Young peoples’ online science practices as a gateway to higher education STEM

Other conference contribution, 2022

The purpose of this presentation is to explore how students perceive that online practices have enabled their participation in university physics programmes. The presentation is part of a larger project, exploring students’ trajectories to higher education physics, with a particular focus on students from under-represented groups. In order to conceptualise how students bridge their science participation across physical and online spaces we make use of the learning ecology perspective (Barron 2006). This perspective is complemented with the notion of science capital (Archer et al. 2015), analysing how students have been able to strengthen different aspects of science capital through online participation. 

Data has been generated through semi-structured interviews guided by a timeline, constructed in collaboration between the interviewer and the interviewee. 20 students enrolled in higher education physics have been interviewed, with a focus on their trajectories into higher education physics. 

The findings focus on five students who in various ways all have struggled to access science learning resources and found ways to utilise online spaces as a complement to their physical learning ecologies. In the presentation we show how online practices have contributed to the students’ learning ecologies, e.g. in terms of building networks and functioning as learning support, and how resources acquired through online science practices have both use and exchange value in the wider science community (Gonsalves et al. 2021).Online science participation is thus both curiosity driven and founded in instrumental reasons (using online tutoring to pass school science). Further, we argue that online spaces have the potential to offer opportunities for participation and network building for students who do not have access to science activities and science people in their everyday surroundings. However, this is not to say that online activities are equally and fairly accessible to all, and the potential gendering of online activities will be discussed in the presentation.

Archer, L., Dawson, E., DeWitt, J., Seakins, A., & Wong, B. (2015). “Science capital”: A conceptual, methodological, and empirical argument for extending bourdieusian notions of capital beyond the arts. Journal of research in science teaching, 52(7), 922-948.
Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecology perspective. Human development, 49(4), 193-224.
Gonsalves, A. J., Cavalcante, A. S., Sprowls, E. D., & Iacono, H. (2021). “Anybody can do science if they’re brave enough”: Understanding the role of science capital in science majors’ identity trajectories into and through postsecondary science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 58(8), 1117–1151