Science identity and metacognitive development in undergraduate mentor-teachers

Abstract

Background: A growing part of the efforts to promote student engagement and success in undergraduate STEM are the family of Student Support and Outreach Programs (SSOPs), which task undergraduate students with providing support and mentoring to their peers and near-peers. Research has shown that these programs can provide a variety of benefits for the programs' recipients, including increased academic achievement, satisfaction, retention, and entry into STEM careers. This paper extends this line of inquiry to investigate how participation in these programs impacts the undergraduate STEM students that provide the mentoring (defined here as undergraduate mentor-teachers or UMTs). We use activity theory to explore the nature of metacognition and identity development in UMTs engaged in two programs at a public urban-serving university in the western USA: a STEM Learning Assistant program and a program to organize middle and high school STEM clubs. Constructs of metacognition and identity development are seen as critical outcomes of experiential STEM inreach and outreach programs. Results: Written reflections were collected throughout implementation of two experiential STEM inreach and outreach programs. A thematic analysis of the reflections revealed UMTs using metacognitive strategies including content reflection and reinforcement and goal setting for themselves and the students they were supporting. Participants also showed metacognitive awareness of the barriers and challenges related to their role in the program. In addition to these metacognitive processes, the UMTs developed their science identities by attaching different meanings to their role as a mentor in their respective programs and setting performance expectations for their roles. Performance expectations were contingent on pedagogical skills and the amount and type of content knowledge needed to effectively address student needs. The ability to meet students' needs served to validate and verify UMTs' role in the program, and ultimately their own science identities. Conclusion: Findings from this study suggest that metacognitive and identity developments are outcomes shaped not only by undergraduate students' experiences, but also by their perceptions of what it means to learn and teach STEM. Experiential STEM inreach and outreach programs with structured opportunities for guided and open reflections can contribute to building participants' metacognition and enhancing their science identities.

Applying Relatedness to Explain Learning Outcomes of STEM Maker Activities

“…Third, students in all three groups developed more positive interest and identity toward STEM, and students in the mentorship group particularly developed much stronger interest and identity than the other two groups that did not involve mentors (H3, H4, and H5). These results are supported by studies that suggest that engaging role models or mentors in STEM learning can better cultivate students' STEM interest and identity (Honey et al, 2014;Pinkard et al, 2017;Ladeji-Osias et al, 2018;Musavi et al, 2018;Huvard et al, 2020). These findings also imply that positive interest and identity toward STEM are developed in a social context (Renninger and Hidi, 2011;Goos and Bennison, 2019).…”

“…Introducing role models or mentors in STEM education can enhance students’ STEM interest and identity development ( Honey et al, 2014 ; Nelson et al, 2017 ; Huvard et al, 2020 ). In mentorship programs, students often engage in three types of interactions with mentors: shareability, tangibility, and aesthetic ( Tofel-Grehl et al, 2017 ).…”

The effect of metacognition on students’ chemistry identity: the chain mediating role of chemistry learning burnout and chemistry learning flow

“…Indirect effect 3 was metacognitionchemistry learning burnoutchemistry learning flowchemistry identity (the variable processing is the same as in the previous table ). This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2022 (Hazari et al, 2010;Huvard et al, 2020). Although studies have demonstrated that metacognition could affect identity formation (Welsh and Schmitt-Wilson, 2013), there is no direct empirical evidence that metacognitive awareness has a positive effect on students' science identity, such as their chemistry identity.…”

“…In science education, there has been increased concern regarding science identity development. Science identity is seen as an important construct that positively influences learners' academic decisions, academic achievement, and persistence in the major (Perez et al, 2014), and it is regarded as a critical outcome of experiential science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs (Huvard et al, 2020). Because chemistry is well accepted as a compulsory introductory subject within STEM discipline fields (Gonzalez and Paoloni, 2015), researchers have particularly highlighted chemistry identity development in recent decades.…”

STEM Identities: A Communication Theory of Identity Approach

“…For example, talking about science with friends and family (Dou et al, 2019) and the influence of parents and teachers (Jackson & Suizzo, 2015; Stitt Richardson et al, 2019) during childhood are associated with stronger STEM identity. In college, students’ interactions with STEM faculty with whom they have a relationship are also positively related to STEM identity (Hurtado et al, 2011; Nadelson et al, 2017) as are formal mentoring relationships with faculty (Piatt et al, 2019; Robnett et al, 2020) and serving as a peer mentor (Huvard et al, 2020). Informal and formal interactions with peers are also positively associated with STEM identity (Espinosa, 2011).…”