Presenter: Porter Bischoff
Authors: Porter Bischoff, Joshua Premo, Britt Wyatt, Heather Wilson-Ashworth
Faculty Advisor: Joshua Premo
Institution: Utah Valley University
First-generation students(FGSs)are less likely to earn a four-year degree than their continuing generation peers(CGSs). This trend isparticularlypronounced in STEM disciplines.FGSsaremore likelyto be communallyoriented which contrasts the typical values ofuniversitiesthatvalue individualaccomplishments.This generatesa disconnect between FGS’svaluesand the perceived values of STEM.However, limiteddatais availablefromteaching institutions that are open-enrollment.Inaddition, few studies have examined peer interactions as a specific source ofscience motivation and communal views of science.This study examinedstudent’scooperative experiences with peersandSTEM motivationthrough pre/post-test survey collection within STEM classes.Students were askedquestionsaddressingSTEM motivation, the value of working with othersand theircommunity, and the community orientation of STEM disciplines.Early results show that FGS do indeed rely oncooperative experiences with peers to judge the communal orientation of sciencewhich thenimpactstheir science motivation. Wepredict that similar trends will be seen for women and that these trends will be significantly weaker for CGSs.Our next stepsincludecontinuingwith the data analysis. Also, this survey was takenwhen COVID-19 caused an emergency transition to online learning.Future data collection willprovide a comparisonto better understand the impactsofthe emergency transitiononSTEM students.