Developing Students’ STEM Career Identity and Sense of Belonging in a Biology Class

Undergraduate career courses impact students’ STEM self-effcacy and identity, helping to close opportunity gaps by promoting retention and reducing the time to graduation. However, these courses are generally separate from students’ disciplinary courses, which allows students to see this work as important, but separate. In addition, this siloed approach means that only students who take these classes or engage with career services support individually have access to these opportunities. This opportunity gap is likely compounded for students from underrepresented and minoritized groups, creating a structural barrier where these students are expected to recognize the value and seek these opportunities in unfamiliar and often exclusionary environments. By integrating career exploration, skill development, and reflection into a student-centered biology classroom, we aim to engage students in purpose-driven exploration, planning, and skill development within the context of their disciplinary learning experiences. Drawing on the Social Cognitive Career Theory and Marcia’s Identity Formation Model we designed and assessed the IRL (In Real Life) lab curriculum, which was implemented in a student-centered introductory biology class that includes lecture and lab components. Through the IRL lab, students engaged in activities that helped in (a) Identifying and articulating their purpose, which we define as the intersection of their values, interests, skills, and the societal impact they prioritize in their work (b) Purpose-driven exploration and planning and (c) Making meaning of their experiences by building and articulating career-related skills, and building professional networks. We evaluated the outcomes using a qualitative coding approach, triangulating data from class assignments, focus groups, and semi-structured interviews to assess the impacts of the IRL lab on students’ STEM career identity and sense of belonging. We find that engaging with the IRL lab: (a) Increases students’ career-related self-effcacy and outcome expectations, thus impacting their STEM career identity (b) Shifts their focus from a destination-driven approach (specific job or career) to a purpose-driven approach, thus impacting their identity formation process and (c) Increases access and students’ sense of belonging by engaging them in making meaning of their disciplinary experiences and reflecting on how their academic goals align with their career goals. To summarize, STEM higher education is a choose your own adventure challenge where only some participants are equipped with the tools needed to navigate this new world. Engaging in career-related exploration and reflection in a disciplinary, student-centered class breaks down this structural barrier by equipping all students with the tools and strategies needed for success, thus empowering ALL students to choose their own adventure. This work was supported by the Lyman Briggs College AD Innovation Fund and the AACU Curriculum to Careers Institute. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.