High-impact practices and student–faculty interactions for gender-variant students.

Abstract

The vast amount of research on student success and engagement in college focuses on a narrative for majority student populations that does not account for unique experiences across social identities. This paper examines the experiences of gender variant students (i.e., students who do not identify as either cisgender men or women) regarding engagement in high-impact practices and student-faculty interactions using a large-scale, multi-institution quantitative data set. Although high-impact practice participation was similar for gender variant and cisgender students, positive student-faculty interaction was found to be a significant predictor for increased high-impact practice participation for gender variant students. Results from this study may also point to chillier climates of certain major fields for gender variant students. Implications for these findings focus on increasing gender variant students' participation in high-impact practices, creating more safe and positive learning environments for gender variant students, and advocating for the inclusion of different gender identities in surveys, institutional data, and higher education research.

Hidden Identities Shape Student Perceptions of Active Learning Environments

“…Gender and sexual orientation serve as potent examples, whereby group work negatively impacts the enjoyment of queer students, and asexual and bisexual students prefer to work alone rather than in groups. These findings echo recent work demonstrating that, in ALP settings involving group work, LGBTQIA students felt an increased sense of these minoritized identities (Garvey and Rankin, 2015a;Cooper and Brownell, 2016;Garvey et al, 2018), and suggest mechanisms that may contribute to the lower retention of sexual and gender variant minorities in STEM (Garvey and Rankin, 2015a;BrckaLorenz et al, 2017;Garvey et al, 2018;Hughes, 2018). We thus question the idea that group work is a pedagogical panacea to the large-lecture problem.…”

“…Logic for inclusion Relevant citations that describe factors' relevance to an active learning environment Gender Women may prefer active learning; gender ratios matter during group work; structured active learning may disproportionately advantage women. Gender-variant students may prefer to work alone and may be unwilling to engage ALP activities out of fear of misgendering Rankin et al, 2014;Garvey and Rankin, 2015a;Cooper and Brownell, 2016;BrckaLorenz et al, 2017;Sullivan et al, 2018;Neill et al, 2019;Rainey et al, 2019 Race/ethnicity Active learning may disproportionately benefit underrepresented minority students (URMs); psycho-social interventions benefit URMs. Cohen, 2006;Haak et al, 2011;Ballen et al, 2017 Generation in college Faculty-student interactions may vary by generation in college; psycho-social interventions disproportionately benefit first-generation college students.…”

“…Pike, 2002;Jacoby andGarland, 2004 (Kim andSax, 2009a;Aschbacher et al, 2010;Rocca, 2010). Thus, group work and other forms of class discussion may have unintended consequences for students with minority social identities by exacerbating feelings of isolation and reducing participation and intent to remain in a discipline (Rankin et al, 2014;Cooper and Brownell, 2016;BrckaLorenz et al, 2017). While many aspects of social identity-such as race, cis gender, or physical disability-can be gleaned (or guessed) from external attributes, other aspects of individual identity can be invisible or hidden.…”

Mentoring Structures and the Types of Support Provided to Early-Year Undergraduate Researchers

“…Student-faculty interactions can occur in multiple forms in curricular and cocurricular contexts that enable the interaction of faculty and students outside the classroom setting, providing various types of support to undergraduate students (Lopatto, 2010;Brackalorenz et al, 2017). Mentoring in UR can be a powerful context for effective student-faculty interaction (Lopatto, 2010;Amaya et al, 2018).…”

“…Mentoring in UR can be a powerful context for effective student-faculty interaction (Lopatto, 2010;Amaya et al, 2018). Students who participate in UR report that the research experience creates an environment for them to engage in substantial relationships with faculty, leading to greater motivation, engagement, academic performance, and achievement (Kim and Sax, 2009;Brackalorenz et al, 2017;Garvey et al, 2018;Schreiner and Tobolowsky, 2018). The term "mentoring" has been defined in the literature within the context of research as follows:…”