Exploring Undergraduate Latine Students’ Learning Experiences in STEM Courses

ABSTRACT

We used a phenomenological research design to explore 19 Latina and Queer identifying undergraduate students’ lived experiences in STEM undergraduate courses at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Eighteen participants self-identified as female and one identified as genderqueer with an average undergraduate grade point average of 3.07. The following themes emerged from phenomenological data analysis: failure to acknowledge students’ cultural and language resources; deficit assumptions about students’ background, abilities, and potential; absence of active and collaborative learning and practical and real-world examples; minimal feedback on student learning and growth; disregard for student voices in design of assessments; and misalignment between assessments and evaluation tools to measure those assessments. We provide implications for faculty developers at HSIs and other institutions of higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Culturally sustaining teaching practices
• STEM undergraduate education
• Latine
• equity ethic

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank all the students who shared their experiences and stories as part of this research project; your lived experiences and insights will transform teaching and learning practices in STEM coursework and beyond. We are also appreciative of the internal funding received to support this research study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Internal Institutional Grant to support faculty research.