New Article on Congruity between Goals and Roles
Diekman et al recently published an article in Psychological Science about women's goals and how they may impact their choice of careers. The authors, four women from Miami University, argue that studeents see STEM careers as"less likely than careers in other fields to fulfill communal goals (e.g., working with or helping other people)." They say that women care more about communal goals than men in general, and thus they hypothesized that the way science is perceived could affect women more negatively. Their predictions were supported by the data they reported. Overall, they found that "communal-goal endorsement negatively predicted interest in STEM careers, even when controlling for past experience and self-efficacy in science and mathematics."
The authors suggest that this factor is routinely neglected in planning efforts to increase the number of women in science. It is assumed that more exposure to science will help, when it could be that more exposure won't work unless it is linked in some way to communal goals.
In that light, I'm particularly struck by the story I posted earlier about the 13 year old girl who helped the California Air Resources Board decide that air purifiers increase ansthama symtoms if they produce too much ozone, so they enacted ozone limits. I've heard about a group called SENCER (Science Education for New Civic Engagements) which tries to connect science with societal goals. With this study and this example in mind, I predict success for this approach to attracting more diverse scientists.
What do you think?
A. I have too much material to teach to be able to also include societal aspects.
B. I want to think about this but I don't do it now.
C. I already do this connection and I think it works (tell us more!)
Gotta laugh, Female Biology Professor. You say yourself that the medical relevance would draw their attention! Why not give it a try once in the last lecture of the year, so you'd be able to think it over afterwards with no pressure one way or the other?
I think this is one where we just have to agree to disagree. If I were to mention medical relevance, every question would be directed to it and I would not get the attention I need for DNA-RNA-protein per se. FBP
Hi FBP,
I think even a single sentence giving some context would help, and I can't believe you couldn't work in say one a day for the three weeks. I love the Central Dogma material myself, but I can't deny students see learning it as a chore. So I believe a bit of motivation could pay big dividends.
cheers,
Laura
Maybe I could address these issues if I had a whole course to myself, but I get three weeks to cover DNA, RNA, protein synthesis. It goes by in a flash. Just can't squeeze in medical relevance, or whatever.
FBP
Oh, content! Female Biology Professor, how long do you think they'll remember that content? It needs to mean something to them before they will retain it. You don't need much packaging around a scientific idea to make it resonate with students, though, that's probably the good news for you. At liberal arts colleges, I think we almost automatically include that context with our deep science explorations.
Hi Helen,
Sounds like the high school classes you visit get a good sense of the collaboration of science and its role in helping patients, great! I do think today's students are put off by the idea that scientists are workaholic loners. I try to show them we're not loners but team players, but the workaholic part is harder to deal with, LOL. My work is so basic that I can say it may have human health relevance, but they raise their eyebrows. I've heard some of them tell others that it might help older people, though, so they probably accept it on some level.
cheers,
Laura
As a guest in high school science classes, I use how my research affects human health to connect to the students. I try to show them how asking basic questions about how immunity and inflammation work in the case of auto-immune disorders teaches us about basic science as well as having the potential to help patients. That message seems to resonate with the kids in that context, and data has been out there for a long time showing that women like the idea of working together rather than the cowboy/loner approach that is a common view in science and is still true in most cases for academic research outside of your own lab. Showing examples where this is not the case is critical to getting more women interested in "hard" sciences like physics, math and astronomy. For biology we already have parity until the faculty transition, so I think that field has some separate challenges.
I wish Female Biology Professor hadn't said that. I don't think it makes sense to assume because you teach something, the student gets it. If she only cares about it in a societal context, it wouldn't be that hard to set it in that context while still presenting almost exactly the same "material."
It's not that I disagree with this exactly but A. I have to cover really important topics and I can't do that and connect to society too, in the time I have. FBP
