Student Attitudes/Beliefs

STEP UP: Supporting Teachers in Having Difficult Conversations

While the field of physics has become more diverse over the last few decades, it does not reflect the demographics of the population of the United States by any metric. Founded in 2017, the STEP UP program began as a partnership between the American Physical Society (APS), the American Association of Physics Teachers, Florida International University, and Texas A&M University-Commerce. The project research team developed two active learning lessons examining the diverse profiles of individuals who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics, and issues of marginalization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Bree Barnett Dreyfuss

Year
2023
Short Description

The project research team developed two active learning lessons examining the diverse profiles of individuals who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics, and issues of marginalization of women in physics. After participating in the lessons, research showed that both the students’ sense of physics identity and their intentions to pursue a physics major increased, especially among female-identifying students.

Examining the Effect of Counternarratives About Physics on Women’s Physics Career Intentions

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Geoff Potvin

Zahra Hazari

Raina Khatri

Hemeng Cheng

T. Blake Head

Robynne M. Lock

Anne F. Kornahrens

Kathryne Sparks Woodle

Rebecca E. Vieyra

Beth A. Cunningham

Laird Kramer

Theodore Hodapp

Year
2023
Short Description

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions.

Examining the Effect of Counternarratives About Physics on Women’s Physics Career Intentions

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Geoff Potvin

Zahra Hazari

Raina Khatri

Hemeng Cheng

T. Blake Head

Robynne M. Lock

Anne F. Kornahrens

Kathryne Sparks Woodle

Rebecca E. Vieyra

Beth A. Cunningham

Laird Kramer

Theodore Hodapp

Year
2023
Short Description

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions.

Examining the Effect of Counternarratives About Physics on Women’s Physics Career Intentions

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Geoff Potvin

Zahra Hazari

Raina Khatri

Hemeng Cheng

T. Blake Head

Robynne M. Lock

Anne F. Kornahrens

Kathryne Sparks Woodle

Rebecca E. Vieyra

Beth A. Cunningham

Laird Kramer

Theodore Hodapp

Year
2023
Short Description

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions.

Examining the Effect of Counternarratives About Physics on Women’s Physics Career Intentions

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Geoff Potvin

Zahra Hazari

Raina Khatri

Hemeng Cheng

T. Blake Head

Robynne M. Lock

Anne F. Kornahrens

Kathryne Sparks Woodle

Rebecca E. Vieyra

Beth A. Cunningham

Laird Kramer

Theodore Hodapp

Year
2023
Short Description

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions.

Examining the Effect of Counternarratives About Physics on Women’s Physics Career Intentions

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Geoff Potvin

Zahra Hazari

Raina Khatri

Hemeng Cheng

T. Blake Head

Robynne M. Lock

Anne F. Kornahrens

Kathryne Sparks Woodle

Rebecca E. Vieyra

Beth A. Cunningham

Laird Kramer

Theodore Hodapp

Year
2023
Short Description

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions.

Examining the Effect of Counternarratives About Physics on Women’s Physics Career Intentions

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Geoff Potvin

Zahra Hazari

Raina Khatri

Hemeng Cheng

T. Blake Head

Robynne M. Lock

Anne F. Kornahrens

Kathryne Sparks Woodle

Rebecca E. Vieyra

Beth A. Cunningham

Laird Kramer

Theodore Hodapp

Year
2023
Short Description

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions.

Examining the Effect of Counternarratives About Physics on Women’s Physics Career Intentions

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions. These counternarratives facilitate making connections with students’ career plans and help in sensemaking causes for the continued minoritization of women in physics.

Author/Presenter

Geoff Potvin

Zahra Hazari

Raina Khatri

Hemeng Cheng

T. Blake Head

Robynne M. Lock

Anne F. Kornahrens

Kathryne Sparks Woodle

Rebecca E. Vieyra

Beth A. Cunningham

Laird Kramer

Theodore Hodapp

Year
2023
Short Description

Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high school students—especially women’s—physics-related career intentions.

Embodied, Dramatizing Performances in Science Class: Multimodal Spaces and Places of Knowledge and Identity Construction

We explored the semiotic choices children in grades 1–6 made that nurtured embodied, dramatizing performances in science classes at urban public schools, serving predominantly students of color in a large US city. We studied how such choices in school and home settings (when instruction was remote during the COVID-19 pandemic) were implicated in the children’s knowledge and identity construction and related to available resources and positionings.

Author/Presenter

Maria Varelas

Amanda R. Diaz

Rebecca Kotler

Rebecca Woodard

Ronan Rock

Zachary Sabitt

Nathan Phillips

Rachelle Tsachor

Marcie Gutierrez

Hannah Natividad

Derek Threewitt

Jaegen Ellison

Year
2024
Short Description

We explored the semiotic choices children in grades 1–6 made that nurtured embodied, dramatizing performances in science classes at urban public schools, serving predominantly students of color in a large US city. We studied how such choices in school and home settings (when instruction was remote during the COVID-19 pandemic) were implicated in the children’s knowledge and identity construction and related to available resources and positionings.

Supporting Secondary Students’ Understanding of Earth’s Climate System and Global Climate Change Using EzGCM: A Cross-Sectional Study

Global climate change (GCC) is one of the greatest challenges of our age and a highly significant socio-scientific issue (SSI). Developing secondary students’ understanding about the Earth’s climate and GCC is critical for empowering future citizens and a key focus of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013).

Author/Presenter

Silvia-Jessica Mostacedo-Marasovic

Amanda A. Olsen

Cory T. Forbes

Year
2023
Short Description

Global climate change (GCC) is one of the greatest challenges of our age and a highly significant socio-scientific issue (SSI). Developing secondary students’ understanding about the Earth’s climate and GCC is critical for empowering future citizens and a key focus of the Next Generation Science Standards. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated secondary students’ evidence-based reasoning about GCC grounded in a curricular intervention involving the use of a data-driven, computer-based global climate model—EzGCM—over 3 years with four teachers who adapted the module in their own courses.