xB: Physics Education Research with special populations: How do we characterize and evaluate the special needs and resources of students who are underrepresented in STEM education?
Sessions: PB (8:45 - 10) and QB (10:30 - 11:45)
Organizer: Mel Sabella, Chicago State University
Presenters:
Michael Loverude, California State University Fullerton
Apriel Hodari, The CNA Corporation
Mel Sabella and Samuel Bowen, Chicago State University
The Physics Education Research community has grown rapidly in the last few years. Many new members of the field were trained at large traditional research universities, but have now taken positions and begun research programs at different types of colleges and universities throughout the country. These researchers are now in positions in which the student population is quite different than the populations they have encountered and worked with during their training. In addition, because PER-based materials, for the most part, have been developed and tested at large research universities, there is relatively little data documenting the effectiveness of these materials with students at smaller colleges and universities. At the same time, several members of the PER community are investigating the special needs and resources of the populations of students who are underrepresented in STEM education. This targeted poster session will be an opportunity for researchers who are beginning to conduct research on student learning at institutions that serve these students to share results and discuss future avenues of research.
This poster session will highlight both the similarities and differences between the student populations at large research universities and smaller, regional institutions, which often serve more students from underrepresented groups. Although some results suggest similarities between these student populations, other results point to important differences. It is important for us to begin to formulate and answer research questions as to why certain results are more generalizable than others. In addition, we may find that new methods and studies need to be conducted to identify issues that may not have been important with more traditional students.
During this poster session, presenters will discuss the specific population(s) they are working with and their preliminary research results. This data will then provide a context for a discussion of what we have learned from our initial efforts, what questions arise from the data, and what types of research tools and methods will help us answer these questions. We hope that this session will stimulate collaboration among colleagues at urban and suburban institutions with diverse populations of students, in order to better understand the resources and special needs of these students. In keeping with the theme of the conference, we will use our initial analysis of the data to stimulate a discussion leading to a more theoretical framework that can be applied to these special populations of students. This framework will be important in guiding the development and revision of materials to serve these students.
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Michael C. Wittmann tel: 207 - 581 - 1237 |
Rachel E. Scherr tel: 301 - 405 - 6179 |