Investigating Undergraduate Student Perceptions of Classroom Inclusion-Emergence of the Student Perceptions of...

While assertions are common about what fosters inclusive undergraduate STEM classrooms, few studies have systematically investigated student perspectives. Additionally, it is unclear how students broadly perceive active learning practices in relation to inclusion. As such, we purposefully investigated student perceptions of classroom inclusion across courses in a biology department enriched with evidence-based teaching and situated in an urban, public institution. Student perceptions were investigated using open-ended prompts on a department-wide, end-of-term assessment. Results revealed that students, across social identities, do indeed report active learning strategies-as well as instructor interactions and collaborative classroom culture-as fostering inclusion. Student reports about instructor practices associated with their inclusion or exclusion clustered into four mirrored categories: Building/Dismantling the Instructor/Student Relationship, Making/Compromising Student-Centered Pedagogical Choices, Establishing Collaborative/Non-Collaborative Classroom Culture, and Portraying Science as Inclusive/Exclusive. These categories comprise a new analytical framework, the Student Perceptions of Instructor Practices-Inclusion/Exclusion (SPIP-I/E) Framework, for investigating student perspectives on inclusion. Intriguingly, student reports about inclusion consistently alluded to instructor language, and the emergent SPIP-I/E Framework aligns with existing Instructor Talk frameworks. We hypothesize that modest differences in instructor language-surrounding any teaching strategy-may mediate and be a predictive, explanatory variable for student perceptions of inclusion.