to my parents, my two children ... - university of florida
TRANSCRIPT
STEM IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN MINORITIZED YOUTH AT A PUBLIC
ALTERNATIVE HIGH SCHOOL IN CALIFORNIA
By
CLAUDIA A. GRANT
A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
2020
© 2020 Claudia A. Grant
To my parents, my two children, and to all the kids out there wishing for an opportunity to thrive
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-
1510410. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material
are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science
Foundation.
I feel that this is the most important section of my entire dissertation. First and foremost,
my two amazing children have been the support and the fuel I needed to go through this exciting
but laborious process. My Ph.D. dissertation is not just a dissertation, but an example to them
that life offers many opportunities and they can reach the stars if they want to. As a single mom,
they saw me struggling from time to time, but they never felt sorry for me. Instead, they did
chores, cheered me up, cracked middle school jokes, and told me that I was tough and could get
through anything. It is my hope that my efforts planted a little seed, and that one day, they will
tell themselves: I am tough, I got this, and I can go as far as I want to go.
I am deeply thankful for my advisors, Dr. Bruce MacFadden and Dr. Pasha Antonenko,
who from day one believed I had intellectual contributions to make and that my ideas were worth
exploring. Due to my personal hardship, their unconditional support went beyond academia and
mentorship. There was not a day when they were not there for me, and they never let me give up.
At a professional level, they provided me with opportunities to grow and to acquire so many
valuable skills that I now proudly display on my resume and CV. Most importantly, they gave
me room to explore my own ideas. Coming from a creative background as I have, the freedom
they allowed me to have was invaluable for my research and kept me engaged and excited every
single day.
I am also greatly thankful for Dr. Buffy Bondy, who is a qualitative researcher guru and
one of the kindest instructors I have had. Her classes were pleasant and full of resources, ideas,
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and enriching discussions. I am also thankful for her insights on how to improve my writing and
increase clarity in my ideas, which has been extremely valuable. I am greatly thankful for Dr.
Douglas Jones, who serves as the external member of my committee and advisor for my minor in
Geological Sciences. His insights and questions about identity development, from a scientific
background, have helped me clarify my own ideas to make them available to a broader audience.
Lastly, he always cheered my diverse set of skills and candidly welcomed me to the scientific
world.
I do not intend to leave my parents and teachers for last. This is just the flow of my
thinking as I express my gratitude, because in reality, every single person mentioned here has
been important and crucial for my journey. To my parents, I owe everything: their support, late
night Facetime sessions, multiple trips to Gainesville to help me with my kids, and for the wine
they left in my cabinet before they returned to Chile. They have been my biggest cheerleaders,
because in my country it is not very common for a woman to graduate with a Ph.D. from a
prestigious university, much less when English is a second language. It fills my heart to make
them proud.
I am thankful for all the teachers I have met throughout this journey. While I always
understood that their profession is one of the most important professions anyone can have,
getting to know them better and being in the trenches with them deepened my respect for their
profession as I experienced what they do on a daily basis.
Two teachers in particular deserve mention as they welcomed me in their classroom. I am
thankful for Jason who was the first person who believed 3D technology would be the next big
thing in education. He helped me set up every single pilot project, attended conferences, and
helped me convince school administration that this was possible. He believed in me and my
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vision and I will deeply miss his advice moving forward. Elena, you have been an amazing
teacher, co-worker, friend, and most importantly, you are an incredibly compassionate and
dedicated educator to your students. The love you have for their success is vibrant and the data
proves it. I will be eternally thankful for your laughs, support, willingness to go the extra mile,
the accommodations in class, and the list can go on forever.
Lastly, I thank the school principal, Angela Meeker, for her trust and access to school
resources and students, and Dr. Alex Hastings for his participation and knowledge. I also want to
thank all the incredible students who shared their stories, fears, successes, anxieties, visions, and
so much more. I did this for kids like you, and I will not stop.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4
LIST OF TABLES .........................................................................................................................10
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................11
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................13
CHAPTER
1 BACKGROUND ....................................................................................................................15
Purpose and Research Questions ............................................................................................17
Research Design .....................................................................................................................17
Significance of the Study ........................................................................................................19
Chapter Summary and Structure of the Dissertation ..............................................................20
2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................................................................................21
Societal Context ......................................................................................................................23
The Need for a Diverse STEM Workforce ......................................................................23
STEM Education, Accountability, and Minoritization of Groups...................................26
How to Provide More Inclusive STEM Education .................................................................30
Teaching and Assessing STEM in K-12 Education ........................................................31
The Meaning and the Role of Identity in Cultivating a More Diverse and Talented
STEM Workforce.........................................................................................................37
STEM Identity Development: Relevant Theories ..................................................................38
Introduction to Conceptual Framework ..................................................................................41
Theory of Human Motivation ..........................................................................................41
Self-Determination Theory ..............................................................................................42
Theories and Models of Identity Development ......................................................................44
Social Practice Theory .....................................................................................................45
STEM Identity Negotiators Model (Kang et al., 2018) ...................................................46
Model of Science Identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007) ...................................................48
Gee’s Identity Theory ......................................................................................................50
STEM Identity: Empirical Evidence ......................................................................................52
Making and 3D Printing as a Pathway for STEM Engagement .............................................56
Summary .................................................................................................................................58
3 METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................60
Introduction.............................................................................................................................60
Context ....................................................................................................................................61
iDigFossils: A Model for STEM Integration and Engagement .......................................61
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Educational Activity ........................................................................................................63
Research Design .....................................................................................................................66
Epistemology ...................................................................................................................66
Defining the Case Study ..................................................................................................67
Participant Selection ........................................................................................................69
Data Sources and Procedures ..................................................................................................71
Identity Maps ...................................................................................................................72
Pre- and Post-Survey of STEM Attitudes .......................................................................76
Positionality Statements ..................................................................................................77
Semi-Structured Interviews .............................................................................................78
Data Analysis ...................................................................................................................79
Identity Maps ...................................................................................................................80
Pre and Post Survey ad Positionality Statements ............................................................81
Pre and Post Survey Quantitative Analysis .....................................................................83
Open-Ended Semi Structured Interviews ........................................................................84
Process to Codify and Develop Themes ..........................................................................87
Positionality .....................................................................................................................91
Trustworthiness.......................................................................................................................92
Credibility ...............................................................................................................................93
Summary of Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................95
4 FINDINGS ..............................................................................................................................96
Introduction.............................................................................................................................96
Participant Narratives .............................................................................................................96
Matt ..................................................................................................................................96
Layla ..............................................................................................................................102
Rob ................................................................................................................................106
Chris ..............................................................................................................................109
Laura ..............................................................................................................................113
Karen .............................................................................................................................114
Steven ............................................................................................................................115
Synthesis of Findings According to Conceptual Framework and from Thematic
Analysis .............................................................................................................................116
Theme 1: Teacher and School Support .................................................................................117
Competence: ..................................................................................................................120
Recognition: ..................................................................................................................121
Support and Self Worth: ................................................................................................121
Theme 2: Teaching Method ..................................................................................................122
Hands-On Activities ......................................................................................................123
Hands-on Learning Supported by 3D Scanning, 3D Printing, and Paleontology .........124
Student Generated Content ............................................................................................125
Current Societal Issues ..................................................................................................127
Depth and Breadth .........................................................................................................128
STEM Identity Development Over time: Timelines ............................................................128
Summary of Chapter 4 ..........................................................................................................135
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5 DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................................136
Interpretation of Findings .....................................................................................................137
Implications for Practice .......................................................................................................140
Limitations of the Study .......................................................................................................145
Implications for Future Research ..........................................................................................146
Broadening the Meaning of Who is a STEM Person ...........................................................148
APPENDIX
A ACTIVITY ...........................................................................................................................151
B IRB APPROVAL..................................................................................................................157
C IDENTITY MAPS ................................................................................................................160
D INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ..................................................................................................167
E S-STEM SURVEY ...............................................................................................................169
LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................................190
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................200
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LIST OF TABLES
Table page
3-1 Study Participants ..............................................................................................................71
3-2 Attitudes towards math ......................................................................................................84
3-3 NVivo Nodes, number of files and references ...................................................................89
3-4 NVivo Nodes, for initial query ..........................................................................................90
3-5 Comparison between negative and positive references between schools ..........................90
4-1 Teachers fostering psychological needs...........................................................................120
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure page
2-1 Minoritized Youth STEM Identity Conceptual Framework diagram ................................44
3-1 Summary Diagram of the activity components. Photo courtesy of Dr. Alex Hastings. ....65
3-2 Identity Map prompt for students ......................................................................................74
3-3 Overview of the data analysis process ...............................................................................79
3-4 Data collection timeline template ......................................................................................80
3-5 Pre and Post positionality statements about a science career ............................................82
3-6 Pre and Post positionality statements about success in engineering ..................................83
3-7 Sample interview transcript using online service ..............................................................85
3-8 Sample interview transcript manually edited .....................................................................86
3-9 Sample Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author. ...............................................................94
4-1 Matt’s obstacles section of his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author. ...........................98
4-2 Matt’s emotions section of his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author. ...........................98
4-3 Matt’s emotions section of his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author. .........................100
4-4 Layla’s rationale for a medical career. Photo courtesy of author. ...................................103
4-5 Layla’s conceptualization of art and games as part of her identity. Photo courtesy of
author. ..............................................................................................................................104
4-6 Rob’s emotions as depicted on his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author....................106
4-7 Rob’s future as depicted on his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author. ........................108
4-8 Chris’ Identity Map highlighting where he wants to make people happy (past and
present). Photo courtesy of author. ..................................................................................110
4-9 Chris’ Identity Map describing the struggles during 9th grade. Photo courtesy of
author. ..............................................................................................................................111
4-10 Laura’s Identity Map depicting emotions, some related to math. Photo courtesy of
author. ..............................................................................................................................113
4-11 Karen’s Identity Map depicting her conflict about college. Photo courtesy of author. ...114
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4-12 Study themes and sub-themes diagram ............................................................................117
4-13 From the field to the classroom, hands-on activity. Photo courtesy of author. ...............124
4-14 CHS students displaying the initial stages of reconstructing the snake skeleton.
Picture courtesy of CHS...................................................................................................125
4-15 Elementary school students working on reconstructing Titanoboa, guided by CHS
students. Photo courtesy of author. ..................................................................................126
4-16 Memory card game designed by CHS as a teaching tool for elementary school
students with the purpose of reinforcing key ideas. Photo courtesy of author. ...............127
4-17 Timeline for Chris ............................................................................................................131
4-18 Timeline for Layla ...........................................................................................................132
4-19 Timeline for Matt .............................................................................................................133
4-20 Timeline for Rob ..............................................................................................................134
A-1 Dr. Jonathan Bloch holding Titanoboa and Anaconda vertebrae. © Photo courtesy of
Jeff Gage, Florida Museum of Natural History ...............................................................151
A-2 Excel spread sheet accounting for 3D-printing status. Photo courtesy of author. ...........153
A-3 Students assembling 3D-printed Titanoboa snake (Left). Student preparing a 3D-
printed vertebra by removing supporting structure (Right). Photo courtesy of author. ...153
A-4 Geological Time Scale Portion, Geological Society of America. Photo courtesy of
author. ..............................................................................................................................155
C-1 Identity Map made by Matt..............................................................................................160
C-2 Identity Map made by Layla. ...........................................................................................161
C-3 Identity Map made by Rob. .............................................................................................162
C-4 Identity Map made by Chris. ...........................................................................................163
C-5 Identity Map made by Laura. ...........................................................................................164
C-6 Identity Map made by Karen. ..........................................................................................165
C-7 Identity Map by Steven. ...................................................................................................166
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Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School
of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
STEM IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN MINORITIZED YOUTH AT A PUBLIC
ALTERNATIVE HIGH SCHOOL IN CALIFORNIA
By
Claudia A. Grant
May 2020
Chair: Pasha Antonenko
Cochair: Bruce J. MacFadden
Major: Curriculum and Instruction
Interest in STEM education and careers has declined at a time when the United States
needs a stronger STEM workforce. To understand the root causes of these issues, it is important
to explore how STEM identities develop (or not) in K-12 education, and how student motivation
affects STEM education and career interest. This study examined the evolution of minoritized
high school students’ STEM identity development as they engaged in innovative, integrated
STEM activities that leverage 3D scanning and printing technologies in the context of fossil
exploration (Paleontology) through the iDigFossils project.
Qualitative and quantitative data from 8 students at an alternative, public high school in
California were collected over a six-month period during science class. Analysis of STEM
Identity Maps, semi-structured interviews, and pre and post survey allowed me to address the
following research questions:
1. How are STEM identities maintained or developed in minoritized students at an
alternative high school during a 6-month long STEM project integrating 3D scanning,
3D printing, and paleontology?
2. What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
trigger their STEM identity development?
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The findings indicate that teacher and school support, in addition to instructional
strategies were the most prominent determinants of student engagement and STEM identity
development. Within each of the main themes, sub-themes emerged highlighting recognition,
competence and performance, and perceptions by others as important needs related to STEM
identity development.
This research suggests that more and better theories, methods, and data are needed to
examine STEM identity development over time accounting for past, present and future students’
perceptions. Educational curricula should adhere to the Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
framework to minimize barriers and maximize learning. By offering a variety of media to learn
and opportunities to express understanding in different ways, students are given choices to fulfil
their needs for autonomy. Teacher professional development in UDL is essential to support
students’ STEM identity development relative to the needs for recognition, competence and
performance. Broadening the conception of STEM should be considered to include: two-years
and technical careers, to promote STEM identity development for future generations.
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CHAPTER 1
BACKGROUND
A wealth of research has explored Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
(STEM) education, STEM Integration (Honey, Pearson & Schweingruber, 2014) and why the
interest and motivation of K-12 students in pursuing a STEM education or a career has declined
(Honey et al., 2014; Burke & McNeill, 2011; Sadler et al., 2012). This phenomenon of
deteriorating interest in STEM education and professions has developed in the US despite efforts
launched as early as 1945 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and maintained throughout
various government administrations (Allen-Ramdial & Campbell, 2014; Rothwell, 2013).
Despite these continued efforts, the challenge of decreasing interest in STEM persisted in the 21st
century. In 2005, the now-notorious report Rising Above the Gathering Storm (Augustine, 2005)
highlighted the urgent need for a STEM workforce increase and provided a series of
recommendations for educators for how these efforts can be accomplished. A year later, the 2006
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results became available and revealed
how students in the United States were lagging behind their counterparts in other developed
nations.
To address this problem, in 2007 President George W. Bush launched the America
COMPETES Act with the purpose of bringing the U.S. STEM competitiveness to a more
forward-thinking and strongly innovative level. The act proposed ideas and laid out a map to
establish potential drivers for STEM competition via manufacturing education, NSF-funded
initiatives, and a significant booster for innovation. The act was renewed in 2010. Later, during
the Obama administration a significant amount of federal funding was disbursed to the initiative
Educate to Innovate (2009), which, in collaboration with private industry, aimed to bring quality
STEM education for all. The program was expected to close the education gap across
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generations and socio-economic strata. Importantly, this initiative was designed not only to
impact students, but also to train teachers by providing a substantial budget for STEM teacher
professional development, field, and research experiences.
Unquestionably, the push for a stronger STEM workforce has been prevalent and
constant during the past few decades. However, the problem of a lack of motivation among high
school students pursuing an education or a career in STEM still persists (Honey et al., 2014;
Burke & McNeill, 2011; Sadler et al., 2012). To understand the root causes of these issues, it is
important to explore how STEM identities develop (or do not develop) in K-12 education, and
how motivation affects STEM education and career interest (Abdelal et al., 2009). Impacting
students’ intrinsic motivation is a “holy grail” of educational research and any such exploration
requires attention to both theories of identity development and theories of motivation (Deci &
Ryan, 2000; Maslow, 1943).
Understanding student identity development in STEM is an under-studied topic that has
“implications for how and why one might engage in classes, enroll in STEM courses, or use
ideas and practices from STEM disciplines outside the classroom” (Honey et al., p.64). While
significant STEM identity research has emerged in studies where the sample population are girls
of color and participants from low-income communities, the literature presents a gap in STEM
identity development among minoritized youth more broadly.
To address this gap, this study focused on the experiences of a group of minoritized
students at an alternative public high school in California whose mission consists of “providing a
comprehensive educational program for those high school students who are disengaged from
education in their prior academic setting” (School Governance, p. 9). These students faced
school unresponsiveness to their needs including health, disabilities such as emotional behavior
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disorders, violence, and neglect, and their academic success was jeopardized by previous
academic experiences.
The project I describe in this dissertation study was funded by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) and seeks to address the opportunity gap (as opposed to the achievement gap)
as it “relates more directly to educational access disparities” (Gorski, p.100). I focused on a
student population that has been left behind, and to learn if and how STEM identity develops or
is maintained during paleontology focused and 3D scanning and 3D printing infused inquiry-
based science learning activities.
Purpose and Research Questions
Prior research suggests that it is challenging to foster motivation and interest in STEM
education and careers in high school students because, by the time they reach high school, they
have already made up their minds about their higher education and career goals. The purpose of
this study was to examine the evolution of minoritized high school students’ STEM identity
development as they engaged in innovative, integrated STEM activities that leverage 3D
scanning and 3D printing technologies in the context of fossil exploration. Specifically, my study
sought to understand:
1. How are STEM identities maintained or developed in minoritized students at an
alternative high school during a 6-month long STEM project integrating 3D scanning, 3D
printing, and paleontology?
2. What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
trigger their STEM identity development?
Research Design
Coming from a Social Constructivist epistemological stance (Vygotsky, 1978), I believe
that the learning experiences we design for students have a pivotal impact on how students see
and represent themselves in society. When exploring what it means to be a STEM person,
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constructively, “it suggests that each one’s way of making sense of the world is as valid and
worthy of respect as any other” (Crotty, p. 58). Individuals interpret the cultural world where
they live in different ways, by assigning values to places or activities, and each value is filtered
through past experiences leading to the formation of “Figured Worlds” (Holland et al., 1998,
p.50). For example, a student who struggles in one school but thrives in another is an indicator of
the value placed in competence as the student navigates from one world to the other (Holland et
al., 1998). The word “trigger” refers to a stimulus that ignites emotions, and as described by
(Hidi & Renninger, 2006), triggers can affect the psychological state of interest. In the context of
educational activities, motivation to learn and engagement, Hidi and Renninger (2006)
conceptualized triggers as the beginning of a potential situational interest. This study also
adopted a transformative worldview (Creswell & Creswell, 2017) focusing on the issues of
empowerment, (in)equality, and alienation, especially as they relate to the role of instructional
and assessment practices in public education in the U.S.
A case study is an appropriate research approach to explore STEM identity development
because of the in-depth, contextually based analyses of students' views that it affords. A variety
of data collection methods was used to explore minoritized students’ STEM identity
development over nine months (Creswell & Creswell, 2017; Merriam, 1998; Patton, 2002).
Because of the focus on the importance of individual voices when studying identity
development, the bulk of the methods used for my study are qualitative including Identity Maps
(Futch & Fine, 2014), and semi-structured interviews (Seidman, 2013). From a narrative identity
perspective (Schwartz et al., 2011), an Identity Map is an “internalized and evolving story of the
self that a person constructs to make sense and meaning out of his or her life” (Schwartz et al.,
2011, p. 99). Therefore, Identity Mapping supported by follow up semi-structured interviews was
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used as the methodology to understand if and how students’ STEM identities change within a
series of science inquiry-based learning activities using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and
paleontology.
Although there is no specific theory that informs the development of STEM identities in
minoritized youth, my study was informed by different theories describing STEM identity
development from different angles. Social practice theory focuses on individuals and the
practices they perform from the perspective of institutionalized struggles by considering the
differences in experiences, and the outcomes as a result of those differences (Holland, 2009).
Specifically, I informed my thinking on STEM identity development using two STEM identity
models grounded in social practice theory. The first model is the Identity Negotiators and
Theoretical Model (Kang et al., 2018) focusing on the process (present and future) of becoming a
STEM-oriented individual, and the Model of Science Identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007),
focusing on the psychological needs of recognition, performance and competence.
The connection between motivation and identity has been highlighted by various scholars
(Abdelal, 2009; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Maslow, 1943). This connection is typically illustrated
through the “psychological needs” paradigm (Maslow, 1943; Deci & Ryan, 2000). In order to
understand STEM identity development, one must know the psychological drivers and
implications of motivation. The transition from motivation to identity is explained well by Self
Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000), which informed my thinking about STEM
identity development relative to student motivation.
Significance of the Study
Studies that explore the development of STEM identities in minoritized youth are scarce.
This study is innovative and timely because it targets an understudied, yet significant student
population on a topic of high educational interest and societal impact. It seeks to better
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understand the relationships between students’ identity, diversity and the understudied STEM
opportunity gap. This issue is currently under-studied due to the focus of STEM education
researchers on achievement gap and student performance in STEM (Maltese, 2011).
Additionally, this research challenges existing notions of diversity and inclusion (Gee, 2000;
2017), providing an analysis of current STEM initiatives, research and trends, and how these
came to be.
Chapter Summary and Structure of the Dissertation
This chapter serves as an introduction to a dissertation study addressing STEM identity
development in a sample of minoritized youth at an alternative high school in California. While
this study was not designed using a mixed-method approach, it does rely partly on quantitative
survey data, in addition to qualitative Identity Map and interview data because "the integration
of qualitative and quantitative data yields additional insight beyond the information provided by
either the quantitative or qualitative data alone” (Creswell & Creswell, p.4, 2017).
In Chapter 2, I provide a discussion of what we know about STEM and the meaning of
minoritization in the context of STEM education. Chapter 2 is concluded with a conceptual
framework using the most relevant identity development and motivation theories that informed
my study, and a review of the limited empirical research on STEM identity. Chapter 3 expands
on my approach to research design and the methods I use for data collection, analysis, and
triangulation. Chapter 4 provides the results of this study and Chapter 5 provides my
interpretation of these results and discusses implications for research and practice.
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CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The purpose of this study was to learn if and how minoritized high school students’
STEM identities are developed or maintained during educational activities using 3D scanning,
3D printing, and Paleontology over a period of nine months. This research focuses on the stories
of minoritized youth who have been left behind in traditional high school education. The
literature that guides my study focuses on the different issues that inform a discussion of STEM
identity development in minoritized youth and the pertinent theories that provide explanations
and predictions regarding student motivation and STEM identity development.
To understand how and why students are minoritized by the system, I discuss how the
history of STEM was conceptualized and how STEM has traditionally been taught and assessed
in the U.S. (Social Context). I later raise some questions regarding who has access to STEM
initiatives and how this access has been illustrated in the past and present. The idea of
standardized testing as an obstacle for access and equity is discussed, among other relevant
aspects associated with the practice. In particular, I explore how this issue voids opportunities for
students with disabilities, such as Emotional Behavior Disorders (EBD). To frame this study, I
discuss existing literature on STEM identity, motivation, and interest with a lens on recruiting
and retaining "minorities". This includes current strategies that rely on existing notions of
diversity and their significance for STEM identity development. Subsequently, current initiatives
that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is utilizing in order to solve some of these issues are
discussed. This chapter works as a canvas to illustrate how existing ideas of diversity and
minorities, and the semantics between the achievement gap and the opportunity gap, can work as
significant protagonists in youth STEM identity development. The result is an awareness about
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existing notions of engagement, recruitment and retainment of youths’ interest in STEM
reflected on the Conceptual Framework (Figure 2-1).
The achievement gap is an inequitable measure that compares test scores with
socioeconomic status, driven and fueled by the idea of accountability (Gorski, 2018), which
ignores the underlying problem determining academic performance between white students and
students of color (Norman et al., 2001). In this instance, race is used as the main divider for
achievement comparison purposes. The achievement gap is an opportunity gap. Specifically, in
the context of this study, an example would be the use of standardized test scores to weed out
“under-performing” students from traditional, well-funded, public schools in the name of
accountability. Institutionalized life (or power), from a Social Practice Theory lens, can affect
students in different ways, but emphasis is placed on competence, which I explain later in this
chapter.
Social Practice Theory (Holland, 2009), and Gee’s Identity Theory (Gee, 2000-2001)
informed my thinking about the problem of facilitating STEM identity development among
minoritized youth. Two empirically validated models, one rooted in Social Practice Theory and
the other rooted in Gee’s Identity Theory, are described to specifically address STEM identity
development. One of these models focuses on the process (present and future) of becoming
STEM-oriented (Kang et al., 2018), while the other focuses on the psychological needs of
recognition, performance and competence (Carlone & Johnson, 2007) building on both
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1945) and Deci and Ryan’s (2000) Self-Determination Theory. In
the case of this study minoritized students have to travel over time and across settings to
negotiate the meaning of being a student in a science class and feel recognized and competent.
The “past” is significant because the experiences students bring from their prior educational
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settings are important as a starting point while analyzing identity changes over time. These two
models include:
(1) the Model of Science Identity that has been used to understand the science experiences
of successful women of color (Carlone, & Johnson, 2007), rooted in Gee’s notions of relational
identities and diversity (Gee, 2000; 2017) and how these are intertwined during STEM identity
development.
(2) Identity Negotiators and Theoretical Model (Kang et al., 2018) focusing on the
process (present and future) of becoming a STEM-oriented individual that has been used to
explore how middle school girls of color develop STEM identities.
Societal Context
The Need for a Diverse STEM Workforce
Innovation is a core component of economic development and prosperity. While previous
U.S. administrations have established significant funds to promote innovation through
manufacturing and engineering, efforts continue to develop within government and academia.
However, most emphasis is given to four-year degree in engineering and computer sciences,
significantly narrowing the scope of STEM careers or professions, in addition to constraining the
gateway for a variety of potential applicants who might develop an interest in STEM fields
(Rothwell, 2013).
Driven by U.S. workforce needs, STEM education has been gaining more and more
attention since at least 2001 (Breiner et al., 2012). This is a growing need that seeks to teach
STEM in the way it is practiced by STEM professionals. However, these ideas have been around
since the 1960s when scientists of the era sought to influence science education as a result of a
greater need for national security (Rudolph, 2002). Today, national security is equally important
as it was during the 1960s, but new challenges have arisen such as the need to combat climate
24
change and stop the biodiversity crisis (Malcolm et al., 2019) among other issues. According to
Bybee, (2010), “STEM could mean an integrated curricular approach to studying grand
challenges of our era” (p. 31), and as such, it is recommended that educators and students
understand (literacy) and practice how integration of STEM disciplines happens (Bybee, 2010).
The message to fulfill the STEM workforce sent to students and society is bold and
widespread. One example is the use of flawed models of retention such as those described in
Metcalf (2010), The Leaky STEM Pipeline focuses on identifying who the “leakers” are,
systematized by race, gender, and achievement. The STEM Pipeline model was created by NSF
in the 1970s and, despite wide and relevant criticism, it has been influential and broadly used by
researchers to draw dominant conclusions about workforce supply, and it continues to be a
source accounting for the flow of students entering higher education (Metcalf, 2010). According
to Metcalf (2016), “in particular, the model conceptualized those who did not flow along the
prescribed path as leaks, with U.S. women and minorities (often as a singular group) being
discussed as pipeline leaks most often” (p. 5).
Although there are studies that claim the pipeline metaphor is not entirely flawed (e.g.,
Salzman & Lowell, 2007), the narrative surrounding the concept seems problematic. It is often, if
not always, interpreted as demonstrating that women and minorities are uninterested or
unmotivated to pursue a STEM path, and data has been used to support it. However, the drive for
a more diverse STEM workforce group targeting women and minorities “became especially
important to the NSF as claims about the hesitancy of white males to enroll in STEM programs
created a need to rely on alternative populations to fill the ‘pipeline’” (Metcalf, 2010, p. 2). This
particular observation is revealing in determining how the current, intended message is delivered
to students and how it is perceived as impacting the overall STEM narrative. The STEM Pipeline
25
report (Lucena, 2005; National Research Council, 1986) has been crucially influential in major
decisions about STEM education, and it is still used by researchers (Metcalf, 2010).
Students hear about the acronym STEM in K-12 classrooms now more than ever before,
and they are also being exposed to an increasing number of scientists who visit the classrooms as
teachers’ aids, role models or science content experts. While some studies have shown that such
activities are beneficial to students (Means, Wang, Young, Peters & Lynch, 2016), there are
areas of consideration that could be accidentally ignored. These include the students’ lives
outside their school, their obligations, their fears, their identities, and whether or not their life is
comparable to the lives of the role models they meet in class. For example, how does bringing a
Hispanic female role model scientist who has had unconditional parental support, science
magazine subscriptions, and access to quality education relate to a K-12 classroom with low-
income, minoritized Hispanic girls whose life outside the school includes neglect, depression, or
other forms of struggle? Do minoritized Hispanic girls see this role model classroom visit as an
inspiring story or as a “hollow” opportunity (Fine, 1991, p.182) to consider a STEM degree?
While the idea of inspiring role model visits has been effective in many places, perhaps there is
an assumption that because such students are all Hispanics, they see the world similarly and
should be motivated in the same way. The same scenario and situation could be applied to other
girls and boys from rural communities, or to all students who might have been ignored and left
behind by their educational setting.
Undoubtedly, efforts to engage a more diverse group of students to become the next
STEM workforce have produced significant success stories, but there is much more work to do.
Today, there is a special and valuable push for under-represented minorities of “non-dominant
backgrounds” (Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013), to become part of the STEM workforce (National
26
Research Council, 2011). However, the way under-represented minorities are depicted and
classified in different studies, and how statistical analyses are interpreted, ignores major
influential aspects, including student identities (Metcalf, 2010).
While there are nationwide efforts to recruit a larger and more diverse STEM workforce,
there are still differences in how the topic of diversity is discussed. According to Metcalf, 2010,
“it is Engineering that needs women, not women who need Engineering” (p.5). In order to shift
directions about the message we send to youth about STEM education and STEM careers,
changes might be necessary.
STEM Education, Accountability, and Minoritization of Groups
STEM education is also subject to scrutiny due to what has been called the era of “hyper-
accountability” (Ahlquist, Gorski, & Montano, 2011, p.17). In addition to using “a data-driven
system for assessing teacher effectiveness or ‘merit,’ the ‘value’ teachers add to student
achievement and/or student achievement using high-stakes standardized tests” (Ahlquist et al.,
2011, p.17), educators have been tasked to explore and navigate STEM education (English,
2016). They need to develop an engaging curriculum and strategies to facilitate student learning
of important concepts and practices and to increase students’ interest and motivation in STEM
fields and careers.
Often, large data sets of standardized test results are used to quantitatively analyze
achievement mediated by demographic factors such as race and gender, and “to make policy and
programmatic decisions," (Metcalf, 2016, p. 4), leading to pervasive issues of equity (Gorski,
2018), while at the same time normalizing inequity. According to Michelle Fine (1991),
"Schools represent notions of equal opportunity, social mobility, individualism, and competition
as if unproblematic" (p. 180). But, according to the present system, when students underperform
in standardized testing, the problem is not how to help each individual student, but instead, the
27
issue becomes school accountability and how each public school can maintain the status and
scores at a certain acceptable level. Policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act, (NCLB)
“significantly raised the stakes on standards progress by introducing sanctions for schools and
districts that fail to make adequate yearly progress towards standards in reading and
mathematics” (Burch, 2006, p. 2703). Thus, to illustrate the overuse of standardized testing for
school accountability, “sales of printed materials related to standardized tests nearly tripled
between 1992 and 2003, jumping from $211 million to $592 million” (Burch, 2006, p.797).
There are other examples that illustrate the intended and unintended consequences of
standardized testing, but that is a discussion outside the scope of this study.
In some scholars’ views, standardized testing is seen as a narrow measure that focuses
only on a small portion of what a student can do. This can be a powerful and often prejudiced
systematic approach that can impose devastating penalties on students because “test scores are
inadequate measures of equity” (Gorski, 2018, p. 99). They represent an inadequate measure of
equity for the simple reason that not all students have the same resources to prepare or to come
prepared for such a test (Bainbridge & Lasley II, 2002).
According to Sensory and DiAngelo (2014), “social groups that are valued more highly
have greater access to resources and this access is structured into the institutions and cultural
norms” (p. 2). As a result of test score disparities, the system created the category of
underperforming in order to identify those who are considered valuable students and those who
are not (Sensory & DiAngelo, 2014). While this study is not intended to criticize those who have
more access to resources, when large scale institutionalized decisions are made based on those
who tested higher as a result of the added resources, the students who did not test higher due to a
lack of resources suffer the consequences.
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Acknowledging that educational assessments on a large scale in countries like the U.S.
represent a significant challenge, it is important to be aware of the parameters, and the
consequences that are not visible in large scale measures. Standardized testing results which are
used to make decisions on a large scale ignore students' individuality, strengths, and weaknesses
in learning (Popham, 1999). Yet, they are still widely used and are perhaps unintended as "this is
the most compelling consequence of institutionalized silencing. When the policies and practices
of purging are rendered invisible, no one but the adolescent is held to blame" (Fine, 1991, p. 82).
After being labeled as underperforming, students are voluntarily and involuntarily
removed from traditional education. In a way, they are silenced, excluded, and minoritized.
Many of these students and their families are led to believe that an alternative school or a GED
diploma is a second chance, when in reality, and due to institutionalized power, students are
being robbed of their first opportunity and educational equity. This is not to say that there is no
value in an alternative education, but historically, public alternative schools have fewer resources
and are underfunded (Ugo & Hill, 2017), adding another layer of inequity.
Most concerning is the question, why is the system using these categories, that often
imply a negative connotation, to label students? The answer to this question is beyond the scope
of this study. Since standardized testing is about strategies, some students might have an innate
ability to perform well under those circumstances. However, some other potential causes for
such disparities might have to do with difficulties maintaining relationships with peers or
authorities, inability to learn, which is associated with intellectual functioning, inappropriate
behavior, unhappiness, anxiety, depression, and fear. According to the Individual Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA), these conditions are known as emotional behavior disorders (EBD), and
do affect students’ academic performance, potentially leading to exclusion.
29
It can be argued that the reaction is counterproductive of students who have
developed an oppositionality that leads to academic disengagement. Such
disengagement is ultimately in alignment with the aims of the oppressive action in
that it serves to exclude the student from access to knowledge (Norman et al.,
2001, p. 1103)
Even though the Society of Disability Studies (SDS) is, “Challenging the view of disability as an
individual deficit or defect that can be remedied solely through medical intervention or
rehabilitation by ‘experts’ and other service providers” (Retrieved January 30, 2020, from
https://disstudies.org/index.php/about-sds/what-is-disability-studies/), arrange and re-arrange
students exist and are widely used in schools across the U.S impacting students’ identities (Beart,
Hardy & Buchan, 2005). These adolescents might have been given what some consider a
“second opportunity” at an alternative school. But this transition and the events leading to the
transition, could impact their self-esteem and self-worth. Moreover, as encapsulated by the
concept of Social Identity (Jenkins, 1996), these categories or labels have mostly been shaped by
deviancy (Beart, Hardy & Buchan, 2005).
By definition being minoritized removes opportunities, because becoming “at-risk” or
“disadvantaged” or “disabled” implies that one is no longer adequate to function effectively in
society (Calabrese-Barton & Yang, 2000; Sensory & DiAngelo, 2014), leaving boundaries and
added confusion for students. These boundaries have been delineated by the system according to
a set of standards and regulations that have not succeeded for all students because “the actions of
individuals are based not on their self-definition, but on the definitions outlined by category
membership” (Stets & Serpe, 2013, p.38). The consequences of labeling and membership
categories stigmatize students and for many, this is an emotionally painful experience (Beart,
Hardy & Buchan, 2005).
Likewise, social categories such as race or gender refer to “the status of groups of people
in the social structure, the resources they have access to, and how they should be treated” (Stets
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& Serpe, 2013, p.38). In the context of minoritized youth, and STEM identity development, for a
significant portion of the student population, their perspectives and culture remain understudied
and underexplored (Rothwell, 2013). This study sought to understand how students who had
been left behind by traditional high school education, can develop or maintain a STEM identity.
How to Provide More Inclusive STEM Education
STEM education and its implications represent a vast and widely researched topic. As a
way of conveying an understanding of STEM education in relation to identity development of
minoritized students, we must first understand the necessary underlying narrative that is used
regarding STEM education in the U.S.
From the perspective of enhancing STEM career interest, proponents of a more flexible
approach to STEM advocate the idea of broadening the STEM definition (Charette, 2013;
Rothwell, 2013) to consider areas where students who learn STEM skills can also be considered
part of the STEM “community.” This approach invites a broadening of the categories where
STEM jobs are classified (Rothwell, 2013). This involves delving into how these classifications
can be positively impacted by different views of diversity (Glee, 2017) and how the opportunity
gap can be resolved (Gorski, 2018). More fluid views about the STEM narrative can also help
fulfill the widespread need for a STEM workforce.
The public's perception of STEM is in a way different from what scholars, government
institutions, and stakeholders have proposed, leading to no clear understanding due a to lack of
consensus on what STEM is, how it should be taught and assessed, and what it means to be a
STEM person (membership). According to Breiner et al. (2012), "the main concern with regard
to STEM is that there exists a knowledge and communication gap between policymakers,
universities, K-12 school districts, and the general public, e.g., parents" (p.6). This lack of clarity
and communication is not only confusing for STEM educators and the public, but also for
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students, especially those students who feel under pressure to attend college and have not found
success in traditional high school education—a significant proportion of the U.S. population.
The most commonly known definition of STEM is the one proposed by the NSF in 1945.
This definition explains that STEM refers to the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (Rudolph, 2000). However, the scope of possibilities about what STEM is, the
educational significance and its impact, and who belongs in the field, varies among scholars,
whose ideas, therefore, collide with multiple views (Breiner et al., 2012, Charette, 2013).
However, in the context of this study, we use the definition proposed by Dugger, 2010, that
simply and clearly illustrates how STEM disciplines are interconnected.
Science, which deals with and seeks the understanding of the natural world (NRC,
1996, p. 24), is the underpinning of technology.
Technology, on the other hand, is the modification of the natural world to meet
human wants and needs (ITEA, 2000, p. 7).
Engineering is the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and
natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with
judgment to develop ways to utilize economically the materials and forces of
nature for the benefit of mankind” (Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology [ABET], 2002, back cover).
Mathematics is the science of patterns and relationships” (AAAS, 1993, p. 23). It
provides an exact language for technology, science, and engineering (Dugger,
2010, p. 3).
The definitions above not only clearly define the parameters of each discipline, but also provide
information on how these disciplines interact with each other. While there are many more
examples of these interactions, the definitions proposed by Dugger (2010), could have potential
impact on how K-12 curricula are designed.
Teaching and Assessing STEM in K-12 Education
A great body of literature favors the idea of teaching STEM subjects in an integrated
manner, as it is taught in professional STEM worlds, as a technique for increasing engagement,
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interest and motivation in STEM disciplines (Honey et al., 2014). However, traditional high
school STEM education has been, historically, delivered in block format where students learn
biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics as isolated disciplines. Although some schools have
incorporated integrated mathematics and science, engineering concepts, such as robotics, and
computer science initiatives like coding and programming basics, as an extra-curricular or after
school activity, many public-school students have not experienced it. This is especially true for
those in rural areas, under-funded alternative schools, and those labeled by the system as low-
income schools.
Although there is an ongoing effort to define what a STEM-integrated curriculum should
look like through initiatives like the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS; National
Research Council, 2012), there is no common national agreement about implementation and
assessment. There are conceptual analyses that explain the different levels of integration and
their meaning in an educational context (Vasquez et al., 2013, English, 2016), and different
learning approaches have been adhered to via this integrated idea.
For example, Project-Based Learning (PBL) is an educational approach based on
constructivist ideas (Dewey, 1959) that students learn content and skills by “doing” (Krajcik &
Blumenfeld, 2006). An integrated and inquiry-based approach to STEM education aims to
provide students with more hands-on opportunities to actually witness and experience the
connections between various subjects (Vasquez, 2015). These ideas have been fluctuating since
Schwab (1960) proposed inquiry-based learning as a method for teaching K-12 science
(Bamberger et al., 2010; Rudolph, 2013; Harris et al., 2010; Vazquez, 2015; Krajcick et al.,
2017). However, universal agreement has not yet been achieved. The level of integration, where
some instructional activities might include mathematics and science only, while others would
33
include all four areas of the STEM acronym, is a topic of debate (English, 2015). Some scholars
argue that a rigorous formula for STEM integration must exist, while others believe that as long
as there are connections between the subjects of study, integration has been met. Still others
believe that STEM integration is not always desirable (Honey et al., 2014).
In the current and most common model of STEM education it is practiced in schools,
students are not really exposed to ways in which STEM disciplines are interconnected. Most
importantly, students are not aware of how STEM disciplines support each other, which is in
opposition to the way STEM practices are and have been professionally practiced (Honey et al.,
2014).
In some schools, students have the opportunity to experience STEM integration through
different activities, mostly designed by teachers who have had some level of STEM education
professional development. They may also have a certain level of curricular freedom that allows
them to spend extra time or to promote engagement through curiosity and discovery, but some
might argue that this is not nearly enough. Most schools do not have STEM-trained educators, a
STEM curriculum, or a viable way to asses student STEM learning.
For example, the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), also known as the Scholastic
Aptitude Test, does not measure creativity, and there are no other measures in place (such as
nation-wide standardized testing) that can evaluate students’ creativity. Despite several empirical
studies on the effectiveness of inquiry-based learning, hands-on learning, Project Based Learning
and Problem Based Learning ( Krajcik, 2014, 2015), the majority of traditional high schools
teach sciences in block format and use “drill and kill” strategies (Jorgenson & Vanosdall, 2002,
p. 603) for science teaching.
Even as inquiry methods and science resource centers stand poised to reinvigorate
K-12 science education in America, the national movement emphasizing reading,
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writing, and mathematics instruction, as measured by high-stakes standardized
tests, threatens to suppress the effort to make truly revolutionary progress in
science education (Jorgenson & Vanosdall, 2002, p. 602).
Instead of creatively teaching scientific concepts as a platform for mathematics,
technology, engineering, art, and literacy learning, the tendency is to isolate the sciences. This
results in a missed opportunity for effective science learning with potentially devastating
consequences for student motivation and interest in STEM (Jorgenson & Vanosdall, 2002).
However, the concern relies on the idea that pedagogic content should not be mistaken as
identical to methods and processes (Kirschner, Sweller, Clark, 2006), and that students should
have an initial foundation before they can be set free to replicate science. Often, only a few
students have access to effective (integrated) approaches via such events as science fair
participation, magnet programs, after-school initiatives, and STEM camps. According to Hidi
and Renninger (2006), "the desire to re-engage content over time to problem solve and seek
answers to questions is a necessity for all students if equal access to learning is to be achieved"
(p. 1). These initiatives represent efficient ways to expand students’ STEM literacy, practice and
knowledge through hands-on activities and engaging topics, and ultimately improved test scores.
The problem is, though, that many students, especially minoritized students, often do not have
access to these opportunities.
Although significant progress in this area has been made, especially since a broader use
of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) and respective teacher training
has been implemented in 20 U.S. states, there is more work to do. In the views of some scholars,
NGSS works as a bridge between the block system (concepts) and the practices (PBL), leading to
a more equitable STEM education (Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013), and a better opportunity to
learn new skills.
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Talent can be delivered through different skills, and labeling students as high or low
achieving ignores the underlying social problem of equity in science education, because “it can
be difficult to free ourselves from the dangerous assumption that educational outcome disparities
are all [students’] fault” (Gorski, 2018, p.18). This point is especially relevant in the context of
my study because most of the students I work with have been labeled by the system in a way that
faults them—directly or indirectly—for their overall academic performance. If the message
delivered to students translates as “one measurement fits all,” to excel in the recruitment of the
next generation of STEM workers, we are ignoring other aspects of what could make for a
greater, stronger, and more diverse STEM community.
What happens with students who may only aspire to a 2-year technical degree? Are these
students not capable of supporting the STEM infrastructure? As Rothwell (2013) explains, ". . .
because of how the STEM economy has been defined, policymakers have mainly focused on
supporting workers with at least a bachelor's (BA) degree, overlooking a strong potential
workforce of those with less than a BA" (p. 1). This is a significant problem for the nation, for
STEM education, and for society, because we are leaving potentially great creative minds
behind. If a disability can be seen as an ability (Society for Disability Studies), there could be
promising potential to fulfil a gap in the STEM workforce by allowing for a more fluid STEM
narrative.
In a retrospective study about STEM career intentions (Sadler et al., 2012), 6,000
students were administered a survey declaring their career intentions at different stages of their
lives (beginning and end of high school). The data were divided into 2 sections: STEM and Non-
STEM (including health careers), and analyzed using logistical regression models, reinforcing
the fact that there was a big disparity in the gender gap for STEM careers (Sadler et al., 2012).
36
However, according to NSF health careers are not considered part of STEM, even though all
health care professionals go through rigorous science training. When health disciplines are
illustrated in the results (see Sadler et al., 2012, p. 420), the disparities associated with STEM
career choices are significant (Sadler et al., 2012), if the narrative indicated that health
professions are part of the STEM community. The results indicated that interest in medicine at
the beginning of high school was 11.1% (M) and 20% (F), and at the end of high school 8.4%
(M) and 14.8% (F). Likewise, in health careers the results at the beginning of high school were
2.7% (M) and 14.3% (F), and at the end of high school 14.3% (M) and 18.8% (F). This is
relevant because it influences how the big picture of STEM is interpreted by students and
society, and therefore the narrative we choose to use for recruitment and retainment matters.
Efforts towards inclusion and the closing of the opportunity gap are being made by
different organizations, government and academia. One example is the NSF that has developed a
series of programs with specific purposes, but with the same overall mission—to strengthen the
nation's STEM workforce and to close the opportunity gap through initiatives that have a strong
focus on broader impacts (NSF, 2008, p. 36) However, it has been suggested to the NSF that
they need to do more in terms of broader impacts that include a more diverse population,
including people with disabilities (James & Singer, 2016) because, historically, diversity has
been defined by race and gender. According to Gee (2017), “real diversity exists one or more
levels down below any general label” (p.83). But this idea is often ignored and absent in
demographic forms such as school applications and census data. Gee (2017), suggests that
instead of focusing on the actual job or career, perhaps we should look at the different levels of
diversity through the study of identities.
37
The Meaning and the Role of Identity in Cultivating a More Diverse and Talented STEM
Workforce
Despite signs of an evident opportunity gap, there is commitment for supporting research
and development to innovate and overhaul the opportunity gap. However, the terms
“underrepresented,” “minorities,” “disabilities,” “at risk,” “low achievers,” and others, are
marginalizing groups of individuals “based upon an unequal division of scarce resources” (Tajfel
& Turner, 1979, p. 36). When discussing STEM identity development, the social stratification,
group membership, and how we define diversity can have implications on how students see and
feel about themselves in a STEM context.
When working towards recruitment of the next generation of STEM students and
workers, the way certain statements are presented sends a strong and persistent message, not
about the need for a STEM workforce, but about the under-capacity of minorities to keep up with
the STEM workforce need. As James and Singer (2016) explain, “those groups identified as
being underrepresented in STEM (racial and ethnic minorities, women, and persons with
disabilities) still lag behind their majority counterparts in STEM degree attainment and
representation in the STEM workforce” (p.2). This is problematic from a social justice
perspective as well because it implies that the dominant group has a superior capacity to earn a
STEM degree and to continue in a STEM career (Sensory & DiAngelo, 2014). According to
Metcalf (2010), the real motive in the attempt to reach out to other sectors is about white males’
absence of interest in STEM. The assumption that minoritized students lack something needed to
join the STEM workforce, and that something could be motivation, interest, intellect, resources,
among other factors, creates a negative connotation associated with the group of people actually
being recruited.
The issue, instead, is that we as a community of educators are so desperate to step
gingerly around a real confrontation with the inequities harming students that we
38
build initiatives for closing educational outcome gaps around anything—grit,
growth mindset, fictitious mindsets of poverty, lies about who does or doesn’t
value education—other than the actual causes of the gaps (Gorski, 2018, p.5).
In other words, and perhaps influenced by the current STEM narrative and how we
classify individuals in an educational setting, the system is telling students that we know who
they are, we know what they need, and we know how to help them. However, the way we do it
may indicate that perhaps we need a different approach, because communicating to students that
they need to get on the STEM stage, perform and show a talent, without addressing underlying
equity issues, is simplistic, insensitive and to a certain extent derogatory because it assumes that
certain people (the dominant group) know everything about them (Gorski, 2018).
There are several empirical studies concluding that social dynamics of dominant and
subordinate groups have an impact on identities (Tajfel &Turner, 1979). For example,
comparisons of the achievement gap, by race and gender, “[defining] the individual as similar to
or different from, as ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than, members of other groups” (Tajfel and Turner, 1997,
p. 40), does not send a positive message.
Adhering to Gee's perspective (2017), in the modern world we need explore different
ways to determine diversity and "we must attend to ‘diversity' by making equity, not culture or
cultural diversity or cultural competence, the center of our conversations and commitments"
(Gorski, 2008, p.17). In order to aspire to a substantial equitable change, a good start is a deeper
understanding of the role of identity in the context of STEM education—as defined herein—and
how it feeds the narrative around the achievement gap and opportunity gap as instruments for
funding opportunities in STEM K-12 education.
STEM Identity Development: Relevant Theories
Identity and identity development are widely studied concepts (Schwartz, Luyckx &
Vignoles, 2011; Stets & Serpe, 2013). Due to the extensive nature of identities and the ways they
39
are affected by multiple social and psychological interactions (Maslow, 1943; Holland, 2009;
Stets & Serpe, 2013), I situate my study within the most relevant aspects of identity theory as it
pertains to the student population I am working with (minoritized youth) in an educational
setting designed to provide opportunities for STEM identity development.
Identity is a dominant construct that refers to the idea of who we are as individuals, who
we want to be (Gee, 2000), and how the social context influences our decisions and views
(Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013; Gee, 2000; Kang et al., 2018; Stets & Serpe, 2013).
Multiple identities can coexist and shift according to the characteristics of any given
group (Schwartz et al., 2011). According to Stets and Serpe (2013), "the multifaceted nature of
identity could be seen to pose a problem for unity, and that is the extent to which multiple parts
of an individual's identity might be experienced as contradictory or incompatible" (p. 6). For
example, an individual’s fulfillment as a STEM person can interfere with his/her role as a student
who struggles with anxiety or depression, or both. As in this example, there are many other
instances that illustrate the possible conflicts arising when an individual has to negotiate the
meaning of one or more of his/her identities. This idea is even more complicated when social
interactions occur, as it is determined by whether or not these identities are permanent or
temporary, fluid. For instance, in the context of STEM identity development, an individual’s
desire to pursue a career in a STEM discipline might conflict with the idea that, instead of going
to college, it is imperative that they find a job, any job, that can help provide for the student’s
family. This example, of a young adult who needs to help the family financially versus a young
adult who wants to pursue a career, helps illustrate the conflicting nature of identities and how
individuals negotiate meanings in a social context.
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Is it possible to maintain the same identities over time? Research suggests that the
development of identities is fluid and that they change over time based on each individual
experience (Schwartz et al., 2011; Stets & Serpe, 2013), and socio-cultural influences (Holland
et al., 1998). There are two different perspectives on this issue stemming from developmental
and social psychology. From a developmental psychology perspective, identities change over the
long-term. For example, an adolescent identity may change later during adulthood (Stets &
Serpe, 2013). Alternatively, a social psychology perspective states that the social and contextual
environment make a significant impact on identity development in the short term. This is
reflected in the way individuals see themselves, how they see others, and how they think others
see them based on the social context within which they live (Holland, 2009; Schwartz et al.,
2011). While the reasons for identities to change overtime can be interpreted as opposing views,
in agreement with the authors, they can also coexist. Who we think we are and how we feel as
teenagers is naturally different from who we might become as adults, how we feel about it, and
how our feelings and perceptions are shaped through socialization with other individuals and
groups.
The developmental and social psychology perspectives can aid researchers to better
understand how short-term, situational, and temporary environments, such as an educational
activity, can impact the development of long-term identities, including STEM identity. “An
assumption in identity theory is that individuals work to develop a self-structure that reflects the
organization of the various identities they hold” (Stets & Serpe, 2013, p.36). In different
contexts, dominant identities might flourish sooner, before other identities do. For example, a
student wanting to join the military after high school graduation might contradict his or her
parents’ expectations (e.g., pursue a college degree). The individual as a son or daughter might
41
want to please the parents in the pursuit of a medical career, but at the same time, they must
negotiate their future identity based on personal values and beliefs within their existing social
environment. As a result, the student might have to negotiate by prioritizing which identity will
dominate, but it is also possible that such voluntary negotiation could encounter obstacles and
therefore, create internal conflict. In order to understand how identities are formed, developed or
maintained, it is important to understand the basic, yet essential, information about motivation
and how motivation influences identity development and vice versa. The following section
serves as an introduction to the theoretical framework that informs my study.
Introduction to Conceptual Framework
Theory of Human Motivation
The connection between motivation and identity has been highlighted by various scholars
(Abdelal, 2009; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Maslow, 1943), and for “any model that examines the
impact of identity on particular outcomes, the motivation to transform identity into action cannot
be ignored” (Abdelal, 2009, p.4). This link between motivation and identity is illustrated through
the “psychological needs” (Maslow, 1943; Deci & Ryan, 2000) of each individual. Thus,
individuals whose psychological needs have been consistently met will react differently than
individuals who have not had their needs met. In this sense, “culture itself is an adaptive tool”
(Maslow, 1943, p. 374), that can help fulfill those needs.
The theory of human motivation points to the psychological needs of feeling safe and
feeling loved (Maslow, 1943). Then, there is the group of esteem needs that refer to the cravings
for adequacy and confidence, where individuals seek to reach a certain level of freedom
(autonomy), recognition and appreciation. When these needs are met and individuals feel
satisfied, they experience “self-confidence, worth, strength, capability and adequacy of being
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useful and necessary in the world” (Maslow, 1943, p. 382). In the context of minoritized youth,
one presumes that many of these needs have not been met in their prior educational experiences.
As Maslow (1943) points out, there are certain prerequisites that are essential to the basic
needs, and these relate to freedom, “freedom of speech, freedom of expression, justice and
fairness, and honesty” (p. 383), concepts associated with social justice. For this purpose, Maslow
proposed the “hierarchy of basic needs,” clarifying that the order of the needs is not necessarily
rigid, and it varies according to different individuals. The key idea of this hierarchy and how it is
manifested, refers to how people prioritize (or negotiate) these needs in the backdrop of culture.
For example, a student might prioritize creativity over other drives, but it is also possible that
creativity might have received priority due to the lack of another need.
These human needs, according to Maslow (1943), can be conscious or unconscious with
a variable degree of intensity, and can also be culturally specific. However, they are mostly
unconscious, with great potential to become conscious, given the right conditions (Maslow,
1943). In the context of STEM identity development, an unconscious need can turn into
conscious, given opportunities to practice autonomy, acquire knowledge, and to experience
recognition through adequate educational activities and constructive feedback.
Self-Determination Theory
Self-Determination Theory (SDT, Deci & Ryan, 2000) builds on Maslow’s hierarchy of
basic needs and maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of
innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness” (p.227). These needs are
determined by individual characteristics and the social context where they live. In order to
understand the role of needs as interacting with goals, it is crucial to identify the psychological
consequences when needs are met or not met. In SDT, the needs of competence, relatedness, and
autonomy are considered crucial to the understanding of how goals operate in a certain context,
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and how internal processes flow within each context, recognizing intrinsic motivation as directly
associated with psychological needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
The connections between autonomy and intrinsic motivation refer to situations where
individuals become intrinsically motivated as a result of the freedom to express “inner interests”
through “spontaneous and naturally motivated” actions (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 234). These
actions result in rewards for such behavior coming from within instead of externally. However,
external rules and norms of social contexts, such as deadlines, supervision, classification,
labeling, and group membership, have the potential to reduce intrinsic motivation as the need for
autonomy increases as a result of various threats (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
There is also a connection between intrinsic motivation and competence, as determined
by the type of feedback individuals receive (Deci & Ryan, 2000). The authors suggested that
positive feedback produces positive feelings that have the capacity to satisfy the needs for
competence, and thus, enhance intrinsic motivation. On the contrary, negative feedback
represents the idea of incompetence, which has the ability to reduce intrinsic motivation. The
authors suggest that “whereas perceived competence is necessary for any type of motivation,
perceived autonomy is required for the motivation to be intrinsic” (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 235).
The concept of relatedness, while not as central to intrinsic motivation as autonomy and
competence are, is still very influential. According to SDT, individuals feel safer when they have
someone who cares about or protects them. In the context of minoritized youth, we can think of
relatedness as determined by the relationship students have with their teachers and school staff,
“a sense of secure relatedness… showed greater intrinsic motivation in students who experienced
their teachers as warm and caring” (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 235). Other scholars have referred to
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this caring relationship through the concept of a “teacher as a warm demander” (Bondy, 2008) in
order to foster classroom engagement.
To bring these ideas together, SDT proposes the idea of “internalization” (Deci & Ryan,
2000, p. 236) that refers to the way individuals come to identify, accept, or reject different types
of behavior. According to SDT, “regulations based on identifications, because the self has
endorsed them, are expected to be better maintained and to be associated with higher
commitment and performance (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 236), leading to the connections between
psychological needs, intrinsic motivation and identity. This endorsement of identifications by the
self means that they have been fully accepted and that they live in harmony. This harmony is
ultimately what leads to the development or maintenance of identities.
Theories and Models of Identity Development
Figure 2-1. Minoritized Youth STEM Identity Conceptual Framework diagram
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Social Practice Theory
Social Practice Theory focuses on individuals and the practices they perform from a
perspective of institutionalized struggles by considering the individual differences and the
outcomes as a result of those differences (Holland, 2009). To illustrate this idea, imagine the
present moment where one of the student’s practice is to be a student, with all the rules, norms
and membership that involves being a student in a certain school environment. The relationships
that are generated within the intersection of individual and practices means that “the person is
forming in practice and so are the cultural resources that the person adapts to author himself or
herself in the moment” (Holland, 2009, p.4). The students who have been forming in practice
(school) and the process of adaptation they go through to author themselves is central to this
study, focusing on the ways minoritized students identify themselves in the past, present and
future. All identities go through a changing process due to cultural and social discourse (Holland
et al., 1998; Gee, 1999, 2000). These changes are known as practices; “identities in practice”
(Holland et el., 1998, p.271) that fluctuate from one context to another.
These contexts are recognized as Figured Worlds, Positionality, Space of Authoring, and
Making Worlds. (1) Figured Worlds are “frames of meaning in which interpretations of human
actions are negotiated” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 271). In other words, and in the context of high
school students, their figured world is their institutional life as a student. In this institutional
Figured World is where students are classified under different labels, where outcomes have
different values, and where interpretation is a central component. Competence is considered the
key factor that allows for mobility within the figured world (Holland et al., 1998). Each person
can have different Figured Worlds or the ability to move into a new imagined world, or to
“pivot” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 50) as Vygotsky would call it. What is negotiated in a Figured
World is the present situation after the extraction of past experiences, and the introduction of
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expectations (Holland et al., 1998). (2) Positionality is “linked to power, status, and rank”
(Holland et al., 1998, p. 271). It involves several ideas such as respect for others, self-assigned or
institutional labels, among others, but also, they can mean something different according to the
world they inhabit. (3) Space for Authoring refers to an individual’s interpretation of social
practices and the ability to articulate a response that has been proposed and valued by others. (4)
Making Worlds is associated with freedom of expression, creativity, imaginary capacity within
the institutionalized setting, in this case. An example of this context could be an educational
activity that is fluid and allows for creative outcomes as means for knowledge. Because Figured
Worlds are about negotiating meaning, the following model focuses on students’ self-perceptions
in a present and imagined future world aiming to better understand students’ interest in STEM
from an identity perspective.
STEM Identity Negotiators Model (Kang et al., 2018)
The model of STEM identity negotiators, Kang et al. (2018), rooted in social practice
theory, focuses on the individual’s present and future. Through this model, the authors
introduced the idea of “current self” and “future self” (p. 422), because according to social
practice theory, identities are being negotiated all the time, across time and contexts. In order to
identify the most relevant identity constructs, the authors used ISME (Ascbacher et al., 2009), an
empirically validated survey developed from social practice theory to identify student identities.
In the study, 1,821 middle school students from low income backgrounds from 4 different states
administered the survey. In order to conceptualize the study using social practice theory and
quantitative data, the authors used the results from 4 qualitative studies that guided the revisions
of the survey responses, providing evidence of validity (Kang et al., 2018).
The study takes into consideration different classificatory variables such as: gender,
ethnicity, parents college attendance, parents with science-related jobs, and family science
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education (Kang et al., 2018, p. 422). Then, it examines how these classifications navigate
through agency (home, school and out of school participation) by analyzing the identity
constructs of the “current self” (Kang et al., 2018, p. 422). The purpose of the study was to learn
about possible changes of the “current self’s” perceptions of the “future self” (Kang et al., 2018,
p.422) in relation to science. The identity constructs identified for this model guided my semi-
structured interview design, and the adoption of positionality statements borrowed from Kang et
al. (2018), which are discussed in the next chapter.
In Kang et al., (2018) model, the idea of “positionality” (Kang et al., 2018, p. 423) is
introduced as a way of understanding how students see themselves in relation to a specific
activity or situation. Survey statements such as, “I am sure of myself when I do science,”
“Knowing science will help me earn a living,” or “I am sure I could do advanced work in
science,” among others, reflect a positionality statement when given Likert-type options such as:
Strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree. These statements
are particularly easy to identify and worth analyzing due to their positionality value.
In any given group, when learning about STEM identity development, the idea of a
timeline looks extremely beneficial. In the context of minoritized youth participating in this
study, the current self represents the affordances in their alternative school. The perceptions of a
future self refers to if and how they project themselves on a path to STEM participation.
Surprisingly, the model by Kang et al. (2018) does not account for past experiences, which I
think is important to capture if the focus is on identity development (Holland et al., 1998).
Abdelal et al., (2009) discusses the idea of bringing prior meaning as significant and valuable
information that might reveal additional information. This is necessary to examine because “the
nature of knowing in STEM, making, and the role of community are always under negotiation as
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different individuals reproduce and resist the narratives at play there” (Calabrese, Barton & Tan,
2018, p. 767).
The idea of identities as fluid transitioning from one life setting to another, and how these
evolve or become extinct, is central to this research. Therefore, and in order to answer my
research questions, past experiences are fundamental to this study. In Chapter 3, I describe the
use of past experiences in the data collection section.
Model of Science Identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007)
The second that stems from Social Practice Theory (Holland, 2007) is referred to as
Model of Science Identity, Carlone and Johnson's (2007). grounded in Gee’s Theory of Identity.
It seeks to understand how society shapes science learning experiences, and how this is
understood by individuals. In other words, STEM identity development demonstrates how
individuals “make meaning” of these experiences (Carlone & Johnson, 2007, p.1188). According
to the authors, the “socially constructed” nature of identities is depicted through the overlapping
of recognition, performance and competence, and that these become “patterned and habitual”
(Carlone & Johnson, 2007, p. 1192). That is, identity consists of recognition (personal and by
others) as a science person, performance as the ability to carry out science practices, and
competence as the knowledge level a person has, in this case, knowledge about science. These
models have a significant overlap with Theory of Human Motivation (Maslow, 1943) in the
sense that “culture itself is an adaptive tool” (Maslow, 1943, p.374), and humans have the need
for esteem needs to be met. Esteem needs, according to Maslow (1943) are “strength,
achievement, adequacy, confidence, and freedom” (p.381). Freedom of expression, for example,
is conducive of imagination and creativity, concepts related to Figured Worlds.
Empirically, Carlone and Johnson (2007) explored STEM identity development in a
study of 15 high-achieving females of color in a science disciplines such as: molecular biology,
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biochemistry, kinesiology, chemistry, and population biology. The authors used Spradley’s
Participant Observation (1980) method of semantic structure analysis. Following taxonomic
analysis, the authors determined three main salient categories. While students in the study were
all highly motivated and eager to overcome academic obstacles, the way they saw themselves as
scientists was presented as a useful resource for recruiting and retainment purposes. According to
Carlone and Johnson (2007), these students’ identities within a group of female students of color
included the following:
• “research scientist identity” (p. 1197), meaning that a student was highly motivated to
pursue a career in science to do research and make significant scientific discoveries.
• “altruistic scientist identity” (p. 1199) refers to a student who would like to pursue a
career in science with the purpose of directly helping others.
• “disrupted science identities” (p.1202) refers to those identities where the students
encountered several obstacles, most of them due to the friction between how they think of
themselves and what the system thinks of them; in other words, conflicted identities.
Referring to the idea of “cultural production” (Carlone & Johnson, 2007, p. 1192), the authors
acknowledged that these multiple identities were not freely chosen by students, but instead, they
were shaped by societal notions of who is a scientist and the politization of race.
Another important and influential aspect of Carlone and Johnson’s study (2007) is the
implications for how we define and distinguish diversity. The population, as mentioned earlier,
was a group of highly motivated graduate student women of color pursuing careers in science,
and even though I am working with High School students, the model can be used with other
populations. What is important about this model is not the actual race of the participants, but the
different identity layers within the same race. In today’s diversity model, all participants would
fall into the same category for recruitment and funding purposes, clustering in statistical
containers by race, gender, and ethnicity. The model proposed by Carlone and Johnson (2007)
provides a grounded model for science identity to analyze the different layers (Gee, 2000;
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Gorski, 2018) of identities within a container (successful women of color) by identifying the type
of scientists they reported to be (research scientist identity, altruistic science identity, and
disrupted science identity). Moreover, when there is a deeper understanding of these multiple
and different layers, analysis can be done within and among individual students, but at a much
deeper level, potentially recognizing other important aspects of student identity, such as
creativity. This recognition could work as a bridge to fulfill individual psychological needs with
the ultimate goal of facilitating the development and retention of identities in STEM. Lastly, this
model has significant overlap with Deci & Ryan’s study (2000), that used Self-Determination
Theory of motivation, in the sense that recognition of others is an essential driver for motivation,
and therefore for identity development.
Gee’s Identity Theory
Gee (2017) describes the connections between identity and diversity, and this is
important for this study because it relates to the participants’ realities and how they see
themselves now and in the future. The ideas of “freely chosen” and “classificatory” identities are
conceptualized as: (1) Activity-Based, and (2) Relational Identities (Gee, 2017, p. 83). Related to
Social Practice Theory, in the sense that identities are fluid and they shape according to “the set
of actions they organize” (Holland et al., 1998, p.70), Gee describes Activity-Based Identities as
“freely chosen… and they are proliferating at a great rate today thanks to participatory culture,
the Maker Movement, and digital social media” (Gee, 2017, p. 83). This point is especially
important as the setting for the educational experience described in this study, could be
conceptualized as a Maker space (Dougherty, 2012; Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Martin, 2015)
where students take ownership of their roles according to their abilities impacting their “self-
worth” (Gee, 2017, p.83). Thus, in today’s world, collective intelligence and Activity-Based
Identities shared similitudes are tied to the idea of non-traditional jobs (Gee, 2017, p. 85), or 2-
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year technical careers (Rothwell, 2013) because they require an important set of skills, and
because they provide support to the STEM infrastructure. The way these careers are presented
and advertised to students need more attention and deeper analysis because they are not simply a
2-year degree, or a random set of skills. It is the difference between having a job or being
someone who is committed to his/her skills and contributions to our global economy (Gee,
2017).
On the other hand, Relational Identities often are assigned by institutions with the
purpose of classifying students into different groups. Gee explains that this classificatory practice
can benefit or damage diversity (Gee, 2017), and calls for a better understanding of what is
underneath the commonly used diversity labels (race, gender, ethnicity). However, an eye-
opening comment says: “I cannot simply claim is right especially on the face of the frequent use
of classificatory labels by activists seeking social justice” (Gee, 2017, p. 84). Rather than a
critical comment, I interpret these words as a warning sign for educational researchers and
scientists seeking to understand STEM identity development, engage a diverse group of students
in a STEM education, or to pursue a career in the STEM workforce. Relational identity includes
not only notions of personal identity, but also the way one is perceived by others (Gee, 2000;
Schwartz et al., 2011); for example, student, brother, sister, son, etc. These Relational Identities
are not chosen by an individual, but instead, they come with predetermined roles based on how
society is formed (Gee, 2000). Other ascribed Relational Identities such as: ADHD, gifted,
underachieving, and overachieving, among others, exemplify group membership, labels or
categories that students are subject to with no voice whatsoever (Gee, 2017). According to Gee,
each person’s individuality is jeopardized by the constant use of labels impacting identities as
students navigate the multiple perspectives (“social, cultural, genetic,” (Gee, 2017, p.88) among
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others). The central component of Relational Identities is recognition by society (Schwartz et al.,
2011). As described by Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), recognition by others is
what provides the psychological nutrients one needs in order to foster autonomy, competence
and relatedness, to ultimately feel motivated to pursue, participate and engage in STEM
educational activities.
When it comes to (STEM) identity development, it is important to understand that
different people experience and interpret things differently (Abdelal et al., 2009; Gee, 2000,
2017). According to Abdelal et al. (2009), “identities can strongly affect interpretation and
understanding not just of the present but of the past as well” (p. 25). These different dimensions
that shape interpretation based on diverse identities can have racial, cultural, generational and
social differences.
STEM Identity: Empirical Evidence
A number of quantitative and qualitative empirical studies have been dedicated to the
study of STEM identity and STEM identity development (Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2010;
Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013; Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Eddie et al., 2015; Hazari et al., 2010;
Kang et al., 2018). Mostly these studies have focused on a middle and high school population of
girls of color, girls from non-dominant groups, low-income youth, and women of color.
While the referenced literature on STEM identity development does not focus on high
school students who have been left behind by the system, the following section is an overview of
the most significant empirical evidence that informs my thinking. The theories and ideas
proposed by other scholars, who also work with minoritized groups, can be applied to my study
with the hopes of contributing to the existing body of knowledge.
Calabrese-Barton et al. (2013) in a longitudinal ethnographic case study, collecting data
from observations, interviews, science artifacts, and digital stories, the authors sought to
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understand the types of identities middle school girls from non-dominant backgrounds had, their
characteristics, and the identity shifts during their 3 years in middle school (Calabrese-Barton et
al., 2013). From all middle school participants, the authors selected two girls for the study in
order to create a matrix to identify how race, class and gender influence the trajectory of identity
development in a science class setting. Using a constant comparative approach, researchers
inserted the data in a timeline in order to identify transitions and shifts in identity work
(Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013). One of the girls, would normally turn in her science assignments
late, and the other girl, in the same class, was always on time. When they had to present to the
class and show their posters about the science research they had been working on, the girl who
was normally late knew her topic in-depth, and the girl who was always on time did not
remember very much. Grounded in Social Practice Theory (Holland et al., 1998), the authors
positioned identity as “one’s ongoing social existence in the world” (Calabrese-Barton et al.,
2013, p. 41) that takes place at a certain period of time given the historical, cultural, social
norms, rules, and expectations of that particular time period in a particular cultural setting. The
study suggests that, due to the fluid nature of identities, there is a constant change as individuals
(students) negotiate who they want to be and who they are in any given situation (science class,
for example). These negotiations are channeled, in the case of middle school girls in the science
class, by what it means to be a good student for them and for the school administration
(expectations).
The notions of expectations and recognition (Self Determination Theory: Deci & Ryan,
2000) are central to the trajectories both middle school girls experienced. The girl who turned in
assignments late and knew all the facts about her poster was not as interested in being the best
student (according to school norms and rules), as she was interested in the content of her poster.
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In contrast, the girl who did not remember her scientific research was recognized as a superb
student due to her excellent grades and punctuality (Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013). The authors
explored the idea of “Figured Worlds” (Holland et al., 2001) in the sense that they are a “system
of activities” (Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013, p. 66) with rules, norms, and expectations of what it
means to be a good student (middle school girls), and what it means to be a scientist (possible
future identity). Very significant to my study is the methodological approach wherein a timeline
was used to embed data, and Figured Worlds, as I see the participants of my study expressing
emotions about who they were during their previous school experience, and who they are now,
and why recognition is so relevant to STEM identity development.
In another study funded by NSF, Calabrese-Barton and Tan (2010), explored identity and
science knowledge with 19 low-income students (10-14 years old) who participated in a
voluntary community science project at a local club. The project was designed to understand
energy consumption and health issues in a low-income community. The purpose of the study was
to determine whether there were any connections between the learning of science and science
identity (Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2010). After multiple rounds of coding video data, field notes,
student artifacts and interviews, examined through the prism of critical ethnography, the authors
concluded that learning occurs when students replicate and own their product, a view aligned
with changing inequalities in science education (Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2010). In this sense,
and after working for over a year on the project, students became “Community Science Experts
(CSE)” (Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2010, p.205), acquiring science knowledge and a voice to
communicate complex ideas to the community while maintaining their youthful identity. The
youthful identity was expressed through the vocabulary choices students used to title their
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projects: for example, “We burnin!” and “Where da Heat Go?” among others. In addition,
participants also created voices and characters for their video stories.
Calabrese-Barton and Tan’s study (2010) is significant because it shows that when
students are given the tools to replicate ideas and take ownership of their abilities to
communicate knowledge and learning, the elitist idea that only scientists can produce scientific
knowledge is challenged. This can produce a unique and positive experience for students who
want to find belonging in a scientific community (Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2010), potentially
softening the stereotypical views about the discipline.
A study examining how female students’ identities in physics were formed based on
experiences in high school physics classes was conducted at 34 randomly selected
colleges/universities (n=3829; Hazari et al., 2010). Using Carlone and Johnson’s identity model
(2007), Hazari et al. (2010) conceptualized their study grounded in interest, recognition,
performance and competence, what other scholars have called “psychological nutrients” or
“esteem needs” (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Maslow, 1943). The authors, Hazari et al., (2010), found
that in order to study identities, it was necessary to understand how personal identities interact
with different groups in different contexts (Hazari et al., 2010). One vivid example they provided
was of the conflict between the identity of students who very much liked physics, and the
identity of students who thought “people who liked physics are mostly loners” (Hazari et al.,
2010, p. 983). Using multiple regressions, the findings report that performance, perceptions of
competency and other aspects all influence physics identity. The results also showed that
educators need to provide opportunities for recognition and to value conceptual understanding
through the use of practices (Hazari et al., 2010). The researchers concluded that interest in
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physics was not the only factor that contributes to the development of physics identities, and that
in fact, affect was key to allow a student to persevere in physics.
In the context of labeling or classifying students, understanding how they see themselves
and what matters to them is a crucial, often overlooked, aspect of STEM education, STEM
engagement, and, ultimately, STEM recruitment. Using the conceptual framework presented in
this chapter, my research questions focused on how STEM identity development unfolds in
minoritized student populations. Specifically, this study was designed to address two research
questions:
1. How are existing and new STEM identities maintained or developed in a sample of
minoritized students at an alternative public high school as they participate in a 6-
months long project using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and paleontology?
2. What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
trigger their STEM identity development?
Making and 3D Printing as a Pathway for STEM Engagement
In addition to the STEM movement, students may also benefit from the addition of art
education and the efforts to recognize creativity and “making” as important components of
STEM (Chien & Chu, 2017). Making and maker spaces provide unique opportunities for
engaging individuals in Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM)
education in K-12 classrooms (Buehler et al., 2015; 2016; Chien & Chu, 2017; Nemorin, 2017).
Contrary to what students perceive as a gateway for engineering, according to historical
depictions of engineering degrees and careers, educational scholars of the 21st century discuss the
importance of incorporating design and creativity principles into STEM courses, as well as
integrating STEM into art classes. Doing this not only serves as a transition from high school to
college STEAM education, but it also motivates students to learn more holistically as they weave
in their own interests into a possible STEAM career (Chien & Chu, 2017). In other words,
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shaping the narrative of an engineering career to attract other students who might only be
interested in art or humanities could result in inclusion of a more diverse engineering
community, and could potentially help create a STEM workforce that serves more efficiently the
needs for creativity and innovation. In a study comparing competencies of high school students,
and engineering and design college students who used 3D modeling and 3D printing to design
cars, Chien and Chu (2017) found that high schoolers lacked knowledge of design principles, and
that design college students lacked knowledge of STEM concepts focusing more on aesthetics
(Chien & Chu, 2017). While engineering and design college students provided a rationale for the
materials they chose to design cars, high school students lacked that knowledge about adequate
materials, indicating that K-12 curricula that integrates engineering concepts relating to material
science could increase high schoolers’ knowledge of engineering and design. Moreover, the
authors added that the affordability and access to 3D modeling software and 3D printers
significantly broadened student interest and is a type of technology that fosters inclusion (Chien
& Chu, 2017). Another interesting design was a car based on predictions about what style would
be the fastest. High school and engineering college students scored higher than design college
students because they used mathematical skills during their design process. This indicates that
there is a need for more math and engineering concepts in design and art courses (Chien & Chu,
2017). One significant outcome was the knowledge about 3D modeling processes and software
high school and college students (with mathematics skills) had in contrast to design college
students (with no mathematics skills), highlighting the idea that if we want a more diverse STEM
workforce, these types of technologies should be introduced much sooner than college. This can
create a significant impact on students’ career choices, and STEM identity development, again
reinforcing the idea of inclusion.
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In another study focusing on the benefits of 3D printing technology for people with
disabilities, the authors explained that because of the lack of empirical research in this area,
government initiatives such as Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) have not been able to secure sufficient resources to advance knowledge
and to assist those in need (Buehler et al., 2015). One of the most significant problems reported
by the authors is the lack of STEM role models who have disabilities and have been given an
opportunity to join a STEM path. Especially in K-12 classrooms, students labeled with a
disability who were in need of a special education professional for guidance have also been
labeled as incapable. Low expectations led to exclusion from STEM-related opportunities. The
authors argue, therefore, that 3D printing technology can aid young adults with certain
disabilities to acquire important technological skills and thus contribute to the STEM workforce,
while at the same time increasing confidence and self-determination.
By creating a safe educational environment where all students are included and their
ideas validated, collaboration begins to happen. “It is especially heartening to note that by
creating an integrated environment, students with and without disabilities were able to interact
socially and constructively” (Bhehlet et al., 2015, p.289). The use of 3D printing technology not
only provides a specific set of skills, but also broadens the technology literacy needed by
students in STEM careers.
Summary
Chapter 2 discussed some of the critical issues affecting how minoritized students
become minoritized in the context of STEM education. The chapter also described how this
minoritization is reflected in the students’ STEM worlds and how it impacts students directly or
indirectly. What is known about STEM is described in terms of its meaning for different
stakeholders, who practices STEM, and STEM stakeholders’ ideas about access. The
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achievement and opportunity gaps are juxtaposed in the context of STEM identity development
and minoritized youth. The chapter is concluded with a conceptual framework consisting of the
relevant theories and models as well as the scarce empirical evidence that have informed my
thinking about the problem of STEM identity development in minoritized student populations.
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CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter describes the research design and methods used to explore how the STEM
identities of minoritized high school students were developed or maintained during educational
activities using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and Paleontology. While the study is mostly
qualitative, I used quantitative survey data for additional evidence of impact. The study used
Identity Maps (Fine, 2017; Fine, Stoudt & Futch, 2005; Futch & Jaffe-Walter, 2011), semi-
structured interviews (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Seidman, 2013), and Pre- and Post-survey data
(Unfried et al., 2015) to capture students' views of their journey as science students and to
describe the STEM experiences that had an impact on their identities.
This chapter also discusses the case study approach as a framework for collecting,
organizing, and interpreting study data (Merriam, 1998; Yazan, 2015; Yin, 2002, 2017),
participant demographics, and tables and graphics to visualize the identity development data. The
process used to analyze interview transcripts and Identity Maps from 9 students was conducted
using NVivo 12 to organize the data, determine codes, categories and themes (Saldaña, 2016).
This process consisted of the following stages: (a) selection of nodes based on interview
questions, (b) grouping nodes into categories and subcategories (child node), (c) codify interview
transcripts and Identity Maps, and (d) determine salient themes. Multiple data sources were used,
as recommended for a case study (Yazan, 2015). This data analysis was presented in a
chronological order for clarity and to follow each student’s temporal trajectory in order to answer
the following research questions:
1. How are STEM identities maintained or developed in minoritized students at an
alternative high school during a 6-month long STEM project integrating 3D scanning, 3D
printing, and paleontology?
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2. What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
trigger their STEM identity development?
Context
iDigFossils: A Model for STEM Integration and Engagement
In 2016, the NSF awarded $1.2 million dollars to the University of Florida College of
Education and the Florida Museum of Natural History for the Innovative Technology
Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) initiative designed to provide integrated STEM
experiences for K-12 students. Called iDigFossils, this 3-year program consisted of providing
technology equipment, professional development, mentoring on the paleontology, geology, and
biology content, and classroom support for K-12 teachers and schools relative to 3D scanning,
3D printing, and Life and Earth Sciences. As part of their commitment to the program, teachers
developed lesson plans that used open-source 3D models for STEM learning. Some teachers
extended their iDigFossils project to include art and address ELA (English Language Arts),
harnessing the powerful nature of available resources and the use of tangible 3D models.
A key goal of the project was to engage K-12 students in complex topics of societal
impact, such as global climate change and evolution, through the production of 3D fossil models
for 3D printing and interpretation of these fossil models relative to the Big Ideas in science
(NSTA, n.d.). The multidisciplinary nature of paleontology that organically integrates multiple
STEM disciplines allowed iDigFossils teachers to engage students in the world of real science
and discoveries, equipping them with 21st century skills (Partnerships for 21st Century Skills,
2019) such as collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, STEM literacy, and
social responsibility, among others.
The iDigFossils project’s strategy was, from a design perspective, to implement the
multidisciplinary nature of paleontology as a venue for integrated instruction. For example, a
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number of activities explored how the past (fossils) informs the present through biology concepts
and the role of mathematics in measuring and calculating data and performing predictions and
estimations. Then, the use of science-quality 3D scanners gave students the opportunity to
interact with 3D modeling technology, enhancing their technology literacy. To foster engineering
concepts, students interacted with 3D scanners and printers, including issues of file preparation
and troubleshooting.
The participatory design nature of the project, including implementation of the Next
Generation of Science Standards (NGSS), school-university partnerships, role models, and career
education pathways, gave students valuable opportunities to learn.
From a research perspective, iDigFossils aimed to study the conditions for effective
STEM integration and learning and the effects of iDigFossils activities on student motivation to
pursue STEM in general and individual STEM disciplines specifically (Unfired et al., 2015).
This research and development fostered a culture of collaboration and innovation and helped
develop student motivation, interest and identities in STEM (Antonenko et al., 2018; Cheng,
2019; Grant et al., 2016; Luo, 2020).
The students and teachers from the alternative high school that was the focus of this
dissertation study were iDigFossils participants, and therefore, had opportunities to develop
understanding about how to use 3D scanning and printing technologies in a STEM-integrated
curriculum. My decision to focus on an alternative school was due to the fact that these types of
schools, with the existing student population, are regrettably under-funded and often ignored by
policy makers, educational researchers, and sadly, by the public at large. Inspired by these
challenges and opportunities, this study began with the idea to provide equitable opportunities
for engagement and STEM identity development.
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Educational Activity
In an effort to “equalize” STEM education for minoritized youth (Fine, 1991, p. 101), an
educational activity using 3D scanning, 3D printing and Paleontology was implemented during a
period of 6 months, embedded in a "makerspace" setting, at the alternative high school.
The iDigFossils program provided funds to acquire 3D printers, 3D scanners, and
laptops, and to provide content support in the disciplines of paleontology, Earth and Life
sciences, as well as pedagogical and lesson design support (i.e., project-based learning, the 5E
instructional design model, etc.) The interdisciplinary nature of Paleontology, in addition to the
use of a technology that relied heavily on 3D models and 3D printed manipulables of fossils, was
viewed by the project staff as a potentially impactful combination of pedagogy, technology, and
content to engage students with varied interests in integrated STEM activities. However, “to
understand maker learning in practice requires one to pay attention to the power dynamics that
shape how youth are recognized for what they know and can do” (Calabrese-Barton & Tan,
2018, p. 768). This dynamic was particularly visible during class, when a student primarily
interested in science collaborated with a student primarily interested in technology. Neither one
of them was overly excited about their partner’s discipline. However, as a team that had
knowledge and interest in science and technology, they were both successful in their projects,
and as a result, the teacher recognized and validated their work.
The educational activity was created using motivational design strategies (Belland et al.,
2013), providing students with detailed scaffolding about the technology and the scientific
concepts that they were about to learn. In addition, and due to the inquiry nature of PBL, students
worked in small groups of 2 or 3 at a time. The problem to be studied referred to climate change,
a current issue that has a tremendous societal impact. Initially, students brainstormed and
gathered information about what they already know about climate change, and what they needed
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to know as they moved forward. After conducting active research about existing scientific
knowledge, students synthesized and built their own arguments, supporting how a problem is
identified and how it could be solved.
Students were able to make connections with their own lives as the topic had societal
impact. The technology they used to investigate and analyze, in this case 3D scanning and 3D
printing, are tools used by paleontologists today, for data analysis and statistical modeling. The
technological quality of the equipment the students used, was the type of technology natural
history museums and higher education institutions use today to produce science-quality 3D
models. As a result, students had to go through significant scaffolding and training on how to use
the technology.
Several class periods were designed to learn how to 3D scan fossil specimens.
Additional class periods were designed to learn about 3D model preparation for 3D printing and
database uploads. The level of guidance was mostly determined by students, in the sense that
those who needed additional scaffolding were provided with it, as a mechanism for “frustration
control” (Belland et al., 2013, p. 245). Regardless of the level of scaffolding each student
received, their investigations were self-regulated, giving them full autonomy for “adaptive
motivation” (Belland et al., 2013, p. 245; Deci & Ryan, 2000). In this sense, adaptive motivation
refers to students’ capacity to self-regulate themselves as they adapt and maintain motivation
during their investigation. As a result of this cognitive support, the students’ engagement was
maintained and their motivation was expanded as they were coached through positive feedback,
“increasing their expectancies for success” (Belland et al., 2013, p. 247).
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Figure 3-1. Summary Diagram of the activity components. Photo courtesy of Dr. Alex Hastings.
The interdisciplinary nature of Paleontology, in addition to the use of a technology that
relied heavily on 3D models and 3D printed manipulatable materials of Titanoboa fossils, and
the modern relative, a snake known as an Anaconda, was viewed by the students as really
interesting because it involved a long process over a whole quarter (8 weeks). During this period,
they completed research and learned about the snake, the paleo ecosystem, the current ecosystem
of modern analog, and how scientists use this information to learn about past climates. The
students were able to finalize the activity by reconstructing the entire skeleton of the snake,
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which ended up measuring about 45 feet in length. This particular activity, where students
invested a significant amount of time, is described in detailed in Appendix A.
Research Design
Using this study’s conceptual framework, I sought to better understand the complexity
and nuances of identity development situated within the larger societal STEM narrative. With
recent attention to STEM and STEM education in the US, the study analyzed the implications of
existing ideas about STEM education and how these ideas are interpreted in the era of school
accountability, but most importantly, how they impact the STEM identity development of
minoritized youth. This research examined the triggers that were conducive towards student
engagement in STEM activities and how they constructed meanings about themselves in a
potential STEM environment.
A case study was selected as an appropriate research approach because it is a process
that investigates a “phenomenon with its real-life context” (Merriam, 1998, p.27), and it is a
system with boundaries (Merriam, 1998). In this case, phenomenon to be studied is STEM
identity development and the boundaries are the focus on in-depth understanding of students'
views in the context of paleontology-oriented and 3D scanning and printing infused activities
over a 6-month period (Creswell & Creswell, 2017; Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2002). In order to
enhance the trustworthiness of my case study, I followed the case study framework of Merriam
(1998), and other relevant case study scholars (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2002), as they provided useful
guidelines for case study design and implementation.
Epistemology
Epistemologically, I firmly believe that the social context has an impact on how students
learn and how this learning process shapes their beliefs about their learning and themselves
(Merriam, 1998). Therefore, no single educational scenario can be equally effective among
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different individuals with different social realities. According to Merriam and Tisdell (2015),
"The experience a person has includes how the experience is interpreted” (p.9). In a STEM
identity development scenario, I am interested in “understanding, interpreting and describing”
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p. 12) how students have felt, feel now, and how they project
themselves in the future in the context of STEM education leading to college, and potential
careers. Thus, their experiences in the environment of an alternative public school, with peers
minoritized by the current K-12 education system becomes central to this study, as they have
come to articulate many feelings, and what it means to them, as they project themselves into the
future.
Defining the Case Study
I chose a case study approach for research on STEM identity development, because a
case study “is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the ‘case’)
within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context
might not be clearly evident” (Yin, p.16, 2014 in Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p. 38.). The
phenomenon, in this case, is STEM identity development. The context refers to the realities that
students have experienced, how labeling a student influences decisions in the era of school
accountability, and how the overall STEM narrative has been historically described and
interpreted by participant students. The work of James Paul Gee (2000, 2017), suggests that
identity refers to “being recognized as a certain ‘kind of person,’ in a given context” (Gee, 2000,
p.99). In the context of STEM identity development, the situation is similar. Individuals not only
have different interpretations of different experiences, but the idea of how they are perceived by
others also has an impact on their STEM identity development.
From a social constructivist perspective, the boundaries between the case and the context
are blurred as individual identity is constructed. The work of Gee (2000; 2017) described
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different types of identities based on different categories and how these are determined. His ideas
are important as he discusses how some of these categories are freely chosen while others are
not.
The idea of “interpretive system” (Gee, 2000, p.107) refers to the lens through which
Relational Identities can be seen or analyzed. Gee describes how being labeled at school with
ADHD can be seen through the lens of two different identities. The first one, Institution Identity,
refers to the child who is easily distracted, has difficulties following directions, and overall,
creates classroom disruptions. ADHD as a Discourse Identity can be interpreted as an
opportunity to provide the child with special initiatives to achieve like other students. According
to Gee, “the behaviors that get many poor teenagers into special education get many richer
teenagers labeled as an intelligent ‘under-achiever’ who needs to be challenged” (Gee, 2000,
p.110). These semantics represent other examples of how students are or can become minoritized
by the system. It is important to distinguish though, that recognition, at an individual and social
level, and mobility, are important factors that contribute to identity fluidity. However, people
with fewer resources are normally those who can't move as easily and therefore become
minoritized or “are left the prey of institutional identities and restraints” (Gee, 2000, p.121). Just
as Gee (2000, 2017) deconstructed the types of identities and multiple lenses for interpretations, I
sought to identify what beliefs go along with students’ self-descriptions as they pertained to past
and present experiences in STEM. Given that the purpose of the study was to describe students’
STEM identities, I used a narrative approach for this case study in order to describe the case,
students’ perceptions, and its contexts (Merriam, 1998).
According to Yin (2002; 2017), multiple data sources are recommended for a case study
(Yazan, 2015). For this project, Identity Mapping, and open-ended semi-structured interviews
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were employed to capture snapshots of student STEM identities at the beginning and at the end
of a 6-month period. Pre surveys of students’ STEM attitudes were used as positionality
statements. Then, a comparison of pre-survey with post-survey results indicated whether there
had been a quantifiable change in STEM attitudes.
Even though the concept of identity has been widely studied because of its significance to
individuals and society, scholars and practitioners alike believe the topic is still mysterious and
vague. Although outside of the scope of this study, some scholars call for a much more rigorous
approach to analyze the gap between "content and contestation" (Abdelal et al., 2009, p. 19).
Content is explored as the social, cognitive, and relational approach, while contestation is
explored as the individual level of agreement about their meanings (Abdelal et al., 2009). The
focus of this study is on STEM identity development. As such, I examined the triggers that
coincide with changes in students’ thoughts about their views and roles during their educational
experiences. This was necessary in order to determine whether such triggers have impacted how
they make meaning of their past and present educational experiences.
To identify any triggers (opportunities to spark situational interest: Hidi & Renninger,
2006), I followed Merriam’s (1998) suggestions for rigorous data analysis, as in “making sense
out of the data” (Yazan, 2015, p.145). Merriam recommends collecting, grouping and
interpreting the data simultaneously, and opens the idea of adding additional data as needed
(Yazan, 2015). In the next section, I describe the participant selection and the initiative that made
it possible.
Participant Selection
Study participants were students at an alternative, public high school in California that is
accountable to the local school district. In this research I referred to the school as CHS. These
students come from traditional high schools that did not succeed in providing an engaging
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education to them, and due to various circumstances, were encouraged to attend CHS to
complete their K-12 education. Some of these circumstances can include other reasons such as:
family situation or EBD which affect students’ academic performance, potentially leading to
exclusion. Working with these students was especially important to me because, through my
work with them and the teachers at CHS, I learned that regardless of their academic and social
past, if given support and engaging opportunities to learn, the students would participate and
enjoy STEM education through the gratification of discovery and feelings of validation and
recognition, regardless of race, gender, disability status and so on. “Creating opportunities and
developing innovative strategies to broaden participation among diverse individuals, institutions,
and geographic areas are critical to the NSF mission of identifying and funding work at the
leading edge of discovery.” (NSF, 2008, p. iii). There is a clear niche of opportunities necessary
to fulfill the need for a STEM workforce by providing engaging opportunities to groups of
students who have been left behind, or who have been minoritized, often due to circumstances
beyond their control as a result of institutionalized power and other social forces.
For credibility purposes and for practical reasons, as explained below, purposeful
sampling (Patton, 2002) was used to gather the final group of students for one 30-minute
interview with each student. Approximately 50 students participated in STEM-integrated
activities using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and Paleontology as part of their science class
curriculum and participation in the iDigFossils program.
To facilitate participant recruitment, a total of 50 students (all enrolled in the science
class) were offered a small incentive (a $10 gift card for a nearby local coffee shop) to
participate in the voluntary data collection process. The guidelines to receive the incentive
included submitting a) a signed assent form, b) Identity Map and c) Pre-survey. First and
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according to IRB protocol, all students were asked to submit a signed assent form for the Identity
Map and the survey (Appendix B). From all 50 students, a total of 45 submitted assent forms, 22
drew an Identity Map, and 46 completed the Pre-survey (Table 3-1), for a total of 17 students
who submitted items A, B, and C.
Next, was the selection process for students who would volunteer to participate in the
interviews. The 17 students who submitted items A, B, and C at the beginning of the data
collection, were offered a $30 Amazon gift card for participation in individual 30-minute
interviews via Skype. A total of seven students volunteered to participate in the interviews and I
decided to interview all of them.
Table 3-1. Study Participants
Item Number of Invitees Number of Respondents
a. Assent Form 50 45
b. Identity Map 50 22
c. Pre-survey 50 46
d. Interviews 17 7
e. Post-survey 50 16
f. A, B and C 50 17
Data Sources and Procedures
This section describes the methods I used to collect data in the order they were
administered. The sequence does not reflect the relative significance of each method, but
instead, the methods are described chronologically for procedural clarity. While this study was
not designed using a mixed-method methodology, it does rely partly on quantitative survey data,
in addition to the qualitative Identity Map and interview data, because "the integration of
qualitative and quantitative data yields additional insight beyond the information provided by
either the quantitative or qualitative data alone” (Creswell & Creswell, p.4, 2017).
All data were collected during class time with the approval of the school principal and the
science teacher. Identity Maps (described below) were assigned in class (November, 2018) and
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the students were given 45 minutes to produce their map. If more time was needed, they were
given the option to take them home and bring them back the next day. All students turned in their
Identity Maps with their names on the map. For confidentiality purposes and per the IRB
procedure, the names were deleted, and a random code assigned to each participant’s Identity
Map, Interview, and Survey data. Then, previously validated Pre-surveys of STEM attitudes
(Unfired et al., 2015) were administered at the beginning of class (December, 2018). It took
participants approximately 15-20 minutes to complete them. For matching purposes, the
participants were asked to put their names, or a coded option assigned by the teacher at the
beginning of each survey. This information was also codified for confidentiality. For interviews,
the school assigned a quiet room, near the principal’s office, to prevent interruptions and for
privacy purposes. All 30-minute interviews were conducted via Skype and audio recorded with
the school, parents, and student’s consent (Beginning of May, 2019). Once the interviews were
transcribed, the audio recordings were destroyed. The post-survey took place towards the end of
the students’ academic year, but before their final exams (End of May, 2019).
Identity Maps
Identity Mapping is a qualitative method used to collect data. While Identity Mapping has
been used for some time, it is not widely used by qualitative researchers despite the rich data
such maps may provide. Often, maps are used as a follow up to other types of data (e.g., focus
groups), or as a prompt before collecting other data such as individual interviews (Fine, 2017;
Fine & Futch, 2005; Futch & Jaffe-Walter, 2011). A good example of the Identity Mapping
method is a study about dropout rates in a network of international schools in New York City,
where they were used as a follow up to focus groups in order to obtain more personalized data
(Fine et al., 2005). Based on the international journey of the participating students, the prompt
given by the authors asked students to draw a path describing their international journey. A key
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finding of that study, generated by the Identity Maps, was that international schools were one of
the main components of each students’ drawing. According to Fine et al. (2005), this type of
symbol (the drawing of the actual school building) is important because it helps the researcher
focus on the salient themes (international schools) as indicators for follow up focus groups or
interviews. This led to conclusions about the importance of international schools as an
educational model of “transcultural communities of understanding and action” (Fine et al., 2005,
p. 71). Moreover, the way international schools were depicted by students presented multiple
personal interpretations about how an international school could look, according to each
student’s interpretation. This allowed the researchers to delve into a deeper meaning about the
characteristics of an international school for each individual.
While words are an obvious recognizable communication tool, drawings, perhaps
influenced by individual identities, can also provide information that words sometimes do not
(Fine et al., 2005). This may be due to individual differences in how people articulate ideas. In
some instances, these drawings can even provide deeper and richer information, because for
some, drawing is a natural form of expression. According to Futch and Fine (2014), “We have
found mapping to be a rich method for social inquiry engaged with ‘thick’ theoretical and design
questions of change, in which researchers seek to gather up qualitative material about selves and
identities” (Geertz, 1973, p. 4). This theoretical design mentioned by the authors refers to a
“deeply social” component (Futch & Fine, p. 4, 2014) designed to show how students negotiate
the meaning of themselves and their role in society.
Because the students in my study sample have been minoritized by the system in the past,
the concept of "spatial/temporal" outcomes (Futch & Fine, 2014, p. 4) was also relevant, as I
sought to understand whether a current educational activity could help the individual’s identity
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evolve as a result of engagement, recognition, performance, competence or autonomy (individual
needs). Keeping in mind that the past high school experiences of students in the science class
were often negative due to consequences of school accountability, diversity narrative, and the
STEM narrative, a critical component was also present because it represented “material that
raises questions about power, structures, and inequality gaps that permeate individuals’
(particularly youth and young adults) sense of selves” (Futch & Fine, 2014, p. 4).
For these reasons, Identity Maps are a valuable method for collecting qualitative data
about students’ interpretations of their worlds. It is also a method that has never been used before
to study STEM identity development, and therefore, it is intended to contribute new insights into
the existing body of knowledge. After students completed their pre-survey and signed their
assent form, they were be given the following Identity Map prompt as outlined in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2. Identity Map prompt for students
The objective of the Identity Map prompt (Figure 3-2) was to capture information about
obstacles and opportunities regarding college and careers. Students were also asked to include
themselves and others, and to add emotions to any or all of the sections. The idea was to discover
how past and present experiences influenced their thinking. Because identities are so influenced
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by the context within which they operate, this study analyzes the Identity Maps from a lens of
"Past and present self” influenced by the theoretical model of Identity Negotiators described by
Kang et al., (2018), where the authors used “Present and future self.” This study relies on the
stories about their past experiences in an effort to explore how students’ identities might change
as they see themselves in the present and in their own future, reflected by the prompt given to
students.
All participants drew their Identity Map before the Pre-survey. The intent was to avoid
students purposely depicting ideas about STEM, because the objective was to capture the general
picture of how they felt about their education and potential careers, and to analyze to what extent
they were familiar with or not familiar with the concept of STEM.
I am interested in participants’ thoughts and emotions in relationship to their STEM
educational past and present. On their Identity Map, these thoughts and emotions can be depicted
through drawings or diagrams that contain either images, words, or both (See Appendix C for all
seven participant Identity Maps). Later, during open-ended student interviews, Question 12
asked students to self-describe their own Identity Map, and Question 13 asked them to describe a
modified Identity Map. “If you were to draw another Identity Map today, what might be the
same, and what might be different? Why do you think the map would be different today?” The
answers to these questions can be particularly important because students are able to identify the
elements that caused them to experience changes regarding their thoughts about college and
careers, in the context of STEM for some, and in other contexts for others. These types of
questions can highlight the triggers that contribute to STEM identity development in minoritized
youth. Similar to these particular questions about students’ Identity Maps, other interview
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questions were intended to generate similar information. The rationale for the interview protocol
design is described later in this chapter.
Pre- and Post-Survey of STEM Attitudes
The S-STEM survey was used in this study as a Pre-and Post-survey of STEM attitudes
to identify whether and how students’ attitudes towards STEM and STEM careers might have
changed as a result of participating in the iDigFossils program. The S-STEM survey developed
and validated by Unfried, Faber, Stanhope, and Wiebe (2015), from the Friday Institute for
Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University (Appendix E). Although the authors
described it as a survey of attitudes, the items in the survey specifically reflected students’ self-
efficacy and expectancy value. For instance, in the science attitude subscale, there were 9 items,
and 4 items were about students’ self-efficacy and 5 items were about students’ expectancy
value. The 4 self-efficacy items consisted of “I am sure of myself when I do science,” “I know I
can do well in science,” “I can handle most subjects well, but I cannot do a good job with
science,” and “I am sure I could do advanced work in science.” The 5 items regarding
expectancy value were “I would consider a career in science,” “I expect to use science when I get
out of school,” “Knowing science will help me earn a living,” “I will need science for my future
work,” and “Science will be important to me in my life’s work”. Students’ self- efficacy and
expectancy value can be conceptualized as student motivation according to Eccles and
Wigfield’s (2002). The latent variables of STEM motivation and 21st century skills in this
survey consist of four constructs: math motivation, science motivation, technology and
engineering motivation, and 21st century skills, and the reliability of the four constructs was .90,
.89, .90, and .92 respectively, according to the validation study by Unfried et al. (2015).
There were eight items for math motivation, nine items for science motivation, nine items
for technology and engineering motivation, and 11 items for 21st century skills. All the items
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were rated using a five-point Likert scale, from “Strongly Disagree,” “Disagree,” “Neither Agree
nor Disagree,” “Agree,” to “Strongly Agree,” with 1 indicating “Strongly Disagree” and 5
indicating “Strongly Agree”. The items No. one, three, five in math motivation and item No.
eight in science motivation were expressed in reversed ways, so these items were reverse coded.
The S-STEM survey also included 12 items to assess students’ interest in STEM careers.
These items were descriptions of STEM disciplines and corresponding jobs connected to each
discipline. The 12 STEM-related career pathways included physics, environmental work, biology
and zoology, veterinary work, mathematics, medicine, earth science, computer science, medical
science, chemistry, energy, and engineering. The STEM career interest items used a 4-point
Likert scale, including “Not at all Interested,” “Not so Interested,” “Interested,” and “Very
Interested,” with 1 indicating “Not at all Interested,” and 4 indicating “Very Interested”. The S-
STEM survey (Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, 2012) is attached in Appendix E. A
Pre- of the S-STEM survey were administered online before the first activity, and a Post- upon
completion of the last activity by the teacher. I used survey data for 2 purposes:
a. Positionality statements (Kang et al., 2018)
b. Quantitative analysis (Unfried et al., 2015)
Positionality Statements
Pre-survey data served as positionality statements in this study. The idea of
“positionality” (p.423) was proposed by Kang et al. (2018) as a way to understand how students
see themselves concerning an activity or a situation. For this study, a Pre-survey positionality
statement represents the beginning of a STEM identity timeline created for each individual
student, as presented and described in the next chapter. These positionality statements were
collected before students started with their nine months’ set of activities, and at the end, during
the last week of school. Due to the amount of vocabulary presented in the survey about STEM
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topics, it was intentionally determined that students would do their Identity Maps first, before the
survey.
Semi-Structured Interviews
The interviews were intended as a follow up to the Identity Maps and Pre-survey
responses (See Appendix D for interview protocol) with the purpose of understanding “the lived
experience of [participants] and the meaning they make of that experience” (Seidman, 2013, p.
9). In order to have a reconstruction about participants’ experiences in the science class at their
previous and current school, I designed the following questions:
1. What was science like at your previous school? What kind of science student were you? Can
you recall a good experience in a science class at that school? Tell me about it.
2. What is science like at this school? What kind of a science student are you? Tell me about a
good day in science at this school. What happened that day? What was good about it?
The first two questions, inspired by Seidman’s (2013) “Three-Interview Series” (p. 20), were
intended to capture some past history about the science experiences, in-depth details about the
experience, and how participants felt about themselves as a reflection of the meaning they
assigned to it (Seidman, 2013).
While the Identity Maps provided an abundance of data, having the participants describe
their own Identity Map was particularly helpful because it gave them the opportunity to expand
on certain ideas and to corroborate what was on each drawing version. The following questions
were useful in that regard:
3. Can you describe your Identity Map?
4. If you were to draw another Identity Map today, what might be the same, and what might
be different? Why do you think the map would be different today?
Since I had been working with these students in the past, building rapport (Seidman, 2013) was a
natural process that mostly happened when I was showing students how to operate the 3D
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scanner and 3D printer. All participants were comfortable talking to me and did not see me as an
authority. To them, I was just another student working on a project, and they demonstrated
willingness to participate and respect.
The interviews were conducted at the very end of the academic year, one week before
students’ final exams. The focus of the students’ reflection was not to examine whether they
liked the activities or not, but rather, to learn how students internalized and described their
journey through their experience.
Data Analysis
Figure 3-3. Overview of the data analysis process
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Data were collected at the individual level (within case) in order to aggregate and cross-
analyze (Patton, 2002). In this case, since I am evaluating one case that has seven participants,
data were analyzed individually and then aggregated (combined) for cross analysis within the
case. In order to understand if and how STEM identities are maintained or developed, a data
collection timeline was created to situate the different types of data collected over time. (Figure
3-4). I borrowed the idea of a timeline from “Identity Trajectories” depicted by Calabrese-Barton
et al. (2013, p. 66). For this study and in order to add dates, I conceptualized the idea of a
trajectory as a timeline. This timeline serves as an organizational visual tool to compare and
contrast positionality statements and students’ views over time. Using color-coded symbols,
information was placed in the timeline for easy identification of threads and patterns (Seidman,
2013) within a data set, or across the entire data collected for the study. Moreover, this could be
used as a way of tracking individual representations of identity over time. In Chapter 4, I present
a “within-case analysis” and individual student timelines which attempt to incorporate as many
triggers or events that inspired the students to share their reflections.
Figure 3-4. Data collection timeline template
Identity Maps
Identity Maps and interviews can provide rich, detailed information about individual
students' feelings regarding past and present experiences in their schools, relating to STEM,
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science classes, and their college and career goals. First, as suggested by Patton (2002), each
student’s profile was analyzed as a separate case in order to do "justice to each case" (p.449).
Although I am interested in learning about STEM identity development as a general
phenomenon, each personal case helped to construct the bigger picture. Again, because identities
were so profoundly influenced by the social context within which they operated, each case was
evaluated, and commonality through text analysis and codification was analyzed. Then, pattern
identification across studies was utilized as a way to merge the data and construct the bigger
picture.
For rigor, maps were coded in two different ways in order to gather both verbal and
visual information. One way was to codify and analyze the words written on a map. Second,
each students’ description of their maps was also codified to look for inconsistencies or missing
information on either set of data. Then, this information was compared and merged to make sure
that the written and oral representations of each map were included.
Pre and Post Survey ad Positionality Statements
Positionality statements (Kang et al., 2018) were particularly useful to visualize how each
student positioned her or himself in reference to a specific question, and before the activity. After
the educational activity was finished and Post-survey administered, some participants positioned
themselves differently (Figures 3-4 and 3-5).
The scores for each scale (e.g., Science Attitudes, Math attitudes) are aggregated making
sure that negatively worded items are reversely coded. Then the sum of all responses for a
subscale is used as a variable.
More than comparing pre and post results, positionality statements help the researcher to
understand the different ranges within a group of students. For example, Figure 3-4 represents
positionality statements for the statement: I would consider a career in science. In addition to
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comparing positionalities by student, we can also see where each student positions her or himself
with respect to others. This is not done with the purpose of comparing results among students,
but for a deeper understanding of where each student’s attitude towards science career is at the
beginning of, say for example, an academic year. This scale of values (different positionality
statements) could be a useful tool for curricula design purposes.
Figure 3-5. Pre and Post positionality statements about a science career
Figure 3-5 represents Pre and Post positionality statements about beliefs of being
successful in engineering. For an instructor, this could be valuable information in the sense that
she or he will know all students have a certain degree of confidence. Understanding how students
feel about engineering could help with pace and content of a course, making sure that no student
feels below from where they started with their initial positionality statement. This idea relates to
competence (Holland et al., 1998), and how we can identify when students’ competence starts
decreasing to take appropriate action and reverse it.
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Figure 3-6. Pre and Post positionality statements about success in engineering
Pre and Post Survey Quantitative Analysis
Because there were seven participants only, data was not assumed to be normally
distributed. Instead of using parametric statistics, non-parametric equivalence were used.
Specifically, Wilcoxon test was used to examine differences in participants reporting on math
attitudes pre (M = 29.5, SD = 3.96) and post (M = 32.5, SD = 5.09) the intervention. The
analysis showed that the participants significantly improved in their attitudes in math from pre to
post (Z = 2.39, p = .02).
Then I examined differences in participants on science attitudes pre (M = 30.63, SD =
8.00) and post (M = 32, SD = 5.78) the intervention. The analysis showed that the participants
did not significantly change in their attitudes in science from pre to post (Z = .51, p = .61).
The next category of attitudes was technology/engineering. Differences in participants on
technology/engineering attitudes pre (M = 27.13, SD = 4.52) and post (M = 29.75, SD = 1.48)
the intervention. The analysis showed that the participants did not significantly change in their
attitudes in science from pre to post (Z = .1.36, p = .17).
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Finally, differences in participants’ perceptions of their 21st century skills showed pre (M
= 43.5, SD = 5.63) and post (M = 43.16, SD = 4.42) the intervention. The analysis showed that
the part did not significantly change in their attitudes in science from pre to post (Z = -.14, p =
.89).
Because participant attitudes towards math significantly improved between pre and post,
I explored these changes using individual math attitudes scale items. The first question:
Table 3-2. Attitudes towards math
Variable Pre Post Significance
I would consider
choosing a career that
uses math.
M=2.25, SD=1.04 M=3.63, SD=.92 Z = 2.06, p = .04
Would consider taking
advanced classes in
math?
M=2.0, SD=.76
M=2.5, SD=.76
Z = 2.00, p = .04
The only item in the scale that was significantly different was: I would consider choosing a
career that uses math. When asked if they would consider taking advanced classes in math
participants reported the following: Pre: M=2.0, SD=.76, and Post: M=2.5, SD=.76. This
improvement in intentions to take advanced math classes was significant at Z = 2.00, p = .04
Open-Ended Semi Structured Interviews
Interview data was transcribed using an online, open-source transcription service (© 2020
Temi). Due to several inconsistencies with the automatic transcription, I manually went over
each transcript and corrected all instances where the online software was not able to transcribe or
produced mistakes in the transcription. The second manual round of transcripts provided a clear
document for codification.
Then, coding and thematic analysis was performed to find patterns (Patton, 2002;
Saldaña, 2016). I was specifically interested in patterns that reflected emotions (positive or
negative), perspectives, and perceptions associated with science activities from students' past and
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present. More specifically, I looked for instances where individual needs such as recognition,
competence, and performance (Figure 2-3 Conceptual Framework) were absent or met. The
results were analyzed thematically and chronologically in order to identify intersections or
salient themes.
Figure 3-7. Sample interview transcript using online service
Academic literature on analyzing qualitative data and the coding industry offer an
overwhelming variety of options to best code and manage social sciences’ data (Abdelal, 2009;
Patton, 2002; Saldaña, 2016; Stone, 1997). After transcribing all seven interviews, including
self-described Identity Maps (Interview questions 12 and 13), I read over the material multiple
times in order to start visualizing possible themes and coding schemes.
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Figure 3-8. Sample interview transcript manually edited
Although open-ended evaluations allowed for deeper analysis of students’ self-
descriptions, the way some participants expressed themselves presented a challenge for running
queries. For example, the word “like” was used multiple times within a sentence: “I feel like for
10th grade, since now that I know about, like, the 3D printing stuff, I feel like I would add that
to, like, wanting to be an artist, and also like, want to, like, do the 3D stuff with my art, cuz I
don't know. That's, like, so cool to me, so…” In these cases, NVivo12 provides a function that
allows the researcher to omit certain words. When this was done, a revision of the transcript was
performed re-assuring that none of the omitted words “like” had a specific meaning.
While working on the codification and pattern identification stage, initial, full immersion
in the data was necessary, and can be accomplished by using inductive analysis (Saldaña, 2016).
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While I was going through this process inductively, ideas came to mind on how to deductively
align the results based on participants’ expressions related to their individual needs (figure 2-3,
Conceptual Framework). For example, when I was reviewing Chris’ transcript, I encountered
several statements about how the dynamics of his previous school affected him with feelings of
anxiety and ultimately depression as a result of failing grades. After seeing this statement, I made
an immediate connection to the need for competence (Holland et al., 1998). Similarly, and across
the seven participants, when asked about their science class experiences in their previous school
versus CDH, I noticed that the majority of the comments about the school were actually about
the science teacher of each school, and how they felt about it. As a result, I decided to reorganize
the data by psychological nutrients or individual needs as shown in the conceptual framework
and realized that teacher behavior, demeanor and teaching style had a direct impact on
participants’ psychological needs. The conclusion was that in fact, “it is impossible to be purely
inductive” (Abdelal, 2009, p. 93) and that multiple layers of analysis are recommended.
Process to Codify and Develop Themes
The interviews were transcribed, and double checked by the researcher for maximum
accuracy. Then, Identity Maps and interviews were uploaded to NVivo 12. The first step was to
create a group of nodes (or containers) to distribute information according to different topics.
This was designed based on the interview questions (See Appendix D).
Once the information was grouped by nodes (Table 4.1), the next step was to run several
simple NVivo queries to have an initial visualization of quantity and quality of the data before
proceeding to the next step. While some areas produced several references, I purposely added
codes associated with the conceptual framework, and what other researchers have contributed to
STEM identity development. For example, Altruistic (Carlone & Johnson, 2007), because it was
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directly related to the type of STEM identity some students have, and it could have an impact on
how STEM is presented to them (Hazari et al., 2010). I borrow the term “altruistic” from Carlone
and Johnson’s study (2007) that explains the different identities students had based on their
academic experiences. Because some of the codes overlap – for example “influential people” and
“teacher” along with several others – certain information was coded in both or more sections to
visualize possible ways to analyze the data. For example, if a comment about the science class at
their previous school was: “it gave me anxiety,” that code was stored under the node “previous
school” and also under the node “negative emotions.”
At this point in the coding process, I realized I had an incredible amount of data, and for
organizational purposes, I had to create some child nodes (e.g., Emotions, Obstacles, 3D, 3D,
Table 3-3) and re-organize the information. During this challenging and time-consuming
process, I was concerned with ambiguity and had to practice flexibility (Saldaña, 2016). This is
when coding in multiple nodes was especially helpful. From a creative perspective, I am a visual
learner, and organizing the nodes following the interview questions and the Identity Map prompt
was necessary.
The participants of my study were high school students who had been minoritized by the
educational system as detailed on Chapter 2. It was important for me to understand the
differences or similarities in experiences between their prior and current school. To address this,
I asked the students the following two interview questions:
• What was the science class like at your previous school?
• What is the science class like at your current school?
These two open-ended questions not only yielded specific information about the science class,
but also about the teacher, and how students felt about it (emotions).
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Table 3-3. NVivo Nodes, number of files and references
Folder Name Files References
Nodes Careers 10 119
Nodes Careers\Past Ideas 7 11
Nodes Careers\Recent Ideas 10 33
Nodes Careers\STEM Careers 10 75
Nodes Feelings about 3D 9 290
Nodes Feelings about 3D\3D for Career 8 21
Nodes Feelings about 3D\3D for learning 9 71
Nodes Feelings about 3D\3D scan, print quality 7 17
Nodes Feelings about 3D\Corals 7 18
Nodes Feelings about 3D\Do you see yourself doing future 3D work? 9 30
Nodes Feelings about 3D\Titanoboa 8 87
Nodes Feelings about 3D\Your 3D knowledge 9 45
Nodes Identity Map 18 429
Nodes Identity Map\College 15 100
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions 16 92
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Altruistic 2 4
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Anxiety 9 14
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Competence 10 25
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Integrated Exp 8 59
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Negative 12 67
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Performance 9 13
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Positive 13 184
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Recognition 4 4
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Support and Self Worth 6 21
Nodes Identity Map\Emotions\Teacher 9 102
Nodes Identity Map\Future 17 62
Nodes Identity Map\General features 6 39
Nodes Identity Map\Influential People 13 70
Nodes Identity Map\Obstacles 6 13
Nodes Identity Map\Obstacles\Past 4 11
Nodes Identity Map\Obstacles\Present 4 10
Nodes Identity Map\Opportunities 5 9
Nodes Identity Map\Things I love 3 9
Nodes Identity Map\What would you do different? 7 35
Nodes Paleontology 7 41
Nodes Standardized Test 5 37
Nodes STEM Community 7 68
Nodes STEM Community\Access 3 13
Nodes STEM Community\Definition 6 14
Nodes STEM Community\Who belongs 6 41
Nodes What kind of science student were you? 8 73
Nodes What kind of science student were you\My current school 8 35
Nodes What kind of science student were you\Previous School 8 37
Nodes What was science like? 11 278
Nodes What was science like\My current school 10 178
Nodes What was science like\Previous School 11 98
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Table 3-4. NVivo Nodes, for initial query
Folder Name Files References
Nodes What was science like? 11 278
Nodes What was science like\Current School 10 178
Nodes What was science like\Previous School 11 98
With 178 references for their current school and 98 for their previous school, I proceeded
to add child nodes for positive and negative codes, emotions, altruistic, anxiety, competence,
performance, recognition, support, self-worth, teacher and school staff, and students’ thoughts on
their learning styles. The students were also asked the following questions:
1. What was science like at your previous school? What kind of science student were you?
Can you recall a good experience in a science class at that school? Tell me about it.
2. What is science like at this school? What kind of a science student are you? Tell me
about a good day in science at this school. What happened that day? What was good
about it?
These two questions yielded data to answer my second research question: What do
students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that trigger their STEM
identity development? NVivo12 has several features that allows to run different queries and to
visualize comparisons (Matrix Coding), for example, attitudes about the science class in their
previous and current school. Using Matrix Coding, Table 4-3 shows a substantial difference
between students’ perceptions and experiences from both schools, and the first salient themes
come from this data set:
• Teacher and School Support
• Teaching Method
Table 3-5. Comparison between negative and positive references between schools
School A : Negative B : Positive
1 : Previous School 62 27
2 : Current School 0 161
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Positionality
This study was not just a Ph.D. dissertation to fulfill the requirements of my degree. I
came into this topic with a variety of personal experiences that have been a present in my life
ever since I was in high school. I have a passion for art and science, and although I was really
good at art, I was not very good at science. The story of my disengagement with science started
in high school when we had to dissect a frog for a grade. I chose the F because I simply could not
bear the thought of a knife going through the animal. I was not given an alternative assignment
of something less graphic, because science education in the late '80s was by the book, in block
format.
Nevertheless, after high school, I did complete a 4-year technical degree in landscape
design. As such, I had to learn about design, aesthetics, scale, and proportions to fulfill 50% of
my studies, and had to complete several courses in science, such as entomology, fertilizers and
pesticides, and soil science, among others, in order to fulfill the other 50% of my studies. I later
expanded my artistic abilities with a degree in graphic design and my abilities in technology with
a degree in web design, leading to a job at the Florida Museum of Natural History, where
everything we do is for the benefit of teaching sciences and “inspiring people to care about life
on Earth” (Museum’s Mission Statement, n.d.).
This research on minoritized youth identities in STEM represented not just a dissertation
but a strong drive to fulfill the need to address certain issues and exclusions that happen to
students on a daily basis, threatening the idea of STEM education equity. I worked towards a
Ph.D. in Educational Technology because I was deeply interested in technologies like 3D
printing, photogrammetry and others as aids for STEM education. I also worked towards a
graduate minor in geological sciences because I was deeply influenced by my childhood
upbringing on the outskirts of The Andes Mountains, in the Elqui Valley in Chile. Most
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importantly, I completed the requirements for a minor in a science discipline because I wanted to
see and experience first-hand how STEM integration takes place in the real world.
Nonetheless, and despite all my efforts to learn science, to learn how STEM works, and
to do research on STEM education, statistically I am not considered a “STEM worker,” even
though I have a significant amount of experience and I deeply identify with it. According to
Metcalf (2011), things might start to change as “numerous non-technology-based fields are
building relationships with those that are technology based… and… graphic design in art
departments, educational technology in education departments, … are other examples of this
blending” (p. 50). I think minoritized students who have not succeeded in traditional high
schools should have the opportunity to experience this blending and flexibility as a path to
STEM identity development.
Trustworthiness
I have been transparent about my positionality about the topic, participant selection
methods, data collection methods and the rationale for best analyzing the data. I also indicated
my active participation in the classroom, not only as a researcher, but also as a role model and
technical support individual. I established rapport with the student participants throughout this
experience based on classroom visits and a genuine, palpable interest in their voices. The use of a
systematic approach throughout the study and the separation of the researcher’s own perspectives
resulted in a greater importance for the students’ own voices, adding fairness to the process
(Patton, 2002).
Although this was not a mixed-methods study, triangulation was necessary to merge the
data: Pre- and Post-survey, Identity Maps and Interviews. For validity and reliability, the process
for data collection and data analysis was systematic and each participant was given the same in-
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depth analysis (Merriam, 1998). For example, Identity Map and Interview data collected from
Matt is consistent and supported by how he depicted the trunk of a tree including those who give
him support in his life (Figure 3-8). When asked: If you were to draw another identity map
today, what might be the same, and what might be different? Why do you think the map would
be different today? Matt responded: “I would… like, the main word that would be holding me up
would be Delta because that's what really got… like, if it wasn’t for Delta I probably wouldn't
have passed high school
Moreover, triangulation was used as a tool to find inconsistencies or weaknesses within
the data, rather than to prove that all data sets yielded the same results. This is important in
qualitative research because it helps to provide recommendations and to better understand the
“relationship of the inquiry approach and the phenomenon under study” (Patton, 2002, p. 556).
Because there are no other studies that analyze STEM identity development using Identity Maps,
surveys and interviews combined, triangulation was essential to understand the role and the
potential of each data set.
Credibility
For credibility reasons, purposeful random sampling (Patton, 2002) was used by
deductively looking into a pool of participants who complied with the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) consent and the different requests for data, as described in the participant selection
section of this chapter. From the pool of participants, the students voluntarily decided to
participate in the interview process and therefore were allowed to receive a small incentive of a
$30 Amazon gift card. This was applied to all the students rather than having the researcher or
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teacher select the individuals. I believe that every person’s time was valuable and therefore an
incentive was necessary as a way of showing respect for the students’ time and voices.
Figure 3-9. Sample Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author.
Conclusions about STEM identity development were generated through principles rooted
in “social construction and constructivist criteria” (Patton, 2002, p. 542). While brainstorming on
codes and possible thematic clusters, I developed “alternative themes, divergent patterns and
rival explanations” (Patton, 2002, p. 553). Inductively, I looked at the data in different ways in
the hopes that would lead me to other findings. For example, when I was coding interviews on
previous and current school, I realized that the majority of the comments were about respective
teachers, and most importantly, the comments were clearly related to emotions participants had.
Those emotions were the psychological nutrients on my conceptual framework.
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Summary of Chapter 3
Chapter 3 presented the rationale I used for the research design from a social
constructivist epistemological stance. Influenced by the work of Merriam (1998) on case study
research, I followed the guidelines and structure to enhance the trustworthiness of my case study.
I then provided an overview of the project where this dissertation was inspired, supported by a
description of the participants and the rationale for participant selection. Credibility concerns
were addressed throughout the chapter during data sources and procedure sections, including a
detailed description of such data sources with the correspondent rationale for use. This chapter
also provided a timeline for data collection and a figure demonstrating the processes and
rationale for data triangulation. Lastly, I added a positionality statement as background
information for who I am as a researcher and participant in this research study.
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CHAPTER 4
FINDINGS
Introduction
This chapter presents the findings that helped answer the study’s research questions:
1. How are STEM identities maintained or developed in minoritized students at an
alternative high school during a 6-month long STEM project integrating 3D scanning, 3D
printing, and paleontology?
2. What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
trigger their STEM identity development?
Participant narratives are presented in the following sections, followed by a synthesis of findings
according to themes and conceptual framework, and individual students’ timelines placing
triggers and significant events in chronological order for visual analysis. Then, in Chapter 5, I
provide a discussion of the findings including recommendations for practice and for research.
Participant Narratives
The following narratives, through patterns across the seven participants, represent the
experience of all seven students except for a few points that are different. Due to considerable
redundancy among the 7 participants, the first four narratives highlight more insights, but are
representative of the group. However, the next three participants also provided unique insights
that are described as well.
Matt
The first participant is identified by the pseudonym “Matt” to protect his identity. Matt
was an enthusiastic student and participant in this research from the very beginning. The first day
I met him in person, he expressed his enthusiasm for science through his passion to study birds.
More specifically, Matt wants to become a Toucan expert. He had only been attending CHS for
one year and he was coming from a traditional local high school with a population of around 800
students and an average class size of approximately 25 students. Although Matt’s former high
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school was highlighted as 258th in the state of California (U.S. News and World Report, 2019),
and provided students with multiple opportunities, such as IB classes for academic success, the
school failed to provide one-to-one attention and support for students like Matt, except for one
teacher.
His former environmental science teacher, Mr. Lee (pseudonym), who according to Matt,
was “the first real teacher I've ever had really,” impacted Matt’s perceptions of science and the
environment. Matt adds, “He kind of made me love science, especially, like, the environmental,
and like, animals, and stuff like that. I think that's a part of the reason I'm, like, pursuing that
area.” What was more helpful and valuable to Matt about Mr. Lee was the level of one-to-one
communication Mr. Lee had with his students. “They actually had a good teacher who actually,
like, helped out, and did stuff with you, and that was a lot more enjoyable.” Interaction with
students and guidance was really important and necessary for Matt. According to him, the
environmental science class he took at his former traditional High School was the only valuable
class he had.
At home, Matt’s dad, who has a master’s degree in electrical engineering, and who works
in the field, was the role model who Matt looked up to. Matt’s description of his dad was that,
“He's actually, like, really smart. I think he's too smart, and it annoys me sometimes. He's the
main reason that I love science, and technology, and, like, that whole field.” Even though Matt’s
interest and support in STEM fields was evident at home and at school, he did encounter
obstacles depicted in his Identity Map.
Before enrolling as a student at CHS, Matt perceived school, money, grades, and learning
style as obstacles for his education and future career. According to Matt, his previous high
school did not work for him for several reasons:
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Figure 4-1. Matt’s obstacles section of his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author.
They kind of just, like, gave you some worksheets. You worked on that and that
was, like, the thing you… like, there were labs and stuff but, you know, it was all
kind of like… it felt like a conveyor belt? The teachers weren’t really interacting
with me too much and stuff like that. I hated the whole environment at [my
previous school]. It really wasn't good. It was just, like, a toxic environment.
Nothing was good there.
Figure 4-2. Matt’s emotions section of his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author.
Because he was surrounded by the affluence of the area where his former high school
was located, money was also a concern for Matt because he was unsure whether he would be
able to afford college. But he also felt that in his former high school “all they really cared about
was money. It's a part of the reason I did so bad [at my previous high school]. They didn't care
about the students, they just cared that they showed up and put up good tests so they get more
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money.” The factor mentioned above contributed to Matt’s frustration with school and his
overall academic performance.
However, Matt’s academic experiences began to change, especially in the science class,
when he enrolled at CHS, as he shared via his experiences.
Here at [CHS], they actually care about the students and stuff like that, and not
too much about the money. I think CHS’s extremely underfunded compared to
[my previous school]. The campus is not that great, there are very few rooms, but
it's… it's the best school I've ever been to.
When asked the question, “What would you do differently in your Identity Map if you could do
it again?” in the section under emotions about your school, Matt responded: “I would put, like,
caring-ness, you know, and stuff like that because, like, they really do care about us here, you
know, all of us as students. And they want to, like, push us up.” For Matt, teacher support is
essential.
I think it's really all the teachers because the teachers, they just, like… they make
you feel like a person, instead of just, like some sort of random student. They
actually, like, they want you to graduate. They're trying to help you in every way
possible, and they're helping you, like, understand the material.
When asked specifically about the science class, Matt explained the importance of interaction
with his teacher, and also the teaching method that was a huge help for his learning style.
[Elena], like, pretty much made a whole unit just for me because she knew I love
birds so much. You know, that's just awesome. When she was talking about the
birds I was just like, I was having so much fun, I was paying attention to the
lecture completely, you know, and just like, I was so into it. I'm doing a lot more
work here than I was at my previous school. I'm more motivated to do it, and I'm
having more fun with it. I'm really engaged in class, constantly joining the
lectures, pay attention, ask questions, stuff like that, and that's really fun to me.”
As mentioned previously, Matt came to CHS with an existing STEM identity influenced
by his father, who is an electrical engineer, and his environmental science teacher from his
former traditional high school. At CHS, he met his new science teacher, Elena (pseudonym) who
has a degree in Marine Biology and was an active participant of the iDigFossils project. Even
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though Matt’s interest is in birds, the activity about the giant snake Titanoboa expanded Matt’s
knowledge and interest in science.
Figure 4-3. Matt’s emotions section of his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author.
I also want to go to biology so I can go out, you know, try to do something with
toucans in the forest that’s… toucans are my favorite animal so it's like, I would
love to do that. So yeah, I… I want to pursue biology, probably, or marine
biology, somewhere around there. I want to start with biology just because they
keep – branch out to so many things if I choose to change.
When asked why pursuing a career in sciences was so important to him, he responded by saying
that making the world a better place was his ultimate goal. According to Carlone and Johnson
(2007) and Calabrese-Barton et al (2013), students who feel the need to help others or the world
come from an altruistic identity. Because Titanoboa is an extinct specimen, students learned
about paleontology and the role of the snake in topics such as climate change, and why it is
important to understand the past in order to prepare for the future. Matt’s interest in making the
world a better place included ideas about climate change, ocean pollution, and coral bleaching,
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among others. “I mean to me personally, I... like, our family’s, like, really big into climate
change and stuff like that.” When asked about paleontology, Matt said:
With paleontology, you do the same thing but, like, more of the past. I don't know
how to explain it but it's like, you… you do kind of need them both because, like
I… I remember when I was young, what, what… what I would do sometimes is,
we’d go to the, like, Colo – Colorado, to the Rocky Mountains up there. And we
actually looked for fossils and stuff like that, so that was, like, really cool to me.
Mostly they kind of, like go hand in hand together like that. So it's just cool.
Definitely seems like, really challenging, which is why I think at school, they
definitely like incorporating this in high school so we're more prepared for it
when we get to college.
Then, we touched upon the topic of technology and specifically what we were doing about
incorporating 3D scanning and 3D printing into the science class.
Science is really interesting here at [CHS] because it's, like, stuff that normal
schools won't… like, don't normally do. So, you would 3D print a, like, model or,
like, something like that, of it so that you can actually hold it in your hands and
look at it. And it's like, to actually have a physical model just makes it, like, so
much better and you can learn so much more from it.
For Matt, building a single model of an extinct snake to learn about the biology of modern
snakes and the current environment where they live, to learn about the paleontology of an extinct
snake to calculate ancient climate, and to understand how scientists use this information to
predict future climate, was simply his most favorite way to present the science curriculum.
It's like, the whole… like, we're…, like, talking about actual animals and, the
adaptations that they have in the ocean. So, just kind of covering, like, a large…
you know, like, a large field of science. We're actually going into certain areas
and, like, learning really more about that and it's just simple, I love it.
Overall, for Matt the most important aspects of the science class at CHS were a) the close
communication with his science teacher and the school’s staff support, and b) also the idea of
learning about a big topic such as Climate Change from all different angles. According to Matt,
learning the depth and breadth of a specific topic (instead of memorizing facts) was more
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beneficial to his learning style. Like him, other participants shared the same thoughts about
teacher support and learning about current societal issues.
Layla
Layla, the second participant of this study, had been attending CHS for less than a year
when our activity started. Like Matt, Layla comes from a traditional high school in California
with a student population of around 1,458 students, and with a student-teacher ratio of 28:1.
Layla described her experience at her previous school as overwhelming because of its size and
also because the material was at “a higher level than what the students are at. So, it's harder for
everyone to understand.” She self describes as a student in the science class who initially tried to
do her work, but the demand was too intense. “I did the best I could. But sometimes if it was,
like, a little too difficult, I just, like… it went over my head and I couldn't do it, so I didn't try.”
As a result of this school dynamic, Layla’s grades started to drop, feelings of anxiety
started to kick in, and doubts about her competence started to flourish. In her own words, “I
started falling, like, way behind. And I knew that there was, like, no way I was gonna graduate if
I stayed there.” Even though she enjoyed some of the activities offered through the science class
(hands-on watershed project at a local Aquarium), the capstone project for the activity was a big
PowerPoint presentation in front of a panel of scientists. Layla described the experience as
follows: “I get really nervous to speak in front of crowds. But, like, I know there’s no way out of
it, so I just do it. And then I just, like, die after because I'm so nervous. Yeah, it depletes, like, all
of my emotional energy.” Like Matt, when she enrolled at CHS things started to change for her
in a positive way.
[CHS] it's a little more, like, laid back but you're still getting, like, the same
amount of information. It’s a lot better, I would say. Our activities, I feel, like, cuz
we get, uh, longer classes than, like, at a regular school. We even go over more
stuff, and it flows better into each-other because… like, the whole class flows and
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it's not, like, divided up into different sections. And here they're, like, almost an
hour and a half. It's better because nobody’s like, rushing to get stuff finished. Uh,
honestly like, the whole time that I've been here has been a pretty good
experience. Like, it's been better than like… I used to, like, go to class and not
want to be there, ever.
But now, it's like, more comfortable to be in class. At [CHS], you kind of have,
like, the choice of working and nothing’s being, like, forced upon you. So it
probably, like, motivates me a little bit more to just do it out of respect; out of the
respect that I'm receiving from, like, my teachers and stuff. I feel like a lot more,
like, supported. If I really needed help, I could go to, like, any one of my teachers,
and they would help me the best they could. The teachers here make it a lot easier
because it's like, they want to help you and you're not really, like, being a burden
to them.
Layla is a student who has been expressing interest in science since middle school with
the idea of medical school in mind. “And medical is just kind of like, something that's always
been in the back of my mind as, like, something that I could do if I wanted to put in all the work
to do it.” She is aware of the demands and benefits of a career in a medical field, but she is also
cautious about jumping right into a commitment, knowing what is ahead of her.
Figure 4-4. Layla’s rationale for a medical career. Photo courtesy of author.
Layla was considering a medical career due to the straightforward path to achieve it.
“Medical seems like something that you can just, like… like, it's a lot of hard work but it's very,
like, straightforward.” However, art is her passion that has been growing as a result of the
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environment where she lives. “I've been interested in art since, like, middle school. I have art on
here because I come from a pretty artistic family, and I have, like, pretty natural artistic abilities
so that seems like an almost, like, obvious route for me to go.”
Lately, after her transition from her former high school to CHS, she has been thinking
about incorporating math and coding into her art and science interests, and also technology to
potentially become a game developer. “I'm kind of interested in, like, the math part of, like,
games. Like, the coding and stuff, like, the computers and… and things that make it run the way
it does.”
Figure 4-5. Layla’s conceptualization of art and games as part of her identity. Photo courtesy of
author.
Although in her Identity Map she does not leave the medical field out, the most
prominent components are art and games. She is clearly seeing how mathematics and coding can
support and bring together her interests (“the best of both worlds with art and games”). During
her interview, while talking about STEM careers and the STEM community she said, “I think it
takes a creative mind to be able to solve problems, and I think that community [STEM
community] has, like, a higher level of creativity than, like, most.” She makes an excellent point
about art and creativity, and as a result would advocate for incorporating the letter “A” (as in
Art) in order to replace STEM with STEAM.
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Creative minds can also be visual learners. In Layla’s case, she appreciated the learning
of paleontology through the use of a 3D model:
And like, you can actually… like, the skeleton of the Titanoboa, like, I never
would have been able to really imagine the scale that it was unless I had, like,
seen it, like, how it is with the skeleton. There are certain things that I probably
learn better, I, looking at rather than, like, listening to it. Because like, listening,
someone telling me how large, like, Titanoboa was; like, I can kind of imagine
but, like, it's always better to, like, get the visual.
As it was for Layla, the visual component of the activity implemented at CHS was a positive
aspect for most (if not all) students who enrolled in Elena’s science class, and for all students
who participated in the interview process.
The nature of the Titanoboa activity was collaborative. Students had to work at different
stations in order to 3D print, do research, and create other deliverables for a grade. Such a
collaborative process was essential for Layla because collaboration and recognition are important
aspects of how she sees herself in the future. Like Layla, Chris was also inspired by technology
to pursue a career that would enhance his artistic abilities. Chris’ narrative is further down in this
chapter.
Well, yeah, just to, like, work with a team of people, and then slowly see, like, all
your hard work come together. And then, like, the finished product of, like,
getting to play a game. I would probably be, like, pretty proud of, like, what I've
made and what my, like, peers have made. Successful at, like, any aspect of that
I'd be, like, pretty stoked on that, like, pretty proud of myself.
The reason why Layla had to leave her former high school was because she felt the
material was too advanced for her and her peers, leading to issues about competence. At CHS,
and during the 3D scanning and printing activity learning about the extinct animal, Layla found
opportunities for collaboration, outlets for her creative thinking, and recognition by her teachers.
She has now decided to move away from a medical career, and to pursue a career path that
connects her interests in art, mathematics and technology.
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Rob
Rob attended a traditional high school in California that housed around 1400 students,
with the majority of the population being Hispanic (85%; Education Data Partnership, n.d.).
Rob’s experiences with the science class at his former high school were, as he describes them,
entirely negative:
It was really boring. It was just textbooks, and reading, and answering questions
from it. I don't remember anything from it. And at the end, there was really
nothing to it. There's, like, way more kids. And they don't really have the
motivation and time to pay any of us attention, like, individually.
Figure 4-6. Rob’s emotions as depicted on his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author.
During the interview, Rob indicated that he did not know what he would be doing during each
class. He described his experience of coming into class as a surprise factor, which caused him to
feel nervous and anxious. Not knowing what would happen and lack of teacher support were
deeply influential to Rob. He described his feelings about teachers at his former high school by
saying, “They don't really have the motivation and time to pay any of us attention, like,
individually.” Rob did not feel recognized or competent.
We also touched upon the topic of standardized testing, while attending a traditional high
school, and Rob’s feelings about it:
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I guess it just measures, like, how smart I am, or what I've learned. I don't like it
cuz… I mean, everyone’s different, so if, like, maybe someone passes and
someone doesn't, like I don't know what the level that would be in… how smart
someone would be. I don't think that's… good to measure. Just because, um,
maybe you're not too focused on something, but you can be at something else. So
just because you didn't pass something, doesn't make you, um, not smart at it.
Maybe you just weren’t engaged enough to be focused and, like, actually pay
attention to it.
Although standardized testing results are used for school accountability, Rob’s remarks
about standardized testing, engagement, and being smart cannot be ignored. Results such as this
can affect the self-perception about competence and recognition of students.
Like Matt and Layla, when Rob enrolled at CHS, the science class and the school in
general started to provide more positive experiences for Rob. “Here, it's just much better, like, I
feel like I'm just… I'm worth something, you know?” The most impactful aspects of his
experiences at CHS are the openness and access to communication with his science teacher and
the way the science class was being taught.
And like, my teacher, I get to talk to Elena a lot which is helpful. And whenever
I'm struggling, I get to ask her, um, about the work and I understand it much
better then. I mean, just knowing what we're going to do, and I'm, like, less
nervous about what we would do. But, like, now, I get to look forward to
whatever’s gonna come next.
Rob is a student who went from heavily disliking the traditional high school education, to
actually looking forward to what is coming next in class. Rob was also an eager participant
interested in sharing his experience with 3D scanning, 3D printing and the use of the giant
extinct snake through the discipline of paleontology. When asked if and how his knowledge of
3D scanning and 3D printing has expanded, Rob stated:
Um, it definitely has expanded. So, like, seeing, like, the models that come from it
and, like, the three-dimensional shapes, like, I don't know. It's really interactive
and getting to see how it's made, it's really interesting. just getting to see that
progress through the weeks, and getting to see the final results of it is really,
really cool. I really liked it. Prior to coming here, I didn't know that, like, 3D
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printing was a thing. I think everyone should have a chance to see and, like,
interact with it just to see how it's made.
The idea of using a giant extinct snake, a charismatic animal, to teach complex ideas such as
climate change, and the importance of knowing past climates in order to prepare for the future,
was important to Rob. “So, just seeing how long it was thanks to the 3D scanning, it was very
eye-opening, like, how hot it used to be.” Even though no one was required to memorize terms
about climate change, most students understood the connection between paleontological studies
which could be used to better prepare humanity for the future. Rob’s engagement in the activity
was evident and constant.
The Titanoboa, it was really cool because… I mean, it's the largest snake. The
climate and the snake, like, reproducing and stuff, go hand in hand. So, just seeing
how long it was thanks to the 3D scanning, it was very eye-opening, like, how hot
it used to be. And that's how it affected the snake. I felt very motivated to get it
done.
When Rob came to CHS he did not know what his career path would be, and mentioned that at
his former traditional high school he was too young to even think about it. Ideas about medical
school were vaguely present, but not fully developed. “I wanted to be a doctor, but now I want to
be an architect just because I like shape and, like, the 3D printing.”
Figure 4-7. Rob’s future as depicted on his Identity Map. Photo courtesy of author.
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At this point during the interview, we started talking about STEM careers and the STEM
community. As a result of 3D scanning and 3D printing, Rob wants to become an architect. Even
though architecture, according to NSF is not recognized as a STEM career, Rob considers
himself part of the STEM community:
I see myself a part of it just because I know architecture requires… to become an
architect, it requires a lot of math. And, I think they all go together well. I'm
definitely now seeing, like, with 3D printing stuff, I think people would have
more access to it just seeing how it's done, if they have a chance to see it too.
This is an important point that refers to how we present the idea of STEM to students. While in
Rob’s case, he had no pre-conceived notions about STEM, due to the topics he thought he would
be covering during a career in architecture, it made perfect sense for him to belong in the STEM
community. “I know there's a lot of math required. Technology, yeah, for architecture because,
um… I mean, you have to see the plan and the outline; maybe, like, the blueprints. I'm pretty
sure I know being an architect is what I want to do.”
Chris
Chris is a student, an artist, and a teen who has struggled with anxiety and depression
since 9th grade. From birth to 5th grade, he described himself as a “careless child.” During his
childhood, and throughout his high school years, Chris expressed interest in “making people
happy,” and because he has an “altruistic identity” (Carlone & Johnson, 2007, p. 1), he thinks of
his drawings, his writing, and the use of technology as venues to translate his ideas into videos
that would make people happy.
Prior to attending his former high school, Chris stated:
In the sixth grade ‘til eighth grade, I remember I was really fascinated by, like,
YouTubers. And like, I just, like, really wanted to do that cuz it seemed fun, so I
don't know. And then, that's when I had those friends that were, like, telling me I
should draw, so that's when I started drawing.
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Figure 4-8. Chris’ Identity Map highlighting where he wants to make people happy (past and
present). Photo courtesy of author.
Evidently, just by looking at his Identity Map, one can easily determine that Chris has
artistic abilities. He has enrolled in some art courses at college level as well influencing his
artistic and altruistic identities. During the interview, he repeated multiple times that his goal is
to make people happy through his art. Then, he started high school. “Then, there was ninth
grade, which was the only year I spent at [my former high school]. And, it was a really bad year,
so I didn't really [pay attention to] my grades since I didn't go to school.” Depression and anxiety
kicked in, and things had a negative spin for him: “I wasn't drawing as much. And I was kind of
thinking, oh, well I'm just not gonna do it anymore. Like, I'm not gonna become an artist or
anything.”
He described the science class at his former high school as boring, and most of the work
consisted of answering worksheets. He also found no support from teachers. In short, the year
was looking gloomy for Chris, until he met a counselor who told him about CHS. “She had
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worked as a counselor there, and that she thought it would be a really good fit for me. So, she
helped me and my mother, like, get here and get the papers to, like, register me.” He added, “I'm
really glad because I really do love [CHS] school.”
Figure 4-9. Chris’ Identity Map describing the struggles during 9th grade. Photo courtesy of
author.
At CHS, things changed for the better. Science class was suddenly fun and engaging,
despite the difficulty level.
It's so much fun, sometimes lectures are a bit… like, they're long and stuff. But
they're, like, nice to look back at cuz I actually remember now, stuff, because I
wrote it down. Just like, it's not just a bunch of textbook work. Elena, she, like,
brings videos and, like, makes it fun to learn. I don't know, I have a lot of fun in
that class. I just… just a fun class all the time pretty much.
The fun with learning intensified for Chris when the Titanoboa activity was announced.
For an artist and a visual learner, the idea of building a 3D model of a giant extinct snake seemed
extravagant and thrilling. “It was pretty cool cuz, like, I don't know; knowing that we were gonna
make, like, a whole thing, like, life-size, it made me want to, like, know more about the snake.
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So, like, I knew… I don't know.” For an artist in a science class, this activity came with much
excitement and engagement.
I'd never even seen a 3D printer. And so, like, be able to, like, see it work and
everything, that was pretty cool. It was… I don't know, I was, like, really, like,
shocked that we were even doing it. I never thought that I was going to be doing
this for, like, a class. It made me want to, like, learn more about it cuz we were
gonna, like, do a whole thing with it.
After experiencing 3D scanning and 3D printing, Chris started connecting ideas and
began to think about how 3D technology can help him experiment with different mediums for his
drawings. Adding a 3D-dimentionality to his drawings was a sort of “ah ha” moment. What
about science? Chris started to enjoy science class because there was no pressure to memorize. It
was mainly a journey through a big science story with many characters, specimens, and different
time periods. The class was pleasant to listen to. Although sometimes difficult, it was not
intimidating. In Chris’ words:
It was a bit hard to do, and, like, read through, like, all… like, the super science…
science-y articles. But it was fun to learn. In a way it was… in a way, it was hard,
but it was fun. Sometimes, not really, but if I didn't understand something, Elena
would always come over and, like, explain it.
Once again, teacher support becomes central for students’ learning and engagement.
I think I've learned a lot this year, so I feel like it's pretty good. This is something
that inspired me. I'm, like really, like, happy; glad that I got to experience this,
that I came to this school and I got to just, do all this fun stuff while still learning.
That's just the best, so thank you.
We concluded our conversation talking about STEM careers and the STEM community. His
knowledge was incredible. Even though he did not remember exactly what the acronym meant,
he thought of STEM people as: “really smart… always push themselves forward, and, like, be on
it.” I was curious about whether or not he would choose the word “perseverance,” and I
followed, asking him, “If you were to put them all in a bag and put, like, a few labels to describe
them, how would you do that? What words would you use?”
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Chris responded: “Probably the creative would have to be one of them,” consistent with
the idea that creativity is essential in collaborate learning because creative people see things from
a completely different perspective. Perhaps that is the boost we need towards inclusion and
diversity, to recruit and prepare the next generation of STEAM students capable of solving
problems of societal impact.
I feel like anybody who, like, helps. Or like, does anything with technology or
math, or science; even to, like, teach us, like Elena. Like, they count because
they're, like, teaching other people about it. I see myself more as a learner, but
like, I guess learners would be part of the community too, in a way.
Another important point made by Chris was the idea that a STEM community is only composed
of experts in each of the fields and that this idea is somehow rigid and outdated. Perhaps it would
be a good idea to replace the meaning of being in the STEM community with a more fluid idea
that also includes STEM learners, and those who are just taking a peek out of curiosity, to add a
flexibility component. Chris’s experiences and his willingness to share them with me were
extremely eye-opening and valuable to this research.
Laura
Figure 4-10. Laura’s Identity Map depicting emotions, some related to math. Photo courtesy of
author.
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Laura comes from a traditional High School in California that enrolls around 1,030
students and the math proficiency is 40%. For Laura, the, math class at her former High School
generated a high level of anxiety: “it was a hard math class, so it was… yeah.” When asked how
she feels about math class in her current school, Laura stated: “Um, better because math has
always been hard for me, and now I actually understand it. I don't know” [Laughter].
Karen
Karen comes from the same High School as Laura. Like Laura, Karen felt overwhelmed
with the way subjects were taught at her former school.
Yeah, I took biology. Uh, it was… it was all right, like… I don't know, it was
kind of, um, not that interesting. I don't know, just the way it was taught. Um, it
was just, like, really, like, kind of rigid, and like, there wasn’t, like… I don't
know. We kind of just listened to her talk all day, and there wasn’t a lot of, like,
student involvement or anything like that. Um, I was pretty quiet, you know, I
didn't really talk a lot.
She describes herself as “I really love art, um, and just, like, creative problem-solving is
something that I'm good at.” By the time she left her former High School she was unsure about
going to college to pursue a career, although she mentions that her mom and sisters have careers
or have attended college.
Figure 4-11. Karen’s Identity Map depicting her conflict about college. Photo courtesy of
author.
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Her experiences at CHS gave her new perspectives about her learning experiences: “Um,
I really like Elena; I think she's… she's a really good teacher. I think it's cool how it's, like,
focuses on conservation, um, and stuff like that.” As she considered herself as someone who
cares about the environment and what humanity is doing about it, she brings up an important
point: “Well, I think it's really important to learn about, like, you know, we have to do something
about, and the first step to that is education.” Like other participants, Karen thought that learning
about issues that have societal impact was important, and that the activities they did using 3D
scanning and 3D printing helped with her learning:
Um, well the 3D printing of the Titanoboa skeleton was really cool. I thought it
was really interesting, and um, just learning about how the Titanoboa, like, kind
of tells us about the environment that it lived in. We were working on the skeleton
for a while, but we were also, like, doing other stuff, um, while we were doing
that. Like, we learned about sharks, um and, um, turtles, I think. And um, just
other marine vertebrates. Yeah, we've definitely talked about, like um, climate
change throughout the whole semester and how it affects, like, all the individual
species. Um, and just like, yeah; throughout the whole semester. Well, we talked
about how, um… like, with climate change, um, there could be, um, bigger and
bigger uh, snakes because they, like, thrive in warm climates.
In addition to her experience learning about climate change by using the fossil record and 3D
printing technology, she felt that CHS was a more supportive environment. “I definitely talk
more, and I feel like I'm more involved at Delta. there's, like, something new every semester.
Um, and um, yeah, it's just a really supportive environment.”
While she does not have a clear career path yet, now she is certain that she wants to go to
college. “Well, I just don't have, like, a super firm grasp about what I want to do, um, when I'm
older, but, I definitely feel more sure that I want to go to college at this point.
Steven
During the interview with Steven, he made 3 observations that were not brought up
before and are worth mentioning. The first one was about being a visual learner and how the
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activity using 3D printing helped him understand the concepts better. “Um, I think it helps, like,
visually; if you’re a visual learner, I think it helps a lot in that way. And, it's also just, like,
something that a lot of kids don't get to do, 3D printing. Just, like, a new kind of source to learn
about it. Yeah, I am; I need to see it to, like, comprehend it kind of.”
He also felt accomplished at CHS:
Accomplished at a school because people kind of see, like, other alternative schools or
charter schools in a different way. I don't know, just like, other ways than… than regular
public schools. There's different rules, um, there's obviously less people. Uh, the teachers
are more in… involved with you than regular schools. Yeah, it's good; they… they teach
you, like, about stuff you more… will more, like, need than public schools.
When he was talking about the importance of learning about current societal issues such as
climate change, he did not feel comfortable bringing the information he learned at school to hi
home environment. He lives with his mom, brother, and sister. When asked: Would any of them
know anything about these current issues? Maybe my brother; I don't think my sister and my
mom would know.
Synthesis of Findings According to Conceptual Framework and from Thematic Analysis
According to the present system, when students underperform, the problem is not how to
help each individual student, but instead, the issue becomes school accountability and how each
public school can maintain the status and scores at a certain acceptable level. According to the
data gathered for this study, lack of teacher and school support appears to be one of the most
impactful and damaging practices that hurts students’ performance. The participating students
acknowledged that their prior schools were too big, had too many students, and were fast
moving. As a result, “when the policies and practices of purging are rendered invisible, no one
but the adolescent is held to blame" (Fine, 1991, p. 82), and a significant number of students is in
the same situation.
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When describing their prior school experiences, most participants of this study reported
feeling an oppressive pressure that translated into failing grades, lack of motivation to go to
school, lack of self-confidence, feelings of not being supported, anxiety and depression, among
other emotions. During data collection and classroom activities, the students were
overwhelmingly helpful, open, and sincere about their feelings regarding their educational
experiences. They shared not just simply facts about their schools (past and current), but also
shared personal information, feelings, fears, and hopes for their future.
Figure 4-12. Study themes and sub-themes diagram
Theme 1: Teacher and School Support
The interview questions did not ask specifically about teachers, but the responses from
participants provided a wealth of information about how they felt about their teachers and
schools. During their prior academic experience, participants described their teachers as
disengaged from the teaching, not willing to interact with students. They said there was a lack of
STEM Identity Development:
Themes
Theme 1: Teacher and School
Support
Sub-theme: Support as a warm
demander
To foster recognition,
competence and performance
Sub-theme: Teacher science
content knowledge
Science and integrated
curriculum design
Theme 2: Teaching Method
Sub-theme:
Hands-on activities
3D Scanning and 3D printing for science class
Student-generated content
Sub-theme: Current Societal
Issues
Depth and Breadth (Novelty)
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one-to-one communication and support, a lack of engaging teaching strategies, and some even
mentioned that teachers simply did not care for them. Some of the comments included:
• “She didn't seem like she wanted to teach.”
• “They don't really have the motivation and time to pay any of us attention.”
Some participants acknowledged the fact that, due to the size of the school, it was hard to
have one-to-one time with their teachers. But the data shows that participants’ emotions about
themselves, as impacted by lack of support and recognition, affects their identities as students.
As the participants reported:
• “There was just a lot more students”
• “So, it's hard to get that one-on-one connection with the students and actually let them
know what's going on”
• “A higher level than what the students are at, so it's harder for everyone to understand”
• “Not as connected to the teachers, so it doesn't really matter as much to you or them.”
• “I started falling, like, way behind, and I knew that there was, like, no way I was gonna
graduate if I stayed there.”
This report is not intended to put blame on other teachers, who are likely under as much pressure
as their students in the era of accountability. Instead, the current research is intended to bring
awareness of how students make meaning of their prior educational experiences and impactful
people in their lives as they move forward through their Figured Worlds negotiating identities
with agency.
“Becoming a warm demander begins with establishing a caring relationship that
convinces students that you believe in them” (Bondy, 2008, p.3), and this appears to be the
situation at CHS. According to the study participants, all teachers and school staff were
supportive. But based on the context of their science class, the impact their science and
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mathematics teacher, Elena, had on participants was evident from their quotes and the lack of
negative comments about CHS, their teachers and staff.
Participants were instructed that their comments would be kept confidential, and the data
would be destroyed after the study was written up. As mentioned earlier, participants’ comments
were genuine, and this was reflected not only in the tone of their statements, but also based on
the evidence of their academic success at CHS.
According to Carlone and Johnson (2007), recognition by others was highly important for
the development of STEM identities. Recognition is important not only in the sense of how
others see students, but also how students see themselves in a STEM context. Participants
reported that teachers at CHS made them “feel like a person,” producing results such as being
inspired to go to college and feeling more confident.
The idea of recognition is connected to the psychological needs of performance and
competence (Carlone & Johnson, 2007). During the coding process, I used recognition,
competence and performance as sub-themes of emotions to codify comments from participants
about their teacher. This codification process did not take place during the first round of coding.
As I looked back to the conceptual framework, I realized that teachers’ attitudes (as described by
their students) were highly connected with STEM identity development, as proposed in Carlone
and Johnson’s model (2007). The results indicated that when teachers helped students understand
the material, the students felt better about themselves. They felt more knowledgeable about their
science content, and therefore, more competent, impacting their identities.
As discussed in Chapter 2, identity is a dominant construct that refers to the idea of who
we are as individuals, who we want to be (Gee, 2000), and how the social context influences our
decisions and views (Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013; Gee, 2000; Kang et al., 2018; Stets & Serpe,
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2013). There is also a strong link between motivation and identity which is illustrated through
the psychological needs of each individual (Maslow, 1943; Deci & Ryan, 2000). Thus,
individuals whose psychological needs such as recognition and competence have been
consistently met will react differently than individuals who have not had their needs met. This
idea is important as the data shows a meaningful impact about how participants’ feelings and
identity expressions transform when their psychological needs are met.
This section highlights participant data that have to do with the emotional impact teachers
can have on student thinking and STEM identity development. This was true regardless of the
school, although the great majority of positive comments came from participants’ quotes about
their current school. Using matrix coding, Table 4-5 shows the number of references in the
selected sections, followed by student quotes. The significance of this section is to see the views
of students and find out how they feel regarding issues exhibited by the categories in Table 4-4.
Table 4-1. Teachers fostering psychological needs
Competence Recognition Support and Self Worth
Teacher 11 3 13
Competence:
As described by Social Practice Theory (Holland et al., 1998), feelings of competence do
impact how individuals position themselves in a Figured World. Feelings of competence,
according to Self Determination Theory, have a direct impact on motivation and identity
development (Deci & Ryan, 2000). The following statement represent how students feel as a
result of teacher and school support
“They make sure that you really understand what we're learning.”
“I feel better because math has always been hard for me, and now I actually
understand it.”
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“They actually, like, they want you to graduate. They're trying to help you in
every way possible.”
“They're helping you, like, understand the material.”
“They go, like, stand next to you and help you out with stuff. They're really
good.”
“I learned something that I didn't know before. That was nice. Makes me feel
smart, I guess; smart.”
“More knowledge.”
“I think I've learned a lot this year, so I feel like it's pretty good.”
Recognition:
According to Gee (2000, 2017), identity refers to the kind of person one is seeking to be. It is,
in other words, how an individual sees their future self (Kang et al., 2018). Theory of Human
Motivation (Maslow, 1943) and Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) have identified
recognition as one of the most powerful psychological nutrients that influence an individual’s
identity development.
“I think it's really all the teachers because the teachers, they just, like… they make
you feel like a person.”
“And that kind of just helped me, um… like, inspired me to want to go to
college.”
“Yeah. I think definite… definitely confidence. I'm more, like, confident about
it.”
Support and Self Worth:
Support and Self Worth, according to participants’ testimony, can be seen as a
consequence of the other. When students feel supported, they feel safe and valued. Maslow
(1943) described “the safety needs” (p. 376), as primarily, a need on young children, but he also
mentions that adults or young adults can feel the threat if safety is not present.
“Here, it's just much better, like, I feel like I'm just… I'm worth something, you
know?”
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“Communicating with my teachers, and it's just very supportive, and they actually
care about my future.”
“I feel a lot more comfortable. I feel like they care for me.”
“I think it's really all the teachers because the teachers, they just, like… they make
you feel like a person, instead of just, like some sort of random student. They
actually, like, they want you to graduate. They're trying to help you in every way
possible.”
“There's more focus on, like, um, individual support, um, which is really helpful
for me. It's just a really supportive environment. My they're a lot better.”
“Yeah. I think definite… definitely confidence. I'm more, like, confident about
it.”
“It makes me feel really good, and like… cuz, I don't know; I always have this,
like, problem. Like oh, I can't do it. But then, like, I also have this, like, support at
school. So it makes me feel like if… maybe if I keep trying, I can do it. I'm really
glad because I really do love this school. I'm really lucky to have it.”
Theme 2: Teaching Method
The second theme that emerged from this data set concerns the role of the teaching
method in the students’ STEM identity development. When students were asked, “What was the
science class like at your previous school and at your current school?” a wealth of useful insights
emerged. This data, in addition to specific information about the use of 3D scanning and 3D
printing in the context of paleontology and biology are helpful to answering my second research
question: What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
triggers their STEM identity development?
Regarding previous schools, participants commented about the way teaching occurred,
and how they felt about the use of textbooks, worksheets, memorization and lack of novelty. In
stark contrast to their current school, CHS, the theme was clearly about teaching methods which
provided many insights about what students consider to be an ideal science class. The majority
of participants were highly opposed to textbook work, worksheets, memorization, as well as
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abstract, out-of-context information. According to Rob in his previous school, “It was just
textbooks, and reading, and answering questions from it. And at the end, there was really nothing
to it. I don't remember anything from it”. Laura pointed out that: “It was, um, big and just, fast-
moving. It was hard math class. I felt anxious going to class there. Just because it moved too fast
for me”
All participants agreed that the science class at CHS was much more interesting because
it covered topics of importance to them and to society in general, and also because it had a
component of novelty. The participants seemed excited to learn about current information on
how scientists make new discoveries about climate change, and also what the precautions and
actions are which the average citizen can take to prevent further damage.
Science is really interesting here at [CHS] because it's, like, stuff that normal
schools won't… like, don't normally do. Here, like, they go into detail. That's just
so interesting to me. It's like, the whole… like, we're… we're, like, talking about
actual animals and, like, the adaptations that they have in the ocean. We're
actually going into certain areas and, like, learning really more about that and it's
just simple, I love it.
Matt
During my second round of coding, I felt the need to add sub-themes to the educational
method, topic and style, because the participants were incredibly specific about why certain
practices were important and beneficial.
Hands-On Activities
As indicated by participants regarding their previous educational experiences, learning
from a book or completing worksheets was not considered useful or new to them. At CHS,
because the curriculum has more flexibility, different topics can be taught in different and
creative ways. Several participants expressed that they were excited to learn something new,
something they considered “bigger and better.” For example, one student reported:
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It was a bird lecture, just because birds are my favorite animals. Elena, like pretty
much made a whole unit just for me because she knew I love birds so much. You
know, that's just awesome. When she was talking about the birds, I was just like, I
was having so much fun, I was paying attention to the lecture completely, you
know, and just like, I was so into it.
Unanimously, participants preferred hands-on activities and a variety of teaching
tools, such as engaging lectures from experts (scientists), videos, and visuals.
Figure 4-13. From the field to the classroom, hands-on activity. Photo courtesy of author.
Hands-on Learning Supported by 3D Scanning, 3D Printing, and Paleontology
As a result of their participation in the iDigFossils program, the participants’ comments
were overwhelmingly positive.
The Titanoboa, was really cool because… I mean, it's the largest snake. And just
seeing the process of how it's done, it made me realize, like, how big it actually
was; it couldn't even fit through the door, like, almost as long as the classroom. I
felt very motivated to get it done.
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3D printing just makes it so much easier, so much better. So, you would 3D print
a, like, model or, like, something like that, of it so that you can actually hold it in
your hands and look at it. And it's like, to actually have a physical model just
makes it, like, so much better and you can learn so much more from it.
I thought it was really interesting, and um, just learning about, like, how the
Titanoboa, like, kind of tells us about the environment that it lived in. I think it
helps with the learning, too, because it's more interactive, and you actually get to,
like, you know, create it, uh, which makes it more interesting and it kind of sticks
with you more.
Figure 4-14. CHS students displaying the initial stages of reconstructing the snake skeleton.
Picture courtesy of CHS.
Student Generated Content
In addition to reconstructing the skeleton, students traveled to a local elementary school
where they shared what they had learned about the giant extinct snake. CHS students prepared
special activities for their young counterparts and designed educational material to use during the
activity. CHS students were fully in charge and empowered by the responsibility associated with
the task. “To understand maker learning in practice requires one to pay attention to the power
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dynamics that shape how youth are recognized for what they know and can do” (Calabrese-
Barton & Tan, 2018, p. 768). As one participant explained:
Well, it makes me feel good, be able to, like, spread that knowledge and maybe,
like, um, some kid [elementary school visit] would be super… uh, really
interested there, and pursue… you know, science in the future.
The students felt recognized for their ability to design an educational activity for a younger
audience. They were involved in the process as if they had transported their creative minds to the
age when they were in Elementary School. From a researcher’s perspective, it was a breath-
taking scene to witness. Breathtaking in the sense that the older students immediately identified
that they had to transport back in time to the Figured World (Holland et al., 1998) when they
were younger.
Figure 4-15. Elementary school students working on reconstructing Titanoboa, guided by CHS
students. Photo courtesy of author.
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The reconstruction of Titanoboa’s skeleton was the core component of the activity at
CHS, but the capstone project was achieved when the students shared their knowledge with a
nearby elementary school. CHS students applied what they had learned and used the 3D printed
model as a traveling exhibit. They guided their young audience about how to build the skeleton
and explained the importance of the fossil record to understand complex issues of societal impact
such as climate change.
Figure 4-16. Memory card game designed by CHS as a teaching tool for elementary school
students with the purpose of reinforcing key ideas. Photo courtesy of author.
Current Societal Issues
Participants expressed they wanted to learn about climate change, plastic pollution,
deforestation, and all other issues that affect humanity as a whole. In a similar manner, and
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related to depth and breadth, they were interested in learning how the earth systems work.
Although they did not use that specific language, when a participant expressed interest in
learning about climate change, using the fossil record to predict future climate, and using current
living specimens to compare sizes and anatomy in order to learn about the different
environments where animals lived, in a way they are saying they want to discover the big
picture.
Depth and Breadth
A few participants expressed the idea that learning not just about one topic or animal, but
instead, learning about the whole ecosystem and related topics where the animal lives or lived,
was extremely interesting, engaging and exciting. They felt that they were learning and retaining
more information that way.
It's like, the whole… like, we're… we're, like, talking about actual animals and,
like, the adaptations that they have in the ocean; just kind of covering, like, a
large… you know, like, a large field of science. We're actually going into certain
areas and, like, learning really more about that and it's just simple – I love it.
Participants felt less anxiety and more excitement when they knew ahead of time the topics they
would be covering. They felt that this anticipation of classroom events is conducive to the
development of 21st century skills such as collaboration.
STEM Identity Development Over time: Timelines
As a way of conveying an understanding of STEM education in relation to identity
development for minoritized students, this study sought to answer the following research
questions:
1. How are existing and new STEM identities maintained or developed in a sample of
minoritized students at an alternative public high school as they participate in a 6-
months long project using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and paleontology?
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2. What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
trigger their STEM identity development?
The purpose of the following section is to describe the trajectory or timeline of each of
the participants I interviewed with insights based on empirical evidence from the data collected
and aligned with the theories used for this study.
Rob had always been inclined towards a STEM career, while he was attending his
previous school, beginning with the idea of becoming a doctor (Figure 4-1 above). During the
time at his previous school, he lost interest and motivation for STEM. The participant recalls
doing much of the work from textbooks and not remembering anything afterwards. He also
experienced disappointment with the teachers, who, according to the student, did not care about
him and other students. When asked about standardized testing, the participant indicated that the
tests were intended to measure how smart one is.
So just because you didn't pass something, doesn't make you, um, not smart at it.
Maybe you just weren’t engaged enough to be focused and, like, actually pay
attention to it. I don't think that's… good to measure.”
The participant also expressed feelings of anxiety about going to class and not knowing
what the day would look like in terms of classroom activities. Things started to change for Rob
when he moved to CHS. According to the Identity Map and interview, the biggest change for
him was the feeling of knowing what the class would be doing, and most importantly, having
access to his science teacher. “Communicating with my teachers, and it's just very supportive,
and they actually care about my future. Here, it's just much better, like, I feel like I'm just… I'm
worth something, you know?”
For example, an individual’s fulfillment as a STEM person can interfere with his/her role
as a student who struggles with anxiety or depression, or both. And according to SDT,
relatedness can be compared to ideas from attachment theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Individuals
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feel safer when they have someone who cares about or protects them. Rob was very clear and
open about the role of his teacher and staff at CHS and what they meant to him. While his
intention to go to college has not changed, he now feels more inclined to pursue a career in
technology. He is no longer intimidated by the challenges that mathematics might bring, and is
thinking of pursuing a career in architecture. In other words, Rob is creating new meaning about
his own identity based on his new social context.
This finding is supported by Social Practice Theory, as conceptualized by the idea that a
student can negotiate their possible future STEM identity based on the experience he or she is
undergoing in the present (Kang et al., 2018). When asked, “Who were the most influential
people in your life,” the student responded:
Like, my family, definitely my teachers. My teachers have expanded my
knowledge of a lot of stuff like this. Um, definitely class, Elena, um… like, her
just teaching us everything she has, has definitely made me realize how fragile the
earth is and where it's going. And, my friends and education, definitely coming
here has, like, make me realize what I really want to become and do.”
Rob mentioned that he would get rid of sadness and fear, and that he would add motivation if he
were to make a new Identity Map.
The next section provides a timeline for each student highlighting triggers and some of
the comments made by students according to their experience. Timelines and useful not just for
geological time of historical events, but I also found that for the purposes of STEM identity
development were crucial to my study in order to understand students’ trajectory of thoughts,
positions, and feelings.
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Figure 4-17. Timeline for Chris
Chris
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Figure 4-18. Timeline for Layla
Layla
If you were to draw a new ID Map, what would you do
differently?
• I would probably get rid of, like, the medical one and focus more on, like, games.
• the teachers here make it a lot easier because it's like, they want to help you and you're not really, like, being a burden to them. So I would probably be more inclined to ask for help here.
STEM Community
• Determined and hardworking
• Higher level of creativity than, like, most.
• I think it takes a creative mind to be able to solve problems.
• I feel like it's a pretty diverse community, or it's starting to be at least.
• Women in technology: I think there needs to be more
Activity Comments
• I never would have been able to really imagine the scale that it was unless I had, like, seen it, like, how it is with the skeleton.
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Figure 4-19. Timeline for Matt
Matt
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Figure 4-20. Timeline for Rob
Rob
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Summary of Chapter 4
The purpose of this study was to explore if and how STEM identity develops in
minoritized students after using 3D scanning, 3D printing and paleontology as a gateway for
STEM learning. This chapter provided the data and major themes of Identity Maps and open-
ended interviews, in addition to pre and post survey data used as a positionality statement for
within student’s analysis, and as an individual comparison of the changes that happen as a result
of the activity.
The data was coded using interview questions to generate preliminary themes. As a result
of a lot of rich and abundant data, I reached a point of data saturation. The narratives of the first
four participants represented the views of all seven. However, any additional highlights from the
other remaining participants were also included on the study. For accuracy, and through
NVivo12 analysis, I made sure that no other information was left behind from the students whom
I did not provide a full narrative. The first set of codes was organized by interview questions and
Identity Map components. Then, after several queries using NVivo12 matrix analysis, alignment
with the conceptual framework became evident and the final themes were established.
In Chapter 5, I provide a discussion of the findings presented in Chapter 4 and
recommendations for practice and research.
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CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to explore how STEM identities are maintained or
developed in a sample of minoritized students at an alternative high school in California, after
they participated in a 6-month-long program using 3D scanning and 3D printing in the context of
paleontology as a gateway for STEM education. In addition, I wanted to learn, based on the
students’ perceptions, which features of this STEM education curriculum (See Appendix A)
trigger STEM identity development.
There is a common misconception that students who attend alternative public schools are
students who have failed in the traditional high school system because they did not engage in
school activities, had poor or failing grades, had disabilities, and an overall bad attitude towards
school. As a result of these misconceptions, blame is placed on students. After working several
years with students at CHS, I observed that, if given an opportunity, they did care about their
grades, they wanted to graduate from high school, they aspired to have a career, and they
engaged in classroom activities. In addition, they conducted themselves in a respectful, yet shy,
and cautious manner, and this is why I decided to do this study.
In an effort to “equalize” (Fine, 1991, p. 101) STEM education for minoritized youth, an
educational activity using 3D scanning, 3D printing and Paleontology was implemented,
embedded in a makerspace setting (Dougherty, 2012; Halverson & Sheridan, 2014) at CHS.
Students had the opportunity to learn about 3D scanning, 3D printing, and Paleontology.
Although Hands-on and Project or Problem-Based Learning (PBL) have been endorsed
by many education experts (Cerezo, 2004; Dahlgren, 1998; Krajcik, 2015; Krajcik &
Blumenfeld, 2006; Krajcik & Czeniak, 2014; Schmidt et al., 2007), motivation and learning do
not happen automatically during Hands-on or PBL education (Belland, Kim, & Hannafin, 2013).
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Therefore, and because motivation is so closely related to identity development (Deci & Ryan,
2000), the design of our educational activity considered several concepts proposed by scholars
who are concerned with motivation in educational settings (Belland et al., 2013; Krapp, 2005;
Urdan & Schoenfelder, 2006). An adequate framework is centered on the idea that we need to
minimize barriers for students in order to maximize learning. This is known as Universal Design
Learning (UDL: CAST, 2018).
In this chapter, I provide a summary of how the findings have helped me answer the
research questions in alignment with the conceptual framework I used for this study. Later, I
provide recommendations for practice and research.
Interpretation of Findings
The themes and sub-themes identified in this study provide a wealth of information that is
aligned with the conceptual framework that helps me answer following research questions:
1. How are existing and new STEM identities maintained or developed in a sample of
minoritized students at an alternative public high school as they participate in a 6-
months long project using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and paleontology?
2. What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated STEM experience that
trigger their STEM identity development?
In regard to the first question, relevant research that illustrates the connections between
diversity and identity (Gee, 200, 2017), and provides insights for future recruitment and
retainment efforts of the next generation of STEM workers, is important to the current study. As
we understand the importance of autonomy, relatedness, competence, performance, and
recognition, as crucial psychological needs for student motivation and ultimately for identity
development (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Holland et al., 1998; Kang et al.,
2018; Maslow, 1943) , we need a better understanding of how students negotiate identities to
make sense of their Figured Worlds (Holland et al., 1998).
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In the context of STEM education, student engagement decreases when the activity
presented is believed to have no value or when the student feels that he or she is incapable of
accomplishing the task (Belland et al., 2013). According to contemporary constructivist theorists,
“knowledge is a function of how the individual creates meaning from his own experiences”
(Ertmer, & Newby 1993. p. 55), presenting an evident connection between how students feel and
how they learn. This widely accepted notion is supported by multiple theories and has been
sustained through several empirical studies (Ertmer, & Newby 1993; Hein, 1991; Piaget, 1976).
In other words, students perceive their Figured World differently, as if there was an individual
filter that produces a unique experience (Ertmer, & Newby 1993). This, as described by
constructivists, means that “humans create meaning as opposed to acquiring it” (Ertmer, &
Newby 1993. p. 55; Holland et al., 1998). This idea is in alignment with Social Practice Theory,
where identities are formed and shaped by the social context within which they live.
As outlined in Chapter 4, the group of seven participants reflected on their STEM identity
journey through high school, describing differences in their experiences in the science class at a
traditional high school and the experiences they had at CHS. All seven participants felt
unsupported in their traditional schools, and for most according to the data, the psychological
needs of recognition, competence, performance, knowledge, and esteem needs were not met.
For example, one student stated: “They don't really have the motivation and time to pay
any of us attention.” This lack of attention not only leads to lack of recognition, but also removes
opportunities to fulfil the need of autonomy (CAST, 2018; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Maslow, 1943;
Meyer et al., 2014). When students are left behind, “I didn't want to be in class, moved too fast,”
it does not mean the student was not capable. It possibly means that the parts of the brain in
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charge of the “what” of learning, the “how” of learning, and the “why” of learning were not
properly fulfilled by the type of instruction provided at the time (CAST, 2018).
Some of the students reported anxiety: “I felt anxious going to class.” From a SDT
perspective (Deci & Ryan, 2000), anxiety is a form of fear. When students are concerned about
failing grades or other manifestations that threaten their need for recognition by others,
competence and performance which directly impacts autonomy, students can suffer from severe
anxiety, and in some cases, depression. For example, one student reported feelings of depression
as a result of his failing grades and described himself as: “So I was, like, when I was at my
worst.” According to Maslow’s Theory of Human Motivation (1943), when esteem needs are not
met, feelings of “inferiority, weakness and helplessness” arise (Maslow, 1943, p. 382).
Other students felt that the social and institutional environment was the problem they
encountered the most. As Matt stated, “I didn't have any motivation to do anything. I hated the
whole environment. It was a toxic environment. The way that it works just doesn't work well for
me. It felt like a conveyor belt.” According to Social Practice theory (Holland et al., 1998),
Figured Worlds are considered contexts in which students, in this case, negotiate their own
actions according to a particular world expectation. The positionality a student can adopt is
highly determined by competence (Holland et al., 1998) because competence is the one trait that
allows for mobility within a world. Students’ positionality within a Figured World is linked to
power, status and rank (Holland et al., 1998). So, for Matt, it was hard to find space for
authoring, as his response to expectations was not valued by others.
By contrast, Matt found a space for making his own world as a result of the freedom of
expression and the imaginary capacity CHS allowed. This increased his motivation in the
sciences and reinforced his identity as a scientist. The connection between motivation and
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identity has been highlighted by various scholars (Abdelal, 2009; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Maslow,
1943), and for “any model that examines the impact of identity on particular outcomes, the
motivation to transform identity into action cannot be ignored” (Abdelal, 2009, p. 4).
At CHS, participants felt encouragement, recognition, and support, crucial psychological
needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Gee, 2017; Holland et al., 1998; Maslow, 1945) from both teachers
and staff. The topics discussed were of interest to them as they related to current societal issues.
Moreover, students reflected on teaching methods and the benefits they experienced with hands-
on learning through the use of 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies in the context of
Paleontology. While some students experienced relief from memorization and worksheets, others
felt captivated by the visual aspects of the activity, reinforcing the idea that Universal Design for
Learning (UDL: CAST, 2018) was beneficial for this group of students.
Implications for Practice
Students in my sample spent 6 months working with 3D scanning and 3D printing
technologies while learning topics of current societal relevance. According to the data, teacher
and school support were the most important factors for student success because they made
students feel safe. Teachers and school administrations need to know that students want to feel
safe (Maslow, 1943) and supported by their teachers and school staff. According to the data
generated by this study, a significant amount of disengagement happens because students lack
support from schoolteachers and staff, which ultimately leads to why these students leave
traditional schools – failing grades. Feelings of incompetence can result in anxiety and even
depression (Blechman et al., 1986). By contrast, when the psychological needs of students are
met by providing recognition and reinforcing competence, student performance and self-worth
increases (Covington, 2015; Carlone & Johnson, 2017; Krapp; 2005; Orville, 1965).
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It is recommended that science teachers should be trained to become aware of the
interrelationships with students because “motivation is generated from interpersonal
relationships” (Orville, 1965, p. 159), and the data collected indicates that teacher-student
interrelationships do matter for students, impacting engagement, motivation, and performance.
Moreover, science teachers could have a better understanding about the constructivist
idea that each student is different, and therefore, individuals construct their knowledge based on
their unique experiences, goals, and needs (Holland et al., 1998). Acknowledging that this might
be challenging for any educator who teaches at an overly crowded school, who is under stress
and pressure to “cover” their pacing guide, textbook, and to prepare students for the next
standardized test, teachers should receive constant training and practice in “pedagogy which
argues that we must provide learners with the opportunity to: a) interact with sensory data, and b)
construct their own world” (Hein, 1991, p.2). UDL should be given further consideration
because it is a framework designed to teach a diverse group of learners by providing different
opportunities to learn and allowing different means to express knowledge (CAST, 2018). One
main idea presented by UDL is that curricula should be designed according to students’ interests.
For example, one student who was interested in birds and was able to pursue this interest.
It was a bird lecture just because birds are my favorite animals. Elena pretty much
made a whole unit just for me because she knew I love birds so much. They really
love to engage you in the subjects. When she was talking about the birds, I was
having so much fun. I was paying attention to the lecture completely, you know, I
was so into it.
UDL is a framework designed to remove barriers to maximize learning (CAST, 2018). It
encourages teachers to design curricula for a diverse audience. Research shows that all
individuals are unique and therefore, possess different learning skills and strategies. The word
universal, in this context, is particularly important because it recognizes that every student has a
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different background, different interests, and different identities. UDL encourages teachers to set
the goals of her/his instruction and to identify the barriers in the classroom.
Just as in the Titanoboa activity, students learned from multiple media such as a Power
Point presentations with more pictures than text, from manipulating 3D models online, from
manipulating 3D printed models, from a documentary, and from lectures. Then, students were
given options to express their knowledge. Some students wrote about what they learned, and
others created activities for Elementary School students, all legitimate ways to earn a grade in the
class. According to UDL (CAST, 2018), this type of flexible curriculum promotes engagement
and multiple choices to fulfill individual’s autonomy.
This knowledge shifts away from the idea that students are individual consumers of
things to learn (or memorize), leveraging Piaget and Vygotsky’s concepts that knowledge is
socially constructed (Hein, 1991; Holland et al., 1998; Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Kang et al.,
2018), and that it fluctuates between the ideas of “meaning” and “experience” (Bruner, 1997).
According to Matt, in his forms school, “They kind of just, like, gave you some worksheets, you
worked on that and that was, like, the thing you… like, there were labs and stuff but, you know,
it was all kind of like… it felt like a conveyor belt?” Laura, on the other hand, expressed feelings
of anxiety as a result of the difficulty level of her math class acknowledging that “Just because it
moved too fast for me, I felt anxious going to class there.” There is wide research about the
impact anxiety has on learning (McMinn & Aldridge, 2019; Primi & Donati, 2018). When
students are unable to learn, feelings of lack of competence might arise.
The relationship between effort, failure, and competence is complicated (Covington,
1984) and beyond the scope of this dissertation. But teachers should be trained in strategies to
help students handle feelings of failure after effort has been implemented by a student, as this is a
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crucial moment to influence students’ perceptions about their worth, self-efficacy, and their
competence (Deci & Ryan, 2000). This is especially true for those students in their high school
years when failure is likely to produce lack of motivation as a result of negative feelings such as
humiliation or incompetency (Covington, 1984), which could affect how students negotiate
space for authoring themselves within a Figured World. Such processes could impact the
possibility for making meaning of their STEM identity based on the imaginary capacity and the
freedom of expression within the educational institution (Holland et al., 1998).
My second question is: What do students perceive to be the features of an integrated
STEM experience that trigger their STEM identity development?
According to the data, all students preferred hands-on activities over books and
worksheets. The results herein indicate that, thanks to these activities, they had a better
understanding of the topics covered, and that the information was easier to retain (Krajcik &
Blumenfeld, 2006; Krajcik & Czerniak, 2014).
The hands-on nature of 3D scanning and 3D printing was very attractive to all the
participating students. While some of them had seen a 3D printer before, most had not. The
addition of 3D scanning activities that allowed students to understand the entire process, from
scanning to printing, and all the steps in between, was inspiring. For example, as a result of the
scanning process, Rob wants to pursue a career in architecture. Layla, who was conflicted about
a career in art, but was hesitant to rely financially only on her art production, was inspired by the
power of the technology and wants to pursue a career in game design. There was a similar
situation with Chris, who wanted to pursue a career in art, but adding a 3-Dimensional
component resulted in a whole new direction for him. He now believes that pursuing a career in
technology would enhance his art production.
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All participant students expressed their feelings regarding the importance of climate
change, ocean pollution, coral reef bleaching and how these topics affected humanity. In some
cases, students felt compelled to pursue a science career in order to help (altruistic identities). As
one participant said: “I think from the feeling of a genuine want, need to care for others.”
The data suggests that students want to see the big picture. In the case of climate change,
they enjoyed learning about how comparisons between the fossil record with modern analogs
produced information about past climates, in order to predict future climates, and how to prepare
for it.
Science is really interesting here at Delta because it's, like, stuff that normal
schools won't… like, don't normally do. Here, like, they go into detail and that's
just so interesting to me. It's like, the whole… like, we're… we're, like, talking
about actual animals and, like, the adaptations that they have in the ocean. So, just
kind of covering, like, a large… you know, like, a large field of science.
In addition, mathematics was no longer an abstract component, and students were able to
understand and to appreciate the importance of mathematics. In some cases, the participating
students felt less intimidated by it. “Just the smaller classes, and the way that the teachers are
teaching. Um, better because math has always been hard for me, and now I actually understand
it.”
Students look forward to going to class when they have expectations for what the plan is.
If this plan is engaging and addresses topics of interest to them, students have a better
predisposition and are more likely to attend and engage in class. According to one participant:
“Um, I guess a good day would be like, um, going to class knowing what you’re going to do,
cooperate, um, get in touch with whatever you're going to do. I mean just knowing what we're
going to do, and I'm, like, less nervous about what we would do.”
According to Calabrese-Barton and Tan (2010), “how individuals value activity depends
in part upon the purposes and goals of that activity” (p. 194). In the case of reproducing the
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prehistoric snake, Titanoboa, using 3D printed fossils students were made aware that the goal of
the activity was to conduct research, and to learn about climate change, a topic of societal
relevance, using fossils (paleontology) and modern analog (biology). They were also informed
that they would 3D print and build a life-size model of the extinct snake using 3D printed
vertebrae, a plan which fostered much excitement among the artists and visual learners in the
class.
Participants expressed gratitude that their science teacher was knowledgeable and shared
a wealth of information with them. As a result, the students felt confident that they could spread
their knowledge to other people enhancing their feelings of competence (Holland et al., 1998).
This was particularly evident when the teacher announced that high school students would go to
the nearest public elementary school to share what they had learned with the younger students.
Some of the participants implemented an age-appropriate version of what they had learned. For
this section, they were also asked to design an activity for their younger audience. Students with
altruistic identities felt the need to actively participate for two reasons: 1) to educate others about
climate change, and 2) to share their knowledge with a younger generation.
Limitations of the Study
There is no specific STEM identity theory that is applicable to high school students,
much less applicable to minoritized high school students. After doing extensive literature review
on identity and identity development, I decided to focus on how students feel about their
education due to my epistemological belief that students construct their own “Figured World”
(Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2010, p. 192), and the research that supports it. I used two existing
models for STEM identity development called the Model of Science Identity (Carlone, &
Johnson, 2007) and Identity Negotiators and Theoretical Model (Kang et al., 2018), rooted in
Social Practice Theory (Holland et al., 1998) and Gee’s Theory of Identity (2000, 2017).
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Overall, I found that the combination of Identity Maps, Pre- and Post-surveys, and
Interviews was a useful approach. If I had to do something differently and time permitting, I
would have asked students for a Pre- and Post-Identity Map, and then discuss the differences
during a follow-up interview.
When dealing with K-12 schedules and classroom time periods, data collection
coordination was a challenging process. It was even more challenging when the researcher was
on Eastern Standard Time (EST) and the research site was on Pacific Standard Time (PST).
However, despite this challenge, in the case of this study, I was extremely benefited by the
unrestricted access to students and school resources provided by the CHS principal.
Moreover, teacher flexibility and willingness to move things around on the schedule
proved extremely valuable. For example, an entire activity was moved to the following week, so
that researchers could take notes during activity implementation. An on-site scientist expert in
paleontology was also particularly helpful, as this individual served not only as an expert, but
also as a role model. Without these favorable conditions, it might have been challenging to
replicate a study like this or to design similar research.
Another issue that may need to be addressed in future research was that the amount of
data produced by Identity Maps and interviews was extremely large. Due to time constraints, I
tried to explore and describe as many data sets from individual student participants as possible
without a clear understanding of what the information might yield. Efforts during data collection,
were noted at the moment of data analysis, which was a challenging process due to the
abundancy.
Implications for Future Research
I suggest that more data are needed on STEM identity development and methods by
which we can explore this over time. While there is a wealth of research on identity, it is
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important to distinguish between identity and identity development. The great majority of studies
on STEM identity development focus on girls of color, reinforcing the idea that feeds the flawed
“leaky pipeline,” providing solutions to engage the “leakers” (Allen-Ramdial & Campbell, 2014;
Gottlieb, 2018). While several studies contribute to STEM identity knowledge, most focus on
STEM identity based on race and gender, with the idea of leading towards a 4-year college
degree. We need more research using minoritized student samples that go beyond just race and
gender differences.
This type of research ignores what Gee (2017) calls “Activity-Based Identities” (p. 84).
To mention a few examples, Gee includes gamers, social activists, and makers, among others. In
his example, race and gender are not relevant because the focus is on the individual’s interest,
what constitutes their identity. To Gee’s list of examples, I would like to add high school
students who were left behind by traditional education structure. We need more research that
conceptualizes identities as activity-based identities because these students do have interests,
concerns and passions, and all want to contribute to society in one way or another. To some, this
could be a STEM path, but because of the way STEM is defined, that path is not currently
available.
According to Gee (2017), “Activity-Based Identities are another form of collective
intelligence, perhaps the most important in today’s world” (p. 85) because they require several
21st century skills that are necessary for students and for the STEM community. We need more
research that focuses on Activity-Based Identities versus Relational Identities, which have been
designed to classify people. For example: Caucasian versus African American—or—over-
achiever versus under-achiever.
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We need a Theory of STEM Identity Development that includes past, present and future
selves (Holland et al., 1998; Kang et al., 2018), while accounting for what students deeply
identify with (Gee, 2000, 2017). Included in this new theory, the analysis of psychological
nutrients should play a crucial role, as demonstrated by several scholars (Deci & Ryan, 2000,
Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013, Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Maslow, 1943). Identifying how
students have felt in the past and how they feel now, could be useful for how they perceive their
future selves (Kang et al., 2018). How the different psychological nutrients fluctuate within
students, as they navigate agency and make meaning of their Figured Worlds would also be
important to explore in a timeline format (Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013).
For example, during their time at a traditional high school, the participants of this study
had developed certain identities based on that Figured World. When they moved to an alternative
school, as they navigated norms, rules and expectations of their new Figured World, students’
identities changed or had the potential to change and students found some space for authoring
and for making their own world.
Broadening the Meaning of Who is a STEM Person
We need to conceptualize the definition of STEM in a more fluid way (Rothwell, 2013)
because if STEM is depicted as space for scientists and engineers, what happens to students with
altruistic identities when their final goal is to help others? (Carlone & Johnson, 2007) What
happens to those students who have creative minds and learn visually? (Gee, 2017). In other
words, instead of promoting STEM careers by informing students of the requirements to get to a
STEM career, perhaps we can focus on students’ individual identities and what they care about
as a basic foundation of individuals’ identity. Then, with an understanding of students’
individuality, teachers and schools could provide educational activities that serve as a vehicle for
STEM identity development. With this information, academic advisors, teachers, parents, and
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mentors could better explain why their needs matter and determine their career path through this
evaluation. I think students need a career in order to fulfill their needs according to their
identities, instead of having needs to prepare for a career.
More research needs to be done regarding students’ perceptions of STEM and whether or
not they feel they see themselves as a “STEM person” (Carlone & Johnson, 2007). In the
meantime, we need to reach out to rural communities or groups of students who have been
minoritized by the system. If we were to view STEM education as more inclusive with those
who have experienced the opportunity gap, a STEM community becomes more accessible,
democratic, and diverse. This helps to account for “the cultural dimension of science as an
intellectual discipline" (Norman et al., 2001, p.1111).
Identity Maps were a useful data collection method for my study because they provided
me with abundant and rich data. I encourage other researchers studying STEM identity
development to consider the possibility of using identity maps. If time permits, I recommend
performing the following sequence:
1. Pre-Identity Map
2. Verbal description of the Pre-Identity Map
3. Post-Identity Map
4. Verbal description of the Post-Identity Map
A drawing in the form of an Identity Map is a reflection of a person’s thoughts based on a
given prompt. The information researchers get from an Identity Map comes in the form of a
visual element. When adding a self-description of the map, it is interesting to see what language
and tone of voice a student uses to describe his/her own Identity Map. Then, I made connections
between the visual and the verbal, paying attention to those connections, but also to the items
that did not connect. For example, this might include a piece of the drawing that was not
described or was left out by the author of the map. Similarly, a verbal definition might be needed
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for an item that was not visually depicted on the map. These are opportunities to find more
information or to develop follow up questions.
Pre-Identity Map information will provide a rich and abundant amount of data that can be
an excellent strategy to develop a robust interview protocol, if it is decided that they should be
used together. I found that a combination of both provided me with more insights from the
participants, and more ways to compare the data for validity purposes.
If time permits, I recommend a Post-Identity Map, because participants’ perceptions of the
activity being implemented will most likely change on any direction. This change could also be
an addition or a subtraction of feelings and emotions, which in the end, is what we need to
understand when studying STEM identity development. Overall, engaging students in STEM
activities is not enough to develop a deeper understanding about how STEM identities develop
and what the triggers are that make them evolve. We need more research that focuses on the
opportunity gap in contrast to the achievement gap. For that, I recommend reading the work of
Gorski (2018) and Fine (1991). For that, I recommend reading the work of Gorski (2018) and
Fine (1991), who are leading experts in issues of equity and minoritized youth.
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APPENDIX A
ACTIVITY
Climate Change and Titanoboa
Topics and concepts students learn
It is important that K-12 students are exposed to this type of research because it helps
them understand the work scientists do and the importance of the past to prepare better for the
future. In addition, it exposes students to statistical models, morphometric analyses, and the
process of science. Not to mention, in an era where scientific facts
Figure A-1. Dr. Jonathan Bloch holding Titanoboa and Anaconda vertebrae. © Photo courtesy
of Jeff Gage, Florida Museum of Natural History
are being politicized, students must know and understand the truth about these facts so they can
have educated debates about climate change, and perhaps can see themselves as protagonists in
future discoveries. The world today needs the next generation of STEM workers to be trained to
provide solutions to rapidly approaching climate changes so that human civilization and future
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generations can have a habitable planet. This giant, impressive, and charismatic animal, the
Titanoboa snake, is a natural hook for students to engage with the topic.
Scientific literacy, such as that described in the previous activity, is a predominant
component. After learning the meaning of words and concepts such as poikilothermic, biotic,
paleoclimate, photorespiration, Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), age of
mammals, among others, students are better equipped for deep learning. While memorizing these
words was never expected from students, the contextual use and definitions helped them to grasp
the idea and to understand the concepts profoundly, something they will not forget due to the
impactful, informative, and engaging nature of the topic. Consequently, while conducting student
interviews, every single student remembered the fact that today’s warm temperatures are
alarmingly close to the temperatures from the past, giving them confidence to explain what they
have learned to others.
Activity Description
In addition to learning the science behind Titanoboa and its paleo-environment, students
had the opportunity to reconstruct its skeleton. The students were able to 3D-print and prepare
approximately 250 vertebrae and a skull to assemble the giant snake. During this process,
students learned how to plot stereolithography (STL) files to a 3D printer and how to remove
excess support structure (Figure A-3.) Due to the large number of files and the different scales
needed, students had to keep track of what was already printed and what had to be printed next,
through an Excel spread sheet used by the class.
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Figure A-2. Excel spread sheet accounting for 3D-printing status. Photo courtesy of author.
Figure A-3. Students assembling 3D-printed Titanoboa snake (Left). Student preparing a 3D-
printed vertebra by removing supporting structure (Right). Photo courtesy of author.
All three PBL activities had a twenty-first-century skills component. While it is true that
not all students were interested in becoming part of the STEM community, preliminary results
show that most students found the new skill they learned was something they would have not
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been able to learn at their prior school. Moreover, they felt special for being selected for such an
activity because the underfunded nature of their current alternative school would not have
permitted the purchase of 3D scanners or 3D printers. In either school scenario, they would have
not been able to learn how to 3D scan and 3D print.
Scientific importance
Titanoboa is the largest, extinct boid, a type of non-venomous snake, that has ever been
found. It measures approximately 42 feet long and lived around 60 Ma during the Paleocene
Epoch. It was found in Colombia, South America. Its closest modern relative is the anaconda
snake. According to scientists Head et al. (2009), this is an extremely important finding because
little is known about paleo eco-systems from the neotropics, and this “poikilothermic” specimen
(Head et al., 2009, p. 715) provides opportunities to reconstruct the ecosystem and its paleo
climate. Why is that important today?
A poikilothermic animal had significant changes in their internal temperatures.
According to Head et al. (2009), “the maximum size of poikilothermic animals at a given
temperature is limited by metabolic rate, and a snake of this size would require a minimum mean
annual temperature of [86–93.2 F] to survive” (p. 715). With this data, in addition to climate
models, scientists estimate that past levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were similar to
the levels we are approaching today, expanding their understanding of the climatic conditions for
the animals that lived after the dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era (Cretaceous 145-66 Ma, Jurassic
145-201 Ma, Triassic 201-252 Ma). While the study does not suggest that in a few years from
now we will be surrounded by giant snakes, it does tell us that the temperatures we have today
are rapidly approaching those temperatures of the past. This would make for a cozy snake
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environment, but one very hostile for humans who rely on agriculture, housing near shorelines
and flooding zones, and oceanic food supply, among other societal needs.
Figure A-4. Geological Time Scale Portion, Geological Society of America. Photo courtesy of
author.
Around 56 Ma, during the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, there was a “massive, rapid
global warming event” (Bloch, 2003, slide 4), similar to the global warming event we are
experiencing today. This rapid climatic change not only affected mammals, but also plants. For
example, according to Bloch (slide 6 in Huber, 2008), in extreme hot weather, plants can die
because “because photorespiration dominates over photosynthesis,” producing more carbon
dioxide during the day, as opposed to photosynthesis where plants use sunlight to produce
oxygen.
But thanks to the NSF funding initiative, they were able to learn this new skill and were
thankful for the experience. Students also came to understand, through multiple classroom
conversations, the uses of 3D models in industries other than biology and paleontology. As a
result, students thought “the satisfaction that one can obtain simply from the process of
participating in a task” (Belland et al., 2013, p. 247) was more valuable in the overall sense that
they could use these new skills to improve their resume, and stand out in college applications.
156
Most importantly, they saw multiple scenarios where they could enhance their studies and career
interests through the continuous use and practice of their new skills. This idea is aligned with
“establishing task value” (Belland et al., 2013, p.247) because students understood, intrinsically,
the value of the activity, regardless of college aspirations, career choices, standardized test
scores, race or gender.
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APPENDIX B
IRB APPROVAL
Study ID:IRB201703051 Date Approved: 5/16/2019
University of Florida
School of Teaching and Learning
2403 Norman Hall
PO Box 117048
Gainesville, FL 32611
Letter of Student Assent (Identity Map and
Interview) Hello [CHILD’S NAME].
My name is Pasha Antonenko and I am a professor at the University of Florida. I am
trying to learn about how students understand and learn science when they use 3D
scanners and 3D printers in the classroom. I will be working with several students at
CHS. If you decide to participate, you will be asked to draw an Identity Map and to
answer some questions about how you feel about learning science with 3D technologies.
These questions will be given in a set of 3 interviews to happen between Nov 2018 and
June 2019. Each interview will take about half an hour.
There are no known risks to participation, and most students actually enjoy talking
about their experiences with technology. You do not have to be in this study if you
don’t want to and you can quit the study at any time. Other than me, no one will know
your answers, including your teachers or your classmates. If you don’t like a question,
you don’t have to answer it and, if you ask, your answers will not be used in the study.
I also want you to know that whatever you decide, this will not affect your grades in
class. Your [PARENT/GUARDIAN] said it would be OK for you to participate.
Would you be willing to participate in this study?
Pasha Antonenko
I would like to participate in this study.
Student Date
158
Study ID:IRB201703051 Date Approved: 5/16/2019
University of Florida
School of Teaching and Learning
2403 Norman Hall
PO Box 117048
Gainesville, FL 32611
Letter of Parental Consent (Student Interview)
Dear Parent/Guardian,
I am a professor in the College of Education at the University of Florida
conducting a research study “iDigFossils: Engaging K-12 Students in Integrated
STEM via 3D Digitization, Printing and Exploration of Fossils.” The purpose of
this study is to explore student perceptions, engagement, and experiences as they
use 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies in the classroom. The study results
will help us determine if it might be useful to use 3D technologies to help
students understand ways of knowing, learning, and doing science and if these
processes influence their identities towards STEM careers. I am seeking your
permission for your child to volunteer for this research.
Participating students will use 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies provided to the school by a National Science Foundation grant. I am requesting
your consent to ask your child to draw a diagram about himself, influential
people, college and career obstacle and opportunities. I am also requesting your
consent to conduct 3 interviews to your child before, during and after this
learning experience. The interviews will include questions such as “How did you
feel about working on your 3D scanning and 3D printing project?” Your child
will not be required to answer any question she or he does not wish to answer.
The interview will be conducted after school at a time that is convenient for you
and your child. Each interview will last about 30 minutes and will take place in
the science classroom between Nov 2018 and June 2019.
Interviews will be audio recorded. The recordings will only be accessible to me.
At the end of the study, the recordings will be deleted, and all student identities
will be kept confidential. Your child’s identity will be kept confidential to the
extent provided by law. I will replace your child’s name with a pseudonym when
reporting data. The actual name of your child or the name of the school will not
be used in any public reports of the study. Participation or non-participation in
this study will not affect your child’s grades or placement in any programs.
You and your child have the right to withdraw from participation at any time
without consequence. There are no known risks or immediate benefits to the
participants, and no compensation is offered. Study results will be available upon
request.
If you have questions about this study, please contact me at 352-273-4176 or
[email protected]. Questions or concerns about student rights as a
159
research participant may be directed to the IRB02 office, University of Florida,
Box 112250, Gainesville, FL 32611, (352) 392-0433.
Pasha Antonenko
I have read the procedure described above. I voluntarily give my consent for my child,
, to participate in Pasha
Antonenko’s study of student experiences with 3D scanning and printing
technologies. I have received a copy of this description.
Parent/Guardian Date
2nd Parent/Witness Date
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APPENDIX C
IDENTITY MAPS
Figure C-1. Identity Map made by Matt. Photo courtesy of author.
161
Figure C-2. Identity Map made by Layla. Photo courtesy of author.
162
Figure C-3. Identity Map made by Rob. Photo courtesy of author.
163
Figure C-4. Identity Map made by Chris. Photo courtesy of author.
164
Figure C-5. Identity Map made by Laura. Photo courtesy of author.
165
Figure C-6. Identity Map made by Karen. Photo courtesy of author.
166
Figure C-7. Identity Map by Steven. Photo courtesy of author.
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APPENDIX D
INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
3. What was science like at your previous school? What kind of science student were you?
Can you recall a good experience in a science class at that school? Tell me about it.
4. What is science like at this school? What kind of a science student are you? Tell me
about a good day in science at this school. What happened that day? What was good
about it?
5. What has been your experience with standardized testing? This includes the CAST
(California Science Test) testing and CAASPP (California Assessment of Student
Performance and Progress) testing?
6. Now that you have had a chance to work with a 3D printer and 3D scanner, how do you
feel about your knowledge? Knowledge about science and technology
7. What did you find to be the most interesting aspects of working on the 3D scanning and
3D printing project? Were there less interesting parts? Tell me about this.
a. Tell me about your fossil scans and prints. How did they come out?
b. Would you ever want to do this kind of thing again?
c. Do you think you would do it differently? Tell me about this.
8. Can you imagine pursuing this kind of work in your future?
9. Some people think 3D scanning and 3D printing help kids learn. What do you think?”
a. For your future college or career plans?
b. For industry and the world in general?
10. How do you feel about the work scientists and engineers do using similar 3D
technologies? Can you imagine yourself doing this type of work in the future? Tell me
about this.
11. Can you imagine pursuing science as a career? What kind of science might appeal to
you? What is interesting to you about that kind of science?
12. Can you describe how you see the scientific (or STEM) Community? Who belongs? Do
you see yourself as part of this community? Who has access to it? Have you participated
in a science fair?
13. Can you tell me about role models or influential people in your life? Can you relate to a
scientist mentor?
14. Can you name some of the emotions that best describe your experience with science
during the bathymetry project, hermit crabs project, coral conservation project,
Titanoboa, and climate change project?
168
15. Can you describe your Identity Map?
16. If you were to draw another Identity Map today, what might be the same, and what might
be different? Why do you think the map would be different today?
169
APPENDIX E
S-STEM SURVEY
Start of Block: DIRECTIONS
1. First and Last Name, Student ID, or Number Assigned by Your Teacher
________________________________________________________________
2. What is your gender?
o Male (1)
o Female (2)
o Other (3) ________________________________________________
o Do not wish to provide (4)
3. What is your race?
o American Indian or Alaska Native (2)
o Asian (3)
o Black or African American (4)
o Hispanic (1)
o Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (5)
o White (6)
o Mixed Race or Multi Race (7)
o Other (8) ________________________________________________
o Do not wish to provide (9)
170
You will now see lists of statements. As you read each statement, you will know whether you
agree or disagree. Click on the circle that describes how much you agree or disagree.
Even though some statements are very similar, please answer each statement. This is not
timed; work fast, but carefully.
There are no "right" or "wrong" answers! The only correct responses are those that are true for
you. Whenever possible, let the things that have happened to you help you make a choice.
End of Block: DIRECTIONS
Start of Block: MATH
Q1 4. Math has been my worst subject.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q2 5. I would consider choosing a career that uses math.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
171
Q3 6. Math is hard for me.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q4 7. I am the type of student to do well in math.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q5 8. I can handle most subjects well, but I cannot do a good job with math.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
172
Q6 9. I am sure I could do advanced work in math.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q7 10. I can get good grades in math.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q8 11. I am good at math.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
End of Block: MATH
Start of Block: SCIENCE
173
Q9 12. I am sure of myself when I do science.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
Q10 13. I would consider a career in science.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
Q11 14. I expect to use science when I get out of school.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
174
Q12 15. Knowing science will help me earn a living.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
Q13 16. I will need science for my future work.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
Q14 17. I know I can do well in science.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
175
Q15 18. Science will be important to me in my life's work.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
Q16 19. I can handle most subjects well, but I cannot do a good job with science.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
Q17 20. I am sure I could do advanced work in science.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither agree nor disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly agree (5)
End of Block: SCIENCE
Start of Block: ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
176
Please read this paragraph before you answer the questions.
Engineers Use math, science, and creativity to research and solve problems that improve
everyone’s life and to invent new products. There are many different types of engineering, such
as chemical, electrical, computer, mechanical, civil, environmental, and biomedical. Engineers
design and improve things like bridges, cars, fabrics, foods, and virtual reality amusement parks.
Technologists implement the designs that engineers develop; they build, test, and maintain
products and processes.
Q18 21. I like to imagine creating new products.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q19 22. If I learn engineering, then I can improve things that people use every day.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
177
Q20 23. I am good at building and fixing things.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q21 24. I am interested in what makes machines work.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q22 25. Designing products or structures will be important for my future work.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
178
Q23 26. I am curious about how electronics work.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q24 27. I would like to use creativity and innovation in my future work.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q25 28. Knowing how to use math and science together will allow me to invent useful
things.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
179
Q26 29. I believe I can be successful in a career in engineering.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
End of Block: ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Start of Block: 21st CENTURY LEARNING
Q27 30. I am confident I can lead others to accomplish a goal.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q28 31. I am confident I can encourage others to do their best.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
180
Q29 32. I am confident I can produce high quality work.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q30 33. I am confident I can respect the differences of my peers.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q31 34. I am confident I can help my peers.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
181
Q32 35. I am confident I can include others' perspectives when making decisions.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q33 36. I am confident I can make changes when things do not go as planned.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q34 37. I am confident I can set my own learning goals.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
182
Q35 38. I am confident I can manage my time wisely when working on my own.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q36 39. When I have many assignments, I can choose which ones need to be done first.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
Q37 40. I am confident I can work well with students from different backgrounds.
o Strongly Disagree (1)
o Disagree (2)
o Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)
o Agree (4)
o Strongly Agree (5)
End of Block: 21st CENTURY LEARNING
Start of Block: YOUR FUTURE
183
Here are descriptions of subject areas that involve math, science, engineering and/or technology,
and lists of jobs connected to each subject area. As you read the list below, you will know how
interested you are in the subject and the jobs. Fill in the circle that relates to how interested you
are.
There are no “right” or “wrong” answers. The only correct responses are those that are true for
you.
Q1 41. Physics: is the study of basic laws governing the motion, energy, structure, and
interactions of matter. This can include studying the nature of the universe. (aviation engineer,
alternative energy technician, lab technician, physicist, astronomer)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q2 42. Environmental Work: involves learning about physical and biological processes that
govern nature and working to improve the environment. This includes finding and designing
solutions to problems like pollution, reusing waste and recycling. (pollution control analyst,
environmental engineer or scientist, erosion control specialist, energy systems engineer and
maintenance technician)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q3 43. Biology and Zoology: involve the study of living organisms (such as plants and animals)
and the processes of life. This includes working with farm animals and in areas like nutrition and
184
breeding. (biological technician, biological scientist, plant breeder, crop lab technician, animal
scientist, geneticist, zoologist)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q4 44. Veterinary Work: involves the science of preventing or treating disease in animals.
(veterinary assistant, veterinarian, livestock producer, animal caretaker)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q5 45. Mathematics: is the science of numbers and their operations. It involves computation,
algorithms and theory used to solve problems and summarize data. (accountant, applied
mathematician, economist, financial analyst, mathematician, statistician, market researcher,
stock market analyst)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
185
Q6 46. Medicine: involves maintaining health and preventing and treating disease. (physician’s
assistant, nurse, doctor, nutritionist, emergency medical technician, physical therapist, dentist)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q7 47. Earth Science: is the study of earth, including the air, land, and ocean. (geologist,
weather forecaster, archaeologist, geoscientist)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q8 48. Computer Science: consists of the development and testing of computer systems,
designing new programs and helping others to use computers. (computer support specialist,
computer programmer, computer and network technician, gaming designer, computer software
engineer, information technology specialist)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
186
Q9 49. Medical Science: involves researching human disease and working to find new solutions
to human health problems. (clinical laboratory technologist, medical scientist, biomedical
engineer, epidemiologist, pharmacologist)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q10 50. Chemistry: uses math and experiments to search for new chemicals, and to study the
structure of matter and how it behaves. (chemical technician, chemist, chemical engineer)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q11 51. Energy: involves the study and generation of power, such as heat or electricity.
(electrician, electrical engineer, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technician,
nuclear engineer, systems engineer, alternative energy systems installer or technician)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
Q12 52. Engineering: involves designing, testing, and manufacturing new products (like
machines, bridges, buildings, and electronics) through the use of math, science, and computers.
187
(civil, industrial, agricultural, or mechanical engineers, welder, auto-mechanic, engineering
technician, construction manager)
o Not at all Interested (1)
o Not So Interested (2)
o Interested (3)
o Very Interested (4)
End of Block: YOUR FUTURE
Start of Block: ABOUT YOURSELF
DIRECTIONS: In the following series of questions, you will skip certain questions based on
how you answered previous questions.
Q1 53. How well do you expect to do this year in your:
Not Very Well (1) OK/Pretty Well (2) Very Well (3)
English/Language
Arts Class? (1) o o o Math Class? (2) o o o
Science Class? (3) o o o
Q2 54. In the future, do you plan to take advanced classes in:
Yes (1) No (2) Not Sure (3)
Mathematics? (1) o o o Science? (2) o o o
188
Q3 55. Do you plan to go to college?
o Yes (1)
o No (2)
o Not Sure (3)
Display This Question:
If 55. Do you plan to go to college? = Yes
Q4 56. Please list what college(s) you are interested in attending.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Display This Question:
If 55. Do you plan to go to college? = Yes
Q5 57. Are you planning on going to a community college or four-year college/university
first?
o Community College (1)
o Four-year College/University (2)
189
Q6 58. More about you.
Yes (1) No (2) Not Sure (3)
Do you know any
adults who work as
scientists? (1) o o o
Do you know any
adults who work as
engineers? (2) o o o
Do you know any
adults who work as
mathematicians? (3) o o o
Do you know any
adults who work as
technologists? (4) o o o
End of Block: ABOUT YOURSELF
190
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Claudia A. Grant earned a bachelor’s degree in art history with a concentration in Latin
American Art at the University of Central Florida. Later, she earned a master’s degree in art
history with a concentration in museum studies at the University of Florida. At the University of
California, Irvine, Claudia earned a certificate in Graphic Design and Visual Communications
and another Certificate in Internet Design. Her passion for art and her aesthetic abilities landed
her at the Florida Museum of Natural History where she has worked for over 13 years. There,
she fell in love with the beauty of natural sciences. Claudia has now graduated with a Ph.D. in
curriculum and instruction with an emphasis on educational technology in addition to a graduate
minor in geological sciences.