cited the theme self-efficacy highlighted the Scientists Spotlights as a platform to uplift themselves or other people to enter or persevere in science (Table 3). In other words, the Scientist Spotlights can function as a “sliding glass door” that can invite a student to walk into, or further into, a scientific field (Bishop, 1990).

Students from Minoritized Groups were Mostly not More Likely to Discuss Scientist Spotlights or Cite Particular Types of Impacts

We also wanted to know whether demographic characteristics such as holding a minoritized identity correlated with mentioning Scientist Spotlights assignments or citing particular themes or codes. The minoritized groups we examined were students who identified as non-men, REM (racially or ethnically minoritized), first-generation-college-going, or LGBTQ+.

Overall, the proportion of students who mentioned the Scientist Spotlights or any particular theme was similar among students generally and students in particular groups (Figure 2A). We found no significant differences in the frequency of mentioning Scientist Spotlights among members of minoritized and the corresponding nonminoritized groups for any group (p-values between 0.15 and 1) (Figure 2A). We also did not find any significant difference between the frequency of expression of any themes between the minoritized and nonminoritized group for any group (p-values between 0.20 and 1) (Figure 2, B–E). To see whether there might be subtle differences at the level of individual codes, we also examined the frequency of the two most common codes in each theme among students in different groups (Table 4). We did not see any significant differences (p-values between 0.46 and 1) (Table 4).

Finally, we compared the average number of themes (Figure 3A) and codes (Figure 3B) in members of each demographic group in their Final Reflections. We found no significant differences between the members of any group and the corresponding nonminoritized group for the number of themes (p-values between 0.32 and 1). For the numbers of codes, we found no differences by REM status, college-going-generation status, or LGBTQ+ status. However, we found that non-men cited a slightly higher number of codes than men (p = 0.044). Non-men, which included women and those identifying outside of a binary gender, cited a median of 4 codes (Q1 − Q3 3-5), while men cited a median of 3 codes (Q1 − Q3 1-4) (Figure 3B). Because the number of codes could differ if members of different groups wrote lengthier Reflections, we also compared the number of words in the whole Final Reflections written by the members of various minoritized groups and the corresponding nonminoritized groups. We did not see any significant differences for any group (p-values between 0.424 and 1.00).

DISCUSSION

We found that despite the low instrumental value of the Scientist Spotlight assignments in terms of points, nearly half of students believed that Scientist Spotlights were valuable and would influence them “for years to come.” Students stated ideas relating to the themes diversity in science, self-efficacy, and humanizing scientists. These effects were seen in students both from minoritized and nonminoritized groups.

To What Extent did Students Find Value in the Scientist Spotlight Assignments?

We examined the perceived value of the Scientist Spotlight among students using the conceptual framework of expectancy-value theory. Typically, Scientist Spotlights are characterized by low instrumental value because they are low-stakes and often assessed merely for completion (Schinske et al., 2016). However, previous studies have implied that their intrinsic or attainment value may be higher, as researchers consistently report high levels of engagement and completion rates (Schinske et al., 2016; Brandt et al., 2020; Yonas et al., 2020; Aranda et al., 2021). In alignment with these results, we found that despite the assignments being worth less than 10% of the course points, nearly half of students noted the Spotlight assignment in their Final Reflection. Given that students had the freedom to choose to write about any component of the course, the fact that so many students chose to talk about the Scientist Spotlights shows how valuable they found the assignment. Although these assignments have a low instrumental value, it may be that they generate value for students by having a high intrinsic value, for example by being fun or engaging, or by having a high attainment value, for example by showing students who want to be “science people” the lives of successful scientists. Our results are in concordance with previous work that shows that students find that assignments that feature role models are valuable and motivating for continuing in STEM fields (Morgenroth et al., 2015).

By choosing to write about Scientist Spotlights, the students highlighted the value of these assignments, and by analyzing what they wrote, we can better understand what exactly the students found valuable about them. The presence of the themes diversity in science and humanizing scientists seems to indicate that the students found the assignments meaningful for changing their perceptions of scientists and the science field, while the presence of the theme self-efficacy indicates that these students may have found the assignments relevant to their own lives and journeys in STEM. Because being meaningful and having personal relevance are both key factors for having high value (Lepper and Henderlong, 2000; Hulleman and Harackiewicz, 2009), these themes also suggest that the Scientist Spotlights have high value for students.

Scientist Spotlights as Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

The themes we found also suggest that Scientist Spotlights may have various effects on different students that suggest that they can serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors into the world of science. The theoretical framework of “mirror, windows, and sliding glass doors” was initially developed to describe the effects of children's books featuring diverse characters: stories can be “windows” on the lives of other people, “mirrors” reflecting a child's own life, or “sliding glass doors” that immerse a child into the story (Bishop, 1990). However, this framework also seems to work well to describe the effects of the Scientist Spotlights on introductory biology students. The frequency of the theme humanizing scientists suggests that students experienced the stories of scientists and found characteristics that made them believe that scientists were human beings like themselves (Table 3). In other words, the Scientist Spotlights were functioning like “mirrors.” Our results correspond well to previous findings that students given Scientist Spotlights find scientists more personally relatable (Schinske et al., 2016; Yonas et al., 2020; Metzger et al., 2023). On the other hand, the prevalence of the theme diversity in science suggests that students used the Scientist Spotlights as a “window” into the field of science and observed that science and scientists are diverse. These findings correspond well to previous results that show students exposed to Scientist Spotlights hold fewer stereotypes about scientists (Schinske et al., 2016; Aranda et al., 2021). Finally, the occurrence of the theme self-efficacy suggests that to some students, the Scientist Spotlights open a “sliding glass door” that students can imagine walking through into a scientific field. The students who mentioned codes grouped under self-efficacy said that the Scientist Spotlights increased their interest or confidence in their ability to be successful in science. This effect of Scientist Spotlights has been observed in a study of secondary school students, which found an increase in students expressing confidence in the performance and competence in STEM (Ovid et al., 2023), but has only been documented at a small scale at the college level (Goering et al., 2022).

Just as a sliding glass door can also function as a window and, under certain conditions, as a mirror, we saw that students often experienced multiple effects of Scientist Spotlights and that there were patterns in which themes were cited together, suggesting particular relationships among the themes. Students who discussed Scientist Spotlights in their Final Reflections typically cited multiple codes and themes (Figure 1). Interestingly, we found that the vast majority of students who had codes related to humanizing scientists or self-efficacy also had codes related to diversity in science, but not the other way around. Perhaps if a student can see diversity among scientists, it is easier for them to see human traits in them too; for these students, the Scientist Spotlights might be a window that, with particular light conditions, is also working as a mirror. Similarly, for other students, the realization that science is diverse might allow them to see themselves in science, especially if the students initially believed that they themselves lacked the qualities of stereotypical scientists. The original metaphor of “sliding glass door” implies that in order for a story to function as a doorway, it must also function as a window (Bishop, 1990); in other words, students must be able to see into a world before they can feel like they can step into it.

Effects of Scientist Spotlights on Minoritized Students

A major impetus for the creation of Scientist Spotlights was to highlight counterstereotypical scientists so that students from minoritized groups could see themselves in science (Schinske et al., 2016). If Scientist Spotlights are functioning as a mirror for these students, one might predict that they would be particularly impactful for students from these groups. Some studies of Scientist Spotlights have found that they disproportionately affect particular groups of students (Yonas et al., 2020; Metzger et al., 2023), but others did not (Schinske et al., 2016; Aranda et al., 2021). In our study, we did not find any significant differences in how often students from minoritized and nonminoritized backgrounds mentioned Scientist Spotlights (Figure 2A), specific themes (Figure 2, B–E), or specific codes (Table 4).

It is unclear why different studies have obtained different results or why we did not find many differences by group. Different studies highlighted different scientists and aspects of their stories and were conducted in very different institutions and in classes with different demographic mixes taught by different educators. Given how sensitive the development of science identity and belonging is to even subtle cues (Cheryan et al., 2009), it is not surprising to see different results in different classrooms. However, according to the framework of mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, it makes sense that students from many different backgrounds are able to gain some value from these diverse stories, but not all students feel the same impacts. Whereas some students see themselves reflected in the Scientist Spotlights, others instead see a window into how a scientist can be. Furthermore, we found that the characteristics of scientists that students find salient do not necessarily have to do with group membership. In fact, in our study, none of the most common codes relates to membership in a minoritized group. For example, the most common code under the humanizing scientists theme is “scientists face challenges.” Most of our students, regardless of group membership, believe they have faced challenges, so many of them could see themselves when the Scientist Spotlights discussed the scientist struggling or facing obstacles. Similarly, the most common codes under diversity relate to scientists having nonidentity qualities such as being determined and being diverse in nonidentity-driven ways, like having diverse backgrounds. These findings suggest that when students experience Scientist Spotlights as a window into the world of scientists or as mirror reflecting themselves, they see many different characteristics, not only demographic identity.

We did find one possible small difference in the number of codes cited by students in a minoritized group: non-men cited a median of 4 codes, while men cited a median of 3 codes (Figure 3B). It is not clear why that might be the case or whether this difference is practically meaningful. Although other studies have found that women tend to use more words than men (Mulac et al., 2013), we did not find significant differences between the overall number of words written by men and non-men. Further research would be necessary to better understand the reasons behind and the practical consequences of students citing more or fewer codes in a Final Reflection.

Limitations and Future Directions

Our study had several limitations. One is that mentioning an activity in the Final Reflection is only an estimate of value. Although the prompt directed students to write about activities in the course that would “influence them for years to come,” some students may not have followed the instructions and instead did things like summarizing the course or discussing nonclass-related events that occurred during the quarter. Although it seemed that most students followed the prompt, if a student did not, it would have artificially lowered the perceived value of all the class activities in our study. Our study may also not have captured all the students who found the Scientist Spotlights valuable. Because the Final Reflection asked students to reflect on the entire course and not just the Scientist Spotlights, students may not have chosen to discuss the Scientist Spotlights if other aspects of the course were more salient for them or if they were simply not the first aspect of the course that came to mind. Related to this, our interpretation of the Scientist Spotlight's perceived instrumental value is primarily based on the fact that these assignments collectively were worth a small percentage of the overall grade. However, we recognize that other factors, such as the time spent on the assignments, may also factor into the student's perceptions of the instrumental value; for example, if the assignments required a lot of time to complete, the students may have perceived the assignments as having more instrumental value than they really did. We did not measure how long students spent on the assignment. However, they were unlikely to have taken very long, as students were told by the instructor that each homework assignment should only take an hour, and they were only graded for completion, which means that students did not necessarily have to spend much time on the assignments to get full credit. Despite these limitations, our study's findings can help inform future studies that use interviews or prompts that specifically focus on Scientist Spotlights to examine the full effects of this intervention on individual students.

Another set of limitations has to do with our study's small scope. This study only analyzed two sections of the same course taught by one particular instructor at a particular institution, which limits its generalizability. The selection of highlighted scientists, the identities of the students taking the course, and the way the Scientist Spotlights were deployed in the course almost certainly affected the types of impacts the students reported (Yonas et al., 2020; Ovid et al., 2023). The limited scope also meant a lower sample size, which meant the study might not have had the statistical power to detect small differences. That might have affected, for example, our ability to see differences between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ students. The sample size also meant that we grouped together students who may belong to groups with distinct experiences. For example, we grouped Latinx, Black, and Native American students together with the designation “REM,” and we grouped Asian and white students together with the designation “non-REM,” even though members of these groups historically and currently experience different patterns of discrimination, bias, and exclusion (Bensimon, 2016). Moreover, the limited sample size meant that it was difficult to look at intersectionality to see how combinations of multiple identities could affect student's responses to Scientist Spotlights. In the future, it will be important to conduct studies with more students across a range of courses, instructors, institutions, and geographic locations.

A final limitation is that because we only looked at Final Reflections written at the end of the entire course, we were not able to isolate the effects of viewing particular Scientist Spotlights. Looking at the effects of individual Scientist Spotlights might be important because previous work has found that students may respond particularly strongly to Scientist Spotlights where the student and the scientist match in some way (Yonas et al., 2020). In our study, although students sometimes named or described particular scientists in their Reflection, many students referred to scientists in a general way and did not include enough detail to make it clear whether the lessons they learned arose from specific scientist's stories. For future work, it would be interesting to compare what students wrote in their Scientist Spotlight assignment responses with what they wrote in the Final Reflections. Such an analysis could shed more light on what characteristics of a Scientist Spotlight make it impactful for certain students and help disentangle the effects of viewing particular Scientist Spotlights from the cumulative effect of reading the stories of many diverse scientists.

Implications for Educational Practice

Despite these limitations, our findings have clear implications for educational practice. One is to affirm that students can find a diversity-promoting intervention valuable and meaningful, even when the assignment is low-stakes. There is already a great deal of research showing that implementing Scientist Spotlights benefits college students (Schinske et al., 2016; Yonas et al., 2020; Metzger et al., 2023). Yet evidence of efficacy alone rarely motivates instructors to change their teaching, and in particular, college instructors remain resistant to teaching interventions that enhance diversity (Andrews and Lemons, 2015; Thoman et al., 2021). Although there are many, many reasons why pedagogical change is often slow and halting (Henderson et al., 2011, 2012), one factor that instructors cite as a barrier to change is a fear of student resistance (Seidel and Tanner, 2013). Our findings, combined with other studies that shows that students complete the Scientist Spotlight assignments and find them engaging (Schinske et al., 2016; Aranda et al., 2021; Brandt et al., 2020; Yonas et al., 2020), suggest that student resistance to these assignments is low and that students appreciate and find value in these assignments. Another barrier to implementing diversity-promoting interventions is the time involved in grading extra assignments (Schinske, 2011; Thoman et al., 2021). Our findings align with the findings of many other studies of “high-structure” classrooms that suggest that an intervention can be low-stakes and graded only for completion but still be meaningful for students (Eddy and Hogan, 2014; Schinske and Tanner, 2014).

The findings that students routinely experience multiple effects from the Scientist Spotlights and different students can experience different impacts both suggest that to reach various students, it is probably important for the Scientist Spotlights to feature rich stories that can act as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors to different people. Storytelling is a human universal, and human brains may have evolved to remember narrative stories particularly well and to empathize with the characters in them (Landrum et al., 2019). Previous research has documented that telling scientist's stories about their research can be effective in teaching science concepts and that sharing a scientist's struggles can increase student's interest in science and improve their problem-solving skills (Hong and Lin-Siegler, 2012; Landrum et al., 2019). Choosing a story that highlights multiple aspects of a scientist's humanity and background may increase the likelihood that students will find the story to be a mirror or a window, and choosing an engaging story can transport the reader into the action of the story, which may help them see themselves in science and help the Scientist Spotlight better function as a sliding glass door (Bishop, 1990). Therefore, our results corroborate the suggestions on the Scientist Spotlights website itself that submitted Spotlights should feature “engaging sources that foreground the scientist's personal story” and should “introduce a student insight to the personal life of a scientist that they generally wouldn't know from professional sites” (Scientist Spotlights Initiative, 2024).

In addition, it is vital to underscore the fact that the students themselves were the ones who realized and shared the impacts the Scientist Spotlights had on themselves. The Scientist Spotlights merely presented students an array of stories from counterstereotypical scientists and asked the students, “What do these [materials] tell you about people who do science?” The Scientist Spotlights did not directly tell the students what to think or even what aspects of the scientist's personal stories to focus on (Schinske et al., 2016). Therefore, the conclusions that the students drew in their Final Reflections about science and scientists were entirely their own. In STEM education in general, researchers have found that it is beneficial to let students draw their own conclusions. Student-centered learning approaches where students do activities or answer questions to uncover scientific concepts for themselves are associated with increased learning (Garcia I Grau et al., 2021). Material that explicitly promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) can provoke backlash in people from advantaged or majoritized backgrounds (Iyer, 2022), but when a diversity-promoting intervention is presented in a neutral way, it may be more likely to be accepted (Toves, 2019). Thus, the fact that Scientist Spotlights are presented in a neutral, nonbiased way and that the students are drawing their own conclusions from the stories they read may help avoid DEI-based resistance and help students remember and learn these messages better.

Finally, the finding that Scientist Spotlights can function as “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” reinforces the importance of providing representation of counterstereotypical scientists in college STEM courses and suggests possible effects of such representation on student science identities, belonging, learning, and academic and career trajectories. The presence of diversity in science as our most prominent theme, akin to a “window,” shows that these assignments allow many students to see that scientists are diverse and have many nonstereotypical qualities. Existing research has shown that increased exposure to diversity in STEM can have positive impacts to a student's academic self-concept or science identity (Niepel et al., 2019; Burt et al., 2023). In a similar vein, humanizing scientists may serve as a “mirror” through which the student is able to see scientists as people with lives and identities outside of science, who face and overcome challenges. Much research on Scientist Spotlights and other efforts to provide diverse representation in science curricula has connected humanizing scientists with students being able to view scientists as possible selves or role models (Schinske et al., 2016; Aish et al., 2018; Ovid et al., 2023), and in turn, role model exposure can increase STEM identification, belonging, and self-efficacy (Morgenroth et al., 2015; Shin et al., 2016; Crane et al., 2022). Finally, the theme self-efficacy can serve as a “sliding glass door” through which students may find themselves walking through, as their confidence in their own ability to do science increases. Research has shown that a strong sense of self-efficacy can strongly correlate with integration into the scientific community and STEM retention (Chemers et al., 2011; Estrada et al., 2011). Therefore, these three themes together demonstrate the potential of the Scientist Spotlights to nurture and strengthen student's science identity, belonging, and self-efficacy, which are all positively associated with student persistence and retention in STEM (Chemers et al., 2011; Estrada et al., 2011; Wilson et al., 2015; Banchefsky et al., 2019; Xu and Lastrapes, 2022). Importantly, constructs such as science identity, belonging, and self-efficacy are often synergistic, in that positive impacts on one can translate to positives impacts on another (Trujillo and Tanner, 2014; Singer et al., 2020; Chen et al., 2021). In all, the students self-report that Scientist Spotlights impact several key constructs that, when combined, have the potential to increase student persistence and retention in science.

CONCLUSION

STEM classroom culture can be a “chilly climate” in which students, especially those from minoritized backgrounds, can face problems with their motivation to learn, feelings of belonging, and their persistence and retention in their field (Hall and Sandler, 1982). However, evidence has accumulated that representation of diverse scientists can help students overcome this barrier and shape a “possible self” in science, with positive consequences for their learning (Schinske et al., 2016). Our study reinforces these findings by showing that Scientist Spotlight assignments can hold high value for students and that many students, unprompted, mention these assignments as something that will influence them for “years to come.” Our study also extends previous research by revealing that the Scientist Spotlights can impact students in multiple ways. Overall, our research suggests that to most effectively reach various students, Scientist Spotlights and other diversity-promoting interventions could feature rich stories that provide window into what it is like to a scientist, portray scientists as real people with traits that students can identify with, and show students a path for becoming a science person. Greater understanding of how the Scientist Spotlight intervention may work can give us better insight into future projects that can be used to improve persistence and retention in STEM, making these fields more diverse in the future.

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