Grade Gaps Reflect Course Problems, Not Students' Shortcomings
From article by Jessica Blake for Inside Higher Ed.com
Many have argued that increasing diversity and inclusion in STEM comes at the cost of lowering standards, but a recent report adds to what its authors say is “a growing literature” that debunks these claims. Instead, the report’s findings show that slight changes to course structure could close or even remove equity gaps without altering the level of mastery expected.
“There’s a predominant myth that you need to lower the intellectual level of a course in order to accommodate diversity and inclusion,” said Cassandra Paul, a physics education researcher at San José State University and co-author of the report. “That’s something that we want to push back on.” The report, published earlier this month in Physical Review Physics Education Research, observed how two separate structural changes made to introductory physics courses each closed a historic grade gap for a different minority group.
One variation altered the order in which course content was introduced. The other altered how tests were given. Both resulted in narrower achievement gaps. The analysis concludes that professors should stop approaching instruction from a “student deficit” perspective and start thinking about a “course deficit.”
Andrew Heckler, a physics professor at Ohio State University who specializes in physics education research, said Webb and Paul’s research was important, but he remains cautious about overgeneralization.
“This is just one study … You want to be very careful about generalizing that to all populations and all situations,” he said. “This paper is further motivation for people to try this and see if it works in their situation as well … I’m excited about it.”
Other research has already produced similar findings.
Heckler, along with a graduate student, Amber Simmons, conducted a study published in 2020 that analyzed how shifting the weight of certain assessments in the overall term grade in physics courses could also close equity gaps. The findings show that while white male students often perform better than female, Black and Hispanic peers on exams, the gap is significantly smaller on other course components such as labs or homework.
“The idea is that assessing things in different ways is bringing out different knowledge and skills in different students,” he said. “How you reward and what you assess basically determines who does well. If you weigh the exams less than these other components, then the gap between white males and everybody else decreases.”
Other studies have found significantly smaller grade gaps for underrepresented student groups in courses taught via active learning compared to a traditional lecture.
“We’re coming to a point in education where the evidence is starting to become so overwhelming that it’s almost our ethical responsibility to change what we do,” Heckler said. “We can’t ignore these kinds of results; we have to look at them and try to see if they can be replicated in our own institution. The responsibility is on us.”
Read full article from Inside Higher Ed.com at this link.
Credit: Jessica Blake
