Inaccurate sex and gender narratives have saturated the political landscape, resulting in legal restrictions for people with queer genders. Biology educators can correct these false narratives by teaching scientifically accurate and queer gender and intersex inclusive sex and gender curriculum. Here, we interviewed four undergraduate biology instructors who were working to reform their sex and gender curriculum. Using their reformed curriculum to promote conversation in the interviews, we asked participants about their curriculum, their reform process, and the obstacles they faced in implementing their reformed curriculum. We noticed the instructors' journeys to reforming involved intense personal work and education, both at the beginning and iteratively throughout implementation. We found instructors focused on changing language and using a variety of inclusive activities in their undergraduate biology classroom, ranging from highlighting scientists with queer genders to assigning students to research the experiences of people with queer genders with adolescent hormone therapy. Instructors mentioned obstacles to implementing reformed curriculum, including fear of potentially isolating students and concern about the instructor's own positionality. Removing obstacles and supporting the process of unlearning exclusive ways of teaching sex and gender topics may bolster instructor efforts to provide more accurate and inclusive biology education.

Students who hold minoritized identities are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Educational institutions often apply a deficit lens to understanding disproportionate outcomes between minoritized students and those from the cultural majority. Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) is an asset-based framework that focuses on the cultural strengths that diverse students develop in response to oppressive social structures, and which students use to be successful. Using a QuantCrit approach, we developed and collected evidence of validity for a measure of CCW. QuantCrit is a methodological framework that challenges researchers to critically evaluate their own biases to produce more equitable analyses. Each author reflected upon our experiences and the ways in which CCW manifested within our lived experiences. Through iterative reflection and discussion, we elected to design items that capture intersecting forms of CCW capital. We conducted cognitive interviews with minoritized students identifying with both seen and unseen forms of diversity to collect evidence of validity based on response process and to avoid construct underrepresentation. The resulting measure consists of 100 items on a 6-point response scale of agreement. Our methodological approach integrates teachings from critical theories to challenge deficit narratives and to capture the experiences of those frequently unheard by the majority culture.

Building on decades of scholarship critiquing scientist representation in classrooms and textbooks, the present study characterizes the lifetime experiences of undergraduate students regarding their perceptions of scientists and science identity. Informed by the theoretical framework of Cultural Learning Pathways (CLP), we conducted 31 semistructured interviews with undergraduates who completed six Scientist Spotlights (scientistspotlights.org), which are inclusive curricular supplements that feature counterstereotypical scientists. Despite decades of progress in curricular representation, our results revealed almost all students (94%, = 29) recounted exposure to predominantly (if not exclusively) stereotypical scientists across social institutions (e.g., media, K12, universities, healthcare environments) throughout their lifetime, which their Scopes of Possibility to pursue science. All students (100%, = 31) reported that Scientist Spotlights Scopes of Possibility for themselves and others from marginalized backgrounds to pursue science. Last, almost all students (97%, = 30) shared characteristics they hoped to see when Scopes of Possibility, emphasizing the need for a concerted effort to increase representation of counterstereotypical scientists across science curriculum and social institutions more broadly.

Mixture modeling is a latent variable (i.e., a variable that cannot be measured directly) approach to quantitatively represent unobserved subpopulations within an overall population. It includes a range of cross-sectional (such as latent class [LCA] or latent profile analysis) and longitudinal (such as latent transition analysis) analyses and is often referred to as a "person-centered" approach to quantitative data. This research methods paper describes one type of mixture modeling, LCA, and provides examples of how this method can be applied to discipline-based education research in biology and other science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. This paper briefly introduces LCA, explores the affordances LCA provides for equity-focused STEM education research, highlights some of its limitations, and provides suggestions for researchers interested in exploring LCA as a method of analysis. We encourage discipline-based education researchers to consider how statistical analyses may conflict with their equity-minded research agendas while also introducing LCA as a method of leveraging the affordances of quantitative data to pursue research goals aligned with equity, inclusion, access, and justice agendas.

Science communication has historically been inequitable, with certain voices and perspectives holding the power and dominant ways of knowing being promoted over others. Recently, there has been a push toward inclusive science communication, which values diverse perspectives and ways of knowing in collaborative conversations to solve complex socioscientific issues. However, there is a lack of both trainings in inclusive science communication for undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students as well as established ways to evaluate the efficacy of these trainings. To address this need, we designed a new multifactorial survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior to assess students' attitudes/norms, self-efficacy, behavioral intents, and behaviors in inclusive science communication, which we termed the Planned Behaviors in Inclusive Science Communication (PB-ISC) Scale. We utilized expert review, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, cognitive interviews, and quantitative measures to gather evidence of validity supporting the proposed use of the final 4-factor, 26-item survey. This survey can be used as a tool by science communication educators and researchers to assess students' planned behavior in inclusive science communication in response to trainings or experiences in science communication or related topics like socioscientific issues, civic engagement, and citizen science.

Field biology courses can be formative learning experiences that develop students' science identities. Yet, they can also pose challenges to students that may disaffirm their science identities-especially to those who identify with underrepresented, excluded, and minoritized groups. It is largely unknown how students' social (e.g., gender) and personal (e.g., where they grew up) identities intersect with their science identities in field biology courses. Therefore, we used the Expanded Model of Science Identity to determine: 1) the factors that influence students' science, social, and personal identities; and 2) whether and how these identities intersect in field biology courses. Using a card sorting task during semistructured interviews, we found variation in science identities with which students identified, mediated by social factors (e.g. social comparison). These social factors influenced how students' social and personal identities intersected with their science identities. Intersections between students' social and science identities were also facilitated by structural factors (e.g., privilege, lack of representation) that perpetuate inequities in field biology. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions to support welcoming, equitable, and inclusive field biology education that nurtures the science identities of all students.

Steeped in the AsianCrit theoretical framework, the current study examined how anti-Asian hate impacted the mental health of Asian and diasporic Asian doctoral women in STEM. Six emergent themes were identified: 1) Witnessing and Experiencing Anti-Asian Hate; 2) Lack of Institutional and STEM Departmental Support; 3) Impact of Anti-Asian Hate on Asian Women's Mental Health; 4) Protecting One's Mental Health; 5) Resist to Persist; and 6) Calls for Action to Combat Lack of Departmental Support. These findings highlight how Asianization through stereotypes such as the forever-foreigner status, viewing Asians as a monolith, the yellow peril stereotype, and model minority myth simultaneously rendered Asian graduate women hypervisible in the U.S. society and invisible in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Implications for teaching and mentoring are included. These highlight the need for faculty to challenge institutional norms that perpetuate the erasure of the toll that anti-Asian hate levied on Asian doctoral women in STEM.

Science is often portrayed as a meritocratic endeavor, but university biology programs exhibit high rates of student attrition, particularly among students of Color, despite similar interest and aptitude for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as White students. Culturally relevant pedagogy is associated with student persistence in STEM. One way to practice culturally relevant pedagogy in biology courses is to engage students in discussions of race, racism, or racial equity. Guidance exists to help instructors incorporate race-related topics into the biology curriculum, but the reasoning behind the decision of whether to adopt this practice is not well characterized. Understanding instructors' perceptions and experiences in implementing these topics will help identify supports and address barriers to instructor adoption. In this study, we examine university biology instructors' motivations for incorporating topics of race, racism, or racial equity in biology courses and contextual factors that influence this motivation. We found that the instructors were primarily motivated by intrinsic factors, desire to promote student learning and success, and social injustice events despite lacking external incentives. The instructors also held anti-racist perspectives when developing learning experiences for their students. How change agents can leverage these findings to promote rightful presence in biology courses is discussed.

In higher education and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), interlocking oppressions can lead to inequitable environments for those who hold marginalized identities. Instructors can play key roles in either exacerbating or mitigating these inequities through their pedagogical approaches and choice of curricular material. However, it remains unclear how instructors who self-identify as committed to justice achieve higher levels of consciousness around areas of injustice and develop the self-efficacy to dismantle barriers for students over time. Here, we draw upon critical race theory and critical white studies to investigate what events or life experiences influence STEM instructors to understand the importance of social justice and examine how STEM instructors use this understanding to drive pedagogical shifts. We find variations in the ways that instructors' experiences and identities shape their understanding of justice. In addition, we uncover factors that influence the switch moment; curriculum and pedagogical shifts; their relationship to justice work broadly; and barriers and supports for justice work. These stories hold powerful lessons for STEM education, but also for education more broadly, both in terms of pedagogical practice and the questions that shape research agendas on equity in education.

Featuring scientists in classroom materials provides opportunities for students to relate to scientists as role models and see themselves in science. However, it is unclear what information students find most relatable when encountering scientists throughout their education. In this study, we manipulated the amount and type of information provided about scientists featured in biology courses. Within the context of activities focused on a scientist's research study and data, we provided students with either no personal information about the scientist (Control treatment), pictures of the scientist (Visual treatment), or pictures and humanizing details about the scientist (Humanizing treatment). We asked students to describe how they related to the featured scientist, and qualitatively coded responses. Results showed that students related to the scientist's 1) professional research interests (e.g., research topic, science as a career) and 2) personal information (e.g., life experiences, hobbies, personality characteristics, race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status). In addition, we observed differences in how students related to scientists across our treatments. Students were twice as likely to relate to featured scientists, and related in a greater variety of ways, when course materials included personal, humanizing information. We discuss implications for curriculum development and call for intentionality in how we present scientists throughout biology education.

In undergraduate research settings, students are likely to encounter anomalous data, that is, data that do not meet their expectations. Most of the research that directly or indirectly captures the role of anomalous data in research settings uses post-hoc reflective interviews or surveys. These data collection approaches focus on recall of past reasoning, rather than analyzing reasoning about anomalous data as it happens. We use the frameworks of sensemaking and epistemological resources to explore in-the-moment how students identify, generate ideas about the cause of, and determine what to do with anomalies. Students participated in think-aloud interviews where they interacted with anomalous data within larger datasets. Interviews were qualitatively analyzed to identify epistemological resources students used when interacting with anomalous data, and how students' reasoning influenced later choices with the data. Results found that students use a variety of resources as they sensemake about anomalous data and determine what to do with the anomalies. Furthermore, the explanation that students generate about the cause of an anomaly impacts whether the student chooses to keep, remove, recollect, or mitigate the anomalous data. Findings highlight the need to understand students' complex reasoning around anomalous data to support students in lab settings.

Examining institutional data from seven cohorts of students intending to major in biology across five research-intensive institutions, this work analyzes opportunity gaps-defined as the difference between the grade received by students from the dominant and nondominant sociodemographic groups in institutions of higher education-at the course-section level across mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry disciplines. From this analysis, we find that the majority of course sections have large opportunity gaps between female and male students, students who are Black, Latino/a/e/x, or indigenous to the United States and its territories and students who are White or Asian, first-generation and non-first-generation students, and low-income and non-low-income students. This work provides a framework to analyze equity across institutions using robust methodology, including: using multiple approaches to measure grades, quantile regression rankscores which adjust for previous academic performance, and cluster analysis. Recommendations are provided for institutions to identify faculty who have equitable course sections, automate equity analyses, and compare results to other institutions to make a change toward more equitable outcomes.

Undergraduate laboratory courses can provide opportunities for students to participate in science practices. This requires rethinking both curricula and instruction. Science practice-based courses require students to be positioned as epistemic agents, implying a shift in instructor role. Teaching assistants (TAs) are the primary instructors for laboratory courses. The current study aims to understand how TAs support students in science practices. Specifically, we sought to characterize variation in teaching and to understand how TAs learned and adapted their teaching approaches over time. Our study takes place in the context of a large, introductory laboratory course, Authentic Inquiry through Modeling in Biology (AIB-Bio). Our approach investigated the intersection between instructor reasoning and actions using stimulated-recall interviews, where instructors reflected on audio recordings from their classrooms. Application of our conceptual framework revealed that TAs' instructional roles and purposes were fluid and influenced how they supported students' science practices. We also showed how interactions with students cued fluctuations in TAs instructional approaches. Results include a case study that suggests potential mechanisms for TA learning. We propose a model to explain the variation in the enactment of a science practice-based curricula. We end with practical implications to consider when building professional development for science practice-based instruction.

Discourse around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in the United States has long focused on improving the persistence and academic achievement of students. On the surface, such goals are reasonable and well-intentioned. However, the near-exclusive focus on those two outcomes as shorthand for "success" serves hegemonic norms which preclude the equitable success of all students. Although STEM education research has begun to address the inequitable systems within which students and faculty operate, the language of success has largely not changed. While previous work has aimed to recognize and characterize how normative definitions of success harm students and faculty, they fall short of providing readers with strategies for how to sustainably change these systems of injustice. Utilizing the four frames model for systemic change, this 1) deconstructs the operational definitions of student success among key stakeholders involved in STEM higher education: students, faculty, departments, and institutions; 2) determines how extant policies and practices drive misalignments among these definitions and thwart equity; and 3) highlights three key opportunities for change agents to transform how success is measured and defined within STEM higher education.

Curricular content in undergraduate biology courses has been historically hetero and cisnormative due to various cultural stigmas, biases, and discrimination. Such curricula may be partially responsible for why LGBTQ+ students in STEM are less likely to complete their degrees than their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts. We developed Broadening Perspective Activities (BPAs) to expand the representation of marginalized perspectives in the curriculum of an online, upper-division, undergraduate animal behavior course, focusing on topics relating to sex, gender, and sexuality. We used a quasiexperimental design to assess the impact of the BPAs on student perceptions of course concepts and on their sense of belonging in biology. We found that LGBTQ+ students entered the course with a better understanding of many animal behavior concepts that are influenced by cultural biases associated with sex, gender, and sexuality. However, LGBTQ+ students who took the course with the BPAs demonstrated a greater sense of belonging in biology at the end of the term compared with LGBTQ+ students in the course without BPAs. We also show that religious students demonstrated improved comprehension of many concepts related to sex, gender, and sexuality after taking the course with BPAs, with no negative impacts on their sense of belonging.

Program evaluation for interventions aimed at enhancing diversity can fall short when the evaluation unintentionally reifies the exclusion of multiple marginalized student experiences. The present study presents a Quantitative Critical Race Theory (QuantCrit) approach to program evaluation to understand outcomes for Women of Color undergraduates involved in a national biomedical training program called the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative. Using longitudinal data, we examined the impact of participation in the BUILD Scholars programs and BUILD-developed novel biomedical curriculum on undergraduate's research self-efficacy. Employing propensity score matching and multiple regression models, we found that Black women who participated in the BUILD scholars program reported higher research self-efficacy, whereas Latine and White undergraduate BUILD scholars had lower research self-efficacy. Additionally, Latine women who participated in novel biomedical curricula reported significantly lower research self-efficacy. We contend that disaggregated and intersectional analyses of subpopulations are necessary for improving understanding of program interventions and identifying areas where systems of exclusion may continue to harm students from minoritized backgrounds. We provide recommendations for future quantitative program evaluation practices and research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) equity efforts.

Informed by social science fields including psychology and public health, we propose a Model for Emotional Intelligence to advance biology education research in affective learning. The model offers a shared discourse for biology education researchers to develop and assess evidence-based strategies to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions for students and instructors in life sciences classrooms. We begin by reviewing the connection between stress, emotional invalidation, Sense of Belonging, and Science Identity as it relates to emotions in undergraduate life sciences classrooms. Next, we highlight the impact that emotionally invalidating classroom environments have on science students' development of psychological distress, maladaptive coping, and high-risk behaviors. Assuming Emotional Intelligence can be taught and learned (i.e., the ability model of Emotional Intelligence), we develop a Model for Emotional Intelligence to advance biology education research in this arena. This essay aims to inform assessments of current and future interventions designed to counteract emotional invalidation and encourage the development of emotional management among students instructors. In alignment with our collective effort to support student well-being in the life sciences, the study of Emotional Intelligence in undergraduate biology education has the potential to support student mental health as future scientists and health care practitioners.

Office hours are an integral component of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses at nearly all colleges and universities. Despite their ubiquity as a support mechanism, there has only been limited work examining how instructors approach office hours and what shapes these approaches. Here, we conduct a phenomenographic study to investigate how instructors of STEM courses experience office hours and how these experiences may impact their approaches to promoting and managing office hours. We identified variations in how instructors promoted office hours, the modality of office hours (i.e., when and where office hours were held), and how instructors facilitated learning during office hours. These variations spanned from student-centric (strategies instructors use with students' interest in mind, e.g., wanting to increase student learning, accessibility, comfort, etc.) to instructor-centric (strategies the instructors use with their own self-interest in mind, e.g., saving time and/or bandwidth, personal needs, comfort, etc.). Additionally, we identify several challenges and barriers, including a lack of formal training or opportunities to discuss office hour approaches with other faculty, and conclude with general recommendations for instructors and administrators in STEM departments for engaging and supporting students during office hours.

Using the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) Model, this qualitative study examined development of psychosocial attributes (i.e., sense of belonging, science identity, and self-efficacy) among 1st-year life science undergraduate students who participated in integrated and culturally engaging research activities at New Mexico Highlands University, a rural Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Research activities were part of a project called SomosSTEM [We are STEM], which included four major components: 1) course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) that are laboratory modules integrated into introductory life science classes; 2) summer Bridge Science Challenge Academy for 1st-year students; 3) full summer internship program; and 4) Community Voices lecture series. We found the integrated nature of SomosSTEM represents an engaging learning environment that positively impacted students' perceptions of their development of psychosocial attributes. This paper's significance is it outlines specific, integrated activities that are also community-based and culturally engaging. We discuss community-based and culturally engaging learning environments as a viable solution to the problem of individualistic and exclusionary learning environments.