We study biology and STEM education research at the individual, class, and systems level to affect change to better support student learning and student success. We have existing projects in many different areas; below represents a snapshot of some of our active projects:

Investigating student transfer of learning for quantitative reasoning in biology labs

We are interested in examining how students learn and apply quantitative skills in introductory biology labs. This project, funded by a National Science Foundation Building Capacity in STEM Education Research grant, will allow us to characterize what students notice and attend to when learning quantitative reasoning, generating new knowledge into how students transfer quantitative skills from other classes to biological contexts. These results will provide insight into how to best support student learning of quantitative reasoning in biology classes.

Examining student experiences in STEM curricular and co-curricular spaces

We are broadly interested in investigating student experiences in and perceptions of various STEM curricular and co-curricular spaces. These include projects that examine student motivations and barriers to STEM courses’ office hours, explore how different STEM students perceive and experience academic advising, and investigate the impact of non-STEM secondary fields on STEM majors’ STEM identity. A NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education grant, in collaboration with a consortium of other Southern California colleges and universities, is supporting our research into ways to better support student engagement in STEM course office hours.

Exploring student affect and learning

We are interested in exploring the relationship between student affect (i.e., attitudes, motivations, self-efficacy, etc.) and learning, as well as factors that influence affect and learning. Current projects include work examining how affective factors may impact students’ problem-solving approaches in genetics, how the framing of assessment questions can impact student affect and performance, and what factors shape students’ beliefs about the nature of their abilities. In addition, we have projects to develop and assess new curriculum and explore students’ study strategies.

Transforming undergraduate biology education

We are committed to investigating ways to better transform undergraduate biology education following evidence-based principles. Current projects include a NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education grant to explore the impacts of the Vision & Change report and assess the efficacy of aligned change efforts, work examining the use of program learning outcomes in biology, and projects examining the resources that instructors draw upon when designing and revamping classes.

Improving diversity, equity, and inclusion

We advocate for continual changes to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) inside and outside of STEM. Our current research projects include exploring how STEM faculty become committed to social justice and how that impacts their teaching; developing and assessing the impact of evidence-based workshops on countering microaggressions; and examining how Asian American students use community cultural capital to navigate their STEM disciplines.