Postsecondary Faculty Attitudes and Beliefs about Writing-Based Pedagogies in the STEM Classroom

Abstract

This study presents the analysis of a nationwide survey focused on STEM faculty use of and beliefs about writing-based pedagogies. The findings indicate that beliefs about behavioral control, rather than the effectiveness of writing pedagogies, primarily differentiate the faculty who do and do not use writing assignments in their courses.

Capturing students' identification of the relevance of organic chemistry in writing

“…Additionally, the assignments helped students to recognize the connections between course concepts and prior coursework. Finkenstaedt-Quinn et al (2022a, 2022b reported similar findings in a biochemistry course context for a science communication assignment designed to support students' recognition of the relevance of course content. Also using qualitative methods to analyze surveys and interviews, they found that translating a research seminar for the general public led students to recognize the relevance of course content beyond the course.…”

“…Writing is a common instructional practice in STEM, and chemistry specifically (Finkenstaedt-Quinn et al, 2022b). Research related to writing in chemistry courses is primarily divided between using writing to support science communication skills (Walker and Sampson, 2013;Çetin and Eymur, 2017;Rootman-le Grange and Retief, 2018), conceptual learning (e.g., Cox et al, 2018;Moon et al, 2018;Schmidt-McCormack et al, 2019;Finkenstaedt-Quinn et al, 2020), and disciplinary reasoning (e.g., Watts et al, 2020;Petritis et al, 2021;Watts et al, 2022).…”

Automated Text Analysis of Organic Chemistry Students’ Written Hypotheses

“…Providing students with feedback can have a powerful impact on their learning, particularly when the feedback is provided immediately. , Good feedback should set clear goals, inform the student of their progress, and provide steps to improve . However, instructors teaching large, introductory chemistry courses may be limited in their ability to provide this feedback in a timely manner due to the enrollment in their courses. − Automated feedback on students’ writing can address this, and it has been found that automated guidance can be even more effective than teacher guidance, particularly for students with low prior knowledge . As previous work as shown, students can benefit from automated feedback about the quality of their hypotheses .…”

“…Providing opportunities for students to meaningfully engage with scientific practices that require writing, such as generating hypotheses, can be challenging because providing meaningful feedback on written work is time-consuming for instructors. − Prior work found that methods of instruction that provided students with direct feedback on their hypotheses were more effective even when there was not detailed instruction about writing hypotheses . There is a need to develop tools that can help provide feedback to students about their written work with less direct involvement from instructors; thus, the second goal of this study was to train machine learning models to automatically label students’ written hypotheses for several different features.…”

Boosting student performance with inclusive writing-to-learn assignments through graphic organizers in large enrollment undergraduate biology courses

“…Despite the promise of active and inclusive learning, a study of 2,000+ undergraduate STEM classes indicated a majority (55%) were didactic, and only 18% were student-centered ( 6 ). Logistical challenges in large enrollment classes are viewed as obstacles to active learning ( 7 , 8 ). Writing is integral to being a scientist and is considered by STEM instructors to increase student engagement, but iterative writing assignments in large classes require instructor creativity ( 9 ).…”