This study introduces a new group of students to the postsecondary science agenda: latecomers to science. Latecomers, who enter postsecondary science through alternative routes because they are missing prerequisites, are less likely to graduate than traditional science students. Challenges to latecomers' persistence are explored through two questions: (1) What trends in science identity trajectories are latecomers to science able to construct during their first year in a college science program? (2) How are latecomers' identity trajectories constrained by or improvised with the cultural models and associated resources available in the figured world of a college science program? These questions are investigated through an analysis of educational activities, reflective writings, and interviews of nine latecomers. We view identification as analogous to velocity and demonstrate how recurring forces exerted by figured worlds and cultural models within them create patterns of acceleration towards or away from science, thus supporting or hindering persistence as identity trajectories gain or lose momentum. Findings show that latecomers' persistence was greatly constrained by two cultural models from the science program: good science students follow a paradigmatic sequence of courses and consistently earn good grades. Occasionally, latecomers improvised to resist these constraints. We illustrate our findings through three cases exemplifying inbound, outbound, and peripheral trends, offering a method of representing trajectories that may lead to new understandings of persistence. We also suggest implications for better supporting latecomers and connect this research to recent developments in the theoretical and methodological use of identity trajectories in understanding access to science. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50: 826–857, 2013

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In this study, we present the cases of two latecomers to college science who, unlike most latecomers in their program, successfully persisted to graduation. An analytic framework of figured worlds, cultural models, and identity work is employed to understand the challenges they faced. The dominant cultural models of learning that were reproduced in their science courses are explored through data drawn from lecture and laboratory observations, teacher and student interviews, and student journals. The analysis shows that the dominant teacher-centered and sink-or-swim cultural models of learning severely limited the available resources for latecomers' identity work. The resources that were available tended to afford recognition as good students, rather than as being good at, or interested in, science. However, by improvising with the available resources, including some acquired outside of the science program, the two latecomers were sometimes able to reposition themselves in more powerful subject positions, which had far-reaching consequences for their science trajectories. We also demonstrate how using a sociocultural framework and methodological approaches that focus on student-teacher interactions yields insights into the persistence of nontraditional students that are not possible when the focus of research is solely on learning and cognitive gains. K E Y W O R D S identity, figured worlds, non-traditional, postsecondary, trajectories Science Education. 2017;101:716-740.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sce

We show how Error-Detection Tasks (EDT) are an effective way for students to practice giving peer feedback. In EDT, students are presented with a solved physics problem, prepared by a fictional in-class peer, containing one or more errors -algebraic, procedural, or conceptual. Students must identify and explain how to correct the error(s), as though they were explaining it to the "peer" who wrote the solution. EDTs have been developed for a web-based learning platform (myDALITE.org) that provides students with asynchronous peer instruction such that students can provide feedback and evaluate feedback from other students. Results show that students trained with EDT significantly outperform a control group in correctly identifying errors and providing more meaningful feedback to their fictional in-class peer.