Submitted

Fostering Emotional Intelligence in Science Classrooms and Biology Education Research

Tea & Ovid (in review)

In this essay, we convey the connection between stress, emotional invalidation, and mental health as it relates to undergraduate science classrooms. Using the control-value theory of achievement emotions and scholarship from social science fields including psychology and public health, we delineate the impact emotionally invalidating classroom environments may have on science students’ development of psychological distress, maladaptive coping, and high-risk behaviors. We then propose a model for “Fostering Emotional Intelligence in Science Classrooms” to counteract emotional invalidation and encourage the development of healthier emotional management among students and instructors. The study of Emotional Intelligence in undergraduate biology education has the potential to support student mental health as future scientists and health care practitioners. Therefore, the intent of this essay is to encourage research in social and emotional learning and resulting assessments and interventions in undergraduate biology education in our collective effort to support student well-being in the sciences.

2023

Scientist Spotlights in Secondary Schools: Student Shifts in Multiple Measures Related to Science Identity after Receiving Written Assignments

Ovid et al., 2023. CBE: Life Sciences Education, 22(2).

Based on theoretical frameworks of scientist stereotypes, possible selves, and science identity, written assignments were developed to teach science content through biographies and research of counter-stereotypical scientists—Scientist Spotlights (www.scientistspotlights.org). In collaboration with 18 science teachers from 12 schools, this study assessed the impacts of Scientist Spotlight assignments for secondary school students. We used published assessment tools: Relatability prompt; Stereotypes prompt; and Performance/Competence, Interest, and Recognition (PCIR) instrument. Statistical analyses compared students’ responses before and after receiving at least three Scientist Spotlight assignments. We observed significant shifts in students’ relatability to and descriptions of scientists as well as other science identity measures. Importantly, disaggregating classes by implementation strategies revealed that students’ relatability shifts were significant for teachers reporting in-class discussions and not significant for teachers reporting no discussions. Our findings raise questions about contextual and pedagogical influences shaping student outcomes with Scientist Spotlight assignments, like how non-content Instructor Talk might foster student shifts in aspects of science identity.

2022

She Blinded Me with Science: Post-Curriculum and the New Scientific Education

Ovid & Leonardo (2022). Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 37(2).

Curriculum scholarship provides the engagement with curriculum differentiation that has defined the field since its inception. Mainly, curriculum scholars shift from the role of science as arbiter of truth to the politics of truth, as science becomes a target of ideology critique.“Post-curriculum” is a place of radical questioning about the guarantees of a traditional science of curriculum. We explore a “new scientific education” not as a rejection of scientific thought and method as much as an assertion of the centrality of skepticism to the scientific endeavor itself. New science recalls the anti-traditionalism of science in the Enlightenment, and post-curriculum is a place of ambivalence that marks a new intellectual place from which to theorize curriculum scholarship’s relationship with science.

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Investigating Instructor Talk among Graduate Teaching Assistants in Undergraduate Biology Laboratory Classrooms

Gelinas & Ovid, et al. (2022). CBE Life Sciences Education, 21(2).

Instructor Talk—noncontent and nonlogistical language that is focused on shaping the classroom learning environment—is a recently defined variable that may play an important role in how undergraduates experience courses. Here, we present findings analyzing Instructor Talk used by GTAs teaching in undergraduate biology laboratory classrooms. We characterized the Instructor Talk used by 22 GTA instructors across 24 undergraduate biology laboratory courses in the context of a single, urban, Hispanic-serving and Asian American and Pacific Islander–serving Institution. We found that Instructor Talk was present in every course studied, GTAs with pedagogical training and prior teaching experience used more Instructor Talk than those without, and GTAs teaching laboratory courses used more Instructor Talk than previous observations of faculty teaching lecture courses. Given the widespread use of Instructor Talk and its varying use across contexts, we predict that Instructor Talk may be a critical variable in teaching, specifically in promoting equity and inclusion, which merits continued study in undergraduate science education.

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2021

Life sciences reading material in vernacular: lessons from developing a bilingual (IsiZulu and English) book on South African frogs

Phaka & Ovid (2021). Current Issues in Language Planning, 23(1).

The discussion of African languages as languages of learning and teaching can be traced back to the 1980s. To date, this discussion still continues and efforts to intellectualise African languages have been lax. Here, we present practical South African examples of higher education achievements in African languages that demonstrate the challenges and opportunities of African language planning and corpus development. We particularly focus on the development of a peer-reviewed bilingual (IsiZulu and English) book on the frogs of Zululand, South Africa. The publication under consideration falls within the life sciences, and it is the first comprehensive book on South African frogs to be written in an African language. Developing life sciences reading material in vernacular is a time-consuming process that requires a multidisciplinary team which understands both life and social sciences.

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Investigating Student Perceptions of Instructor Talk: Alignment with Researchers’ Categorizations and Analysis of Remembered Language

Ovid and Rice et al., (2021). CBE Life Sciences Education, 20(4).

Instructor Talk—the noncontent language used by an instructor during class time—is likely to influence learning environments in science classrooms from the student perspective. We investigated to what extent undergraduate biology students 1) were aligned with researchers in their perceptions of Instructor Talk as Positively Phrased or Negatively Phrased and 2) remembered Instructor Talk. To test these ideas, we engaged 90 biology students in a multipart assessment. Given that students perceive and remember Instructor Talk as impacting the learning environment, Instructor Talk may be an explanatory variable for differential student outcomes across studies of active learning.

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