Advancing Equity in STEM: The Impact Assessment Design Has on Who Succeeds in Undergraduate Introductory Chemistry

What we as scientists and educators assess has a tremendous impact on whom we authorize to participate in science careers. Unfortunately, in critical gateway chemistry courses, assessments commonly emphasize and reward recall of disaggregated facts or performance of (often mathematical) skills. Such an emphasis marginalizes students based on their access to pre-college math preparation and misrepresents the intellectual work of chemistry. Here, we explore whether assessing intellectual work more authentic to the practice of chemistry (i.e., mechanistic reasoning) might support more equitable achievement. Mechanistic reasoning involves explaining a phenomenon in terms of interactions between lower scale entities (e.g., atoms and molecules). We collected 352 assessment tasks administered in college-level introductory chemistry courses across two universities. What was required for success on these tasks was rote math skills (165), mechanistic reasoning (36), neither (126), or both (25). Logistic regression models predict that the intellectual work emphasized on in an assessment could impact whether 15-20% of the cohort passes or fails. Whom does assessment emphasis impact most? Predicted pass rates for those often categorized as "at-risk" could be 67 or 93%, depending on whether their success was defined by rote calculation or mechanistic reasoning. Therefore, assessment transformation could provide a path toward advancing the relevance of our courses and educational equity.

The Role of Trauma-Informed Training in Helping Los Angeles Teachers Manage the Effects of Student Exposure to Violence and Trauma

Exposure to trauma, such as community violence, has far-reaching effects on childrens' learning and behavior. While schools are a critical place to provide positive and safe spaces for students, teachers have self-reported a lack of knowledge on how to work effectively with traumatized students. In response to this, there has been an increase in teacher training on trauma-related topics. However, it is unclear how training impacts teachers' trauma knowledge and difficulty responding to traumatized students in the classroom. As such, this exploratory study used a survey (N = 94) with Los Angeles teachers to assess whether training on violence and trauma is related to trauma knowledge and reported difficulty responding to traumatized students. Regression analyses indicate that total training increased teachers' trauma knowledge, which was found to mediate teachers' difficulty responding to traumatized students. Findings from this study support the need for a focus on trauma-informed training within the education context.

Marginalized Identities, Trump-Related Distress, and the Mental Health of Underrepresented College Students

The current study sought to determine whether holding targeted marginalized identities was associated with greater experiences of distress related to Trump's presidency and whether participants' level of Trump-related distress predicted decrements in mental health. Participants in the current longitudinal study included 338 underrepresented college students attending a predominantly White institution. Results indicated that individuals who held targeted marginalized identities reported greater Trump-related distress compared to their non-targeted counterparts, and that holding multiple targeted marginalized identities was associated with greater levels of Trump-related distress. Findings also indicated that Trump-related distress was associated with increases (relative to previous trajectories) in anxious but not depressive symptoms. Overall, our results suggest that a shift in sociopolitical circumstances that promulgates bigotry may be harmful to those who possess targeted marginalized identities.