The promise of faculty care in undergraduate STEM courses

Work in Progress. Introductory, or “weed out” chemistry courses are well-known for deterring undergraduate students from pursuing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields. Specifically, students' motivations resulting from experiences in these courses can influence STEM retention. Using grounded theory, our preliminary analysis of qualitative data collected in an undergraduate chemistry course has identified “faculty care” as an emergent construct of importance to student motivations. Our emergent definition of care is students' perception that their instructors recognize and communicate actionable steps towards self-improvement or illustrate concern, encouragement, or relational interest for the students in academic and non-academic settings, or in an unexpected, personal way. We found that students hold gendered interpretations of faculty care, and these interpretations may give rise to gendered motivational attitudes. This work raises questions about the ways specific classroom activities or faculty-student interactions allow faculty to communicate a sense of care for their students and thereby affect students' motivational attitudes in their classrooms. More broadly, this work may have implications for our understanding of the ways faculty can address gendered patterns in STEM participation.