Should I write about mental health on my med school app? Examining medical school admissions committee members' biases regarding mental health conditions.

Mental health conditions can impact college students' academic achievements and experiences. As such, students may choose to disclose mental illnesses on medical school applications. Yet, no recent studies have investigated to what extent disclosure of a mental health condition may impact whether an applicant is accepted to medical school. We conducted an audit study to address this gap and surveyed 99 potential medical school admissions committee members from over 40 M.D.-granting schools in the United States. Participants rated a fictitious portion of a single medical school application on acceptability, competence, and likeability. They were randomly assigned to a condition: an application that explained a low semester grade-point average due to 1) a mental health condition, 2) a physical health condition, or 3) offered no explanation. After rating their respective application, all committee members were asked about when revealing a mental health condition would be beneficial and when it would be detrimental. Using ANOVAs, multinomial regression, and open coding, we found that medical school admissions committee members do not rate applications lower when a mental health condition is revealed. Committee members highlighted that revealing a mental health condition to demonstrate resiliency could be beneficial, but if the reference is vague or the condition is not being managed, it could be detrimental to a student's application. This work indicates that medical school admissions committee members do not exhibit a bias against mental health conditions and provides recommendations on how to discuss mental illness on medical school applications.

An exploration of how gender, political affiliation, or religious identity is associated with comfort and perceptions of controversial topics in bioethics.

Bioethics is an important aspect of understanding the relationship between science and society, but studies have not yet examined undergraduate student experiences and comfort in bioethics courses. In this study, we investigated undergraduate bioethics students' support of and comfort when learning three controversial bioethics topics: gene editing, abortion, and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Furthermore, student identity has been shown to influence how students perceive and learn about controversial topics at the intersection of science and society. So, we explored how students' religious affiliation, gender, or political affiliation was associated with their support of and comfort when learning about gene editing, abortion, and PAS. We found that most students entered bioethics with moderated viewpoints on controversial topics but that there were differences in students' tendency to support each topic based on their gender, religion, and political affiliation. We also saw differences in student comfort levels based on identity: women reported lower comfort than men when learning about gene editing, religious students were less comfortable than nonreligious students when learning about abortion and PAS, and nonliberal students were less comfortable than liberal students when learning about abortion. Students cited that the controversy surrounding these topics and a personal hesitancy to discuss them caused discomfort. These findings indicate that identity impacts comfort and support in a way similar to that previously shown in the public. Thus, it may be important for instructors to consider student identity when teaching bioethics topics to maximize student comfort, ultimately encouraging thoughtful consideration and engagement with these topics.

Anatomical self-efficacy of undergraduate students improves during a fully online biology course with at-home dissections.

Student enrollments in online college courses have grown steadily over the past decade, and college administrators expect this trend to continue or accelerate. Despite the growing popularity of online education, one major critique in the sciences is that students are not trained in the hands-on skills they may need for the workforce, graduate school, or professional school. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges has recommended that medical schools evaluate applicants on their motor skills and observation skills, yet many online biology programs do not offer opportunities for students to develop these skills. In on-campus biology programs, students commonly develop these skills through hands-on animal dissections, but educators have struggled with how to teach dissections in an online environment. We designed a fully online undergraduate biology course that includes at-home, hands-on dissections of eight vertebrate specimens. Over three course offerings, we evaluated changes in four student outcomes: anatomical self-efficacy, confidence in laboratory skills, perceptions of support, and concerns about dissections. Here, we describe how we implemented at-home dissections in the online course and show that students taking the course gained anatomical self-efficacy and confidence in multiple laboratory skills. Based on open-ended responses, the students perceived that their experiences with the at-home dissections facilitated these gains. These results demonstrate that at-home, hands-on laboratories are a viable approach for teaching practical skills to students in fully online courses. We encourage science instructors to introduce at-home laboratories into their online courses, and we provide recommendations for instructors interested in implementing at-home laboratories.

It's in the syllabus or is it? How biology syllabi can serve as communication tools for creating inclusive classrooms at a large-enrollment research institution.

Syllabi are usually required by institutions of higher education and often are the first exposure that students have to a particular course. Instructors can use syllabi as a mechanism to convey important information to students. Moreover, a syllabus can be considered a tool to create inclusive biology courses by transmitting information to all students equitably. In this study, we examined 75 biology course syllabi collected from a research-intensive institution to examine what content instructors include. We reviewed the syllabi to determine the presence or absence of elements and assessed to what extent there were differences in the presence or absence of certain syllabus elements based on course level and course size. We found that instructors are most likely to include content about course expectations and least likely to include content about creating positive classroom climate on their course syllabi. Despite university requirements, many instructors did not include the university-mandated criteria and they did not include elements that could increase how inclusive students perceive the course to be. However, instructors more often included inclusive content when it was required by the university. We also found that students enrolled in upper level courses and small enrollment courses are provided with less content on their syllabi, which we would then interpret as a less inclusive syllabus. We discuss the implications of how these results may differentially impact students in these courses and how the syllabus can be a tool for creating more inclusive college biology courses.

Diagnosing differences in what Introductory Biology students in a fully online and an in-person biology degree program know and do regarding medical school admission.

Increasingly, institutions of higher education are adopting fully online degree programs to provide students with cost-effective, accessible postsecondary education. A concern these degrees raise is: Will students be prepared for the next step of their career paths after completing their Bachelor's degree online? Biology undergraduates often begin their degrees wanting to become medical doctors, but no studies have explored whether students in a fully online biology degree program are being prepared to be admitted to medical school. In this study, we surveyed Introductory Biology students at one institution who were pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in Biological Sciences, either in an online or an in-person program. The most prevalent career goal for both in-person students (65.2%) and online students (39.7%) was a medical doctor. Online students were more confident in their intentions to become doctors than their in-person peers. However, online students knew fewer criteria that medical schools consider when admitting students than in-person students [in-person: mean = 3.7 (SD 1.6); online: mean =2.7 (SD 1.7)] and were less likely to plan to become involved in premedical activities, such as undergraduate research. Finally, compared with in-person students, fewer online students were able to name at least one science student (in-person: 76.7%; online: 9.7%), academic advisor (in-person: 21.3%; online: 6.5%), and faculty member (in-person: 33.7%; online: 6.5%) with whom they could talk about pursuing a career in medicine. This work highlights knowledge gaps between students enrolled in a fully online biology degree and an in-person biology degree that are important for developers of online biology degree programs to understand and rectify to better prepare online biology students for admission to medical school.

Who perceives they are smarter? Exploring the influence of student characteristics on student academic self-concept in physiology.

Academic self-concept is one's perception of his or her ability in an academic domain and is formed by comparing oneself to other students. As college biology classrooms transition from lecturing to active learning, students interact more with each other and are likely comparing themselves more to other students in the class. Student characteristics can impact students' academic self-concept; however, this has been unexplored in the context of undergraduate biology. In this study, we explored whether student characteristics can affect academic self-concept in the context of an active learning college physiology course. Using a survey, students self-reported how smart they perceived themselves to be in the context of physiology relative to the whole class and relative to their groupmate, the student with whom they worked most closely in class. Using linear regression, we found that men and native English speakers had significantly higher academic self-concept relative to the whole class compared with women and nonnative English speakers. Using logistic regression, we found that men had significantly higher academic self-concept relative to their groupmate compared with women. Using constant comparison methods, we identified nine factors that students reported influenced how they determined whether they were more or less smart than their groupmate. Finally, we found that students were more likely to report participating more than their groupmate if they had a higher academic self-concept. These findings suggest that student characteristics can influence students' academic self-concept, which in turn may influence their participation in small-group discussion and their academic achievement in active learning classes.

Systemic augmentation of alphaB-crystallin provides therapeutic benefit twelve hours post-stroke onset via immune modulation.

Tissue plasminogen activator is the only treatment option for stroke victims; however, it has to be administered within 4.5 h after symptom onset, making its use very limited. This report describes a unique target for effective treatment of stroke, even 12 h after onset, by the administration of αB-crystallin (Cryab), an endogenous immunomodulatory neuroprotectant. In Cryab(-/-) mice, there was increased lesion size and diminished neurologic function after stroke compared with wild-type mice. Increased plasma Cryab was detected after experimental stroke in mice and after stroke in human patients. Administration of Cryab even 12 h after experimental stroke reduced both stroke volume and inflammatory cytokines associated with stroke pathology. Cryab is an endogenous anti-inflammatory and neuroprotectant molecule produced after stroke, whose beneficial properties can be augmented when administered therapeutically after stroke.

Christian Student Experiences During Peer Interactions in Undergraduate Biology Courses.

The tension between religion and science as a long-standing barrier to science education has led researchers to explore ways of improving the experiences of Christian students in biology who can experience their Christianity as stigmatized in academic biology environments. As undergraduate science classes become student-centered, interactions among students increase, and Christians may feel a need to conceal their religious identities during peer discussions. In this interview study, we used the social psychology framework of concealable stigmatized identities to explore 30 Christian students' experiences during peer interactions in undergraduate biology courses to find potential ways to improve those experiences. We found that students felt their religious identity was salient during peer interactions in biology, and students thought revealing their religious identity to peers in their biology courses could be beneficial, yet few actually did so. Additionally, though most students anticipated stigma, comparatively few had experienced stigma from other students in their biology courses, despite the prior documented cultural stigma against Christians in biology. These results indicate a need for future studies exploring the impact of learning environments in which students are given the opportunity to share their religious identities with one another, which could reduce their anticipated and perceived stigma.

Few LGBTQ+ Science and Engineering Instructors Come Out to Students, Despite Potential Benefits.

LGBTQ+ undergraduates have higher attrition from science and engineering (S&E) than straight and cisgender undergraduates and perceive that having LGBTQ+ instructors would benefit them. However, it is unknown how many S&E instructors are LGBTQ+, the extent to which they disclose this information to students, and how disclosure affects all students, both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+. In study I, we surveyed 108 LGBTQ+ S&E instructors across the U.S. to explore the extent to which they reveal their LGBTQ+ identities across professional contexts and why they reveal or conceal their identities to undergraduates. Overall, 75% of instructors came out to at least some colleagues but only 48% came out to any undergraduates. Instructors most commonly chose to conceal LGBTQ+ identities from undergraduates because they perceived their identities to be irrelevant to course content and anticipated negative student reactions. In study II, 666 introductory biology undergraduates were randomly assigned to evaluate one of two identical teaching demonstration videos except the instructor revealed her LGBTQ+ identity in one but not the other. We assessed differences in students' impressions of the instructor across conditions. We found no differences in most ratings of the instructor except participants reported higher rapport with the instructor when she came out.

Beyond Gender and Race: The Representation of Concealable Identities Among College Science Instructors at Research Institutions.

Concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) are identities that can be kept hidden and carry negative stereotypes. To understand the potential influence instructors have as role models, we must first explore the identities instructors have and whether they disclose those identities to undergraduates. We surveyed national samples of science instructors (n = 1248) and undergraduates (n = 2428) at research institutions to assess the extent to which instructors hold CSIs, whether they reveal those identities to undergraduates, how the prevalence of CSIs among instructors compares to their prevalence among undergraduates, and the reasons instructors reveal or conceal their CSIs. The most common CSIs instructors reported were having anxiety (35%) and being a first-generation college student (29%). Relatively few instructors revealed CSIs to students. The largest mismatches of CSI prevalence were for struggling academically in college (-30%) and having anxiety (-25%); all mismatches grew when accounting for instructor CSI disclosure, highlighting that students perceive fewer role models of scientists with CSIs than actually exist.

Perspectives from Undergraduate Life Sciences Faculty: Are We Equipped to Effectively Accommodate Students With Disabilities in Our Classrooms?

Higher education has evolved in ways that may increase the challenges life science faculty face in providing accommodations for students with disabilities. Guided by Expectancy-Value Theory, we interviewed 34 life sciences faculty instructors from institutions nationwide to explore faculty motivation to create disability-inclusive educational experiences. We found that faculty in our sample perceive that providing most standard accommodations is a manageable but often challenging task. Further, faculty in our sample feel that improving accommodations necessitates additional support from their institutions. Most faculty had high attainment value for providing accommodations, in that they strongly believed that supporting students with disabilities is the fair and right thing to do. However, faculty did not perceive much utility value or intrinsic value in their task of providing accommodations, and most reported that providing accommodations can be a substantial burden on faculty. These findings imply that current approaches to providing inclusive educational experiences for students with disabilities rely primarily on the personal belief that providing accommodations is the right thing to do, which likely results in a flawed and inequitable system given that not all faculty equally share this conviction.

Who is Represented in the Research on Undergraduate Research Experiences in the Natural Sciences? A Review of Literature.

Positive outcomes from undergraduate research experiences (UREs) have resulted in calls to broaden and diversify participation in research. However, we have little understanding of what demographics are reported and considered in the analyses of student outcomes from UREs. Without this information, it is impossible to assess whether participation in UREs has been diversified and how outcomes may vary by participant identity. Through a comprehensive literature search, we systematically identified 147 peer-reviewed research articles on student participation in UREs in the natural sciences, published between 2014 and 2020. We coded each paper to document which student demographic variables are reported and considered in analyses. The majority (88%) of articles on UREs reported at least one demographic variable and 62% incorporate demographics into their analyses, but demographics beyond gender and race/ethnicity were infrequently considered. Articles on independent research apprenticeships included demographics in their analyses more frequently than studies on course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). Trends in reporting and analyzing demographics did not change from 2014 to 2020. Future efforts to collect these data will help assess whether goals to diversify UREs are being met and inform how to design UREs to meet the needs of diverse student groups.

Systemic advantage has a meaningful relationship with grade outcomes in students' early STEM courses at six research universities.

Background: Large introductory lecture courses are frequently post-secondary students' first formal interaction with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Grade outcomes in these courses are often disparate across student populations, which, in turn, has implications for student retention. This study positions such disparities as a manifestation of systemic inequities along the dimensions of sex, race/ethnicity, income, and first-generation status and investigates the extent to which they are similar across peer institutions. Results: We examined grade outcomes in a selected set of early STEM courses across six large, public, research-intensive universities in the United States over ten years. In this sample of more than 200,000 STEM course enrollments, we find that course grade benefits increase significantly with the number of systemic advantages students possess at all six institutions. The observed trends in academic outcomes versus advantage are strikingly similar across universities despite the fact that we did not control for differences in grading practices, contexts, and instructor and student populations. The findings are concerning given that these courses are often students' first post-secondary STEM experiences. Conclusions: STEM course grades are typically lower than those in other disciplines; students taking them often pay grade penalties. The systemic advantages some student groups experience are correlated with significant reductions in these grade penalties at all six institutions. The consistency of these findings across institutions and courses supports the claim that inequities in STEM education are a systemic problem, driven by factors that go beyond specific courses or individual institutions. Our work provides a basis for the exploration of contexts where inequities are exacerbated or reduced and can be used to advocate for structural change within STEM education. To cultivate more equitable learning environments, we must reckon with how pervasive structural barriers in STEM courses negatively shape the experiences of marginalized students. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-024-00474-7.

Chaperone activity of small heat shock proteins underlies therapeutic efficacy in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

To determine whether the therapeutic activity of αB crystallin, small heat shock protein B5 (HspB5), was shared with other human sHsps, a set of seven human family members, a mutant of HspB5 G120 known to exhibit reduced chaperone activity, and a mycobacterial sHsp were expressed and purified from bacteria. Each of the recombinant proteins was shown to be a functional chaperone, capable of inhibiting aggregation of denatured insulin with varying efficiency. When injected into mice at the peak of disease, they were all effective in reducing the paralysis in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Additional structure activity correlations between chaperone activity and therapeutic function were established when linear regions within HspB5 were examined. A single region, corresponding to residues 73-92 of HspB5, forms amyloid fibrils, exhibited chaperone activity, and was an effective therapeutic for encephalomyelitis. The linkage of the three activities was further established by demonstrating individual substitutions of critical hydrophobic amino acids in the peptide resulted in the loss of all of the functions.

Piet Mondrian's trees and the evolution in understanding multiple sclerosis, Charcot Prize Lecture 2011.

Four questions were posed about multiple sclerosis (MS) at the 2011 Charcot Lecture, Oct. 22, 2011. 1. The Male/Female Disparity: Why are women developing MS so much more frequently than men? 2. Neuronal and Glial Protection: Are there guardian molecules that protect the nervous system in MS? 3. Predictive Medicine: With all the approved drugs, how can we rationally decide which one to use? 4. The Precise Scalpel vs. the Big Hammer for Therapy: Is antigen-specific therapy for demyelinating disease possible? To emphasize how our views on the pathogenesis and treatment of MS are evolving, and given the location of the talk in Amsterdam, Piet Mondrian's progressive interpretations of trees serve as a heuristic.

A writing-intensive course improves biology undergraduates' perception and confidence of their abilities to read scientific literature and communicate science.

Most scientists agree that comprehension of primary scientific papers and communication of scientific concepts are two of the most important skills that we can teach, but few undergraduate biology courses make these explicit course goals. We designed an undergraduate neuroimmunology course that uses a writing-intensive format. Using a mixture of primary literature, writing assignments directed toward a layperson and scientist audience, and in-class discussions, we aimed to improve the ability of students to 1) comprehend primary scientific papers, 2) communicate science to a scientific audience, and 3) communicate science to a layperson audience. We offered the course for three consecutive years and evaluated its impact on student perception and confidence using a combination of pre- and postcourse survey questions and coded open-ended responses. Students showed gains in both the perception of their understanding of primary scientific papers and of their abilities to communicate science to scientific and layperson audiences. These results indicate that this unique format can teach both communication skills and basic science to undergraduate biology students. We urge others to adopt a similar format for undergraduate biology courses to teach process skills in addition to content, thus broadening and strengthening the impact of undergraduate courses.

Women drive efforts to highlight concealable stigmatized identities in U.S. academic science and engineering.

Concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) are hidden identities that carry negative stereotypes and can result in a loss of social status if revealed. Instructors often choose to conceal these CSIs due to anticipated negative student reactions, yet revealing CSIs can have a positive impact on undergraduates. Women are generally more likely to reveal personal aspects about themselves in social situations, but may face greater consequences for revealing a stigmatized identity to students given their already marginalized position in academic science and engineering. Therefore, in this study, we were interested in understanding to what extent there are differences between men and women science and engineering instructors in (i) the representation of CSIs, (ii) their decisions to reveal CSIs to undergraduates in their classes, and (iii) their perceived stigma of CSIs. Based on a national survey of over 2,000 instructors in science and engineering from very high research activity doctoral institutions, we found that women were more likely than men to report having depression, anxiety, or a disability. Of instructors who held CSIs, women had 1.5x higher odds than men of revealing their CSIs to some undergraduates compared to no undergraduates and perceived greater stigma associated with all CSIs. Despite perceiving greater stigma associated with concealable stigmatized identities, women are more likely to reveal their CSIs to college science and engineering students, leading the way to a more diverse and inclusive scientific community by demonstrating themselves as role models for these identities.

Research Anxiety Predicts Undergraduates' Intentions to Pursue Scientific Research Careers.

Undergraduate research is lauded as a high-impact practice owing to the array of benefits that students can reap from participating. One unexplored construct that may affect student intent to persist in research is research anxiety, defined as the sense of worry or apprehension associated with conducting research. In this study, we surveyed 1272 undergraduate researchers across research-intensive, master's-granting, and primarily undergraduate institutions to assess the relationship among student demographics, research anxiety, and intent to pursue a research career. Using structural equation modeling, we identified that women and students with higher grade point averages (GPAs) were more likely to report higher levels of research anxiety compared with men and students with lower GPAs, respectively. Additionally, research anxiety was significantly and negatively related to student intent to pursue a research-related career. We coded students' open-ended responses about what alleviates and exacerbates their anxiety and found that experiencing failure in the context of research and feeling underprepared increased their research anxiety, while a positive lab environment and mentor-mentee relationships decreased their anxiety. This is the first study to examine undergraduate anxiety in the context of research at scale and to establish a relationship between research anxiety and students' intent to persist in scientific research careers.

"It's More Of A Me-Thing Than An Evolution Thing": Exploring The Validity Of Evolution Acceptance Measures Using Student Interviews.

Researchers who study student acceptance of evolution rely on surveys that are designed to measure evolution acceptance. It is important for these surveys to measure evolution acceptance accurately and in isolation from other constructs, so that researchers can accurately determine what leads to low acceptance. The Inventory of Student Evolution Acceptance (I-SEA) and the Generalized Acceptance of EvolutioN Evaluation (GAENE) are two surveys that were developed to improve upon the limitations of earlier surveys. Yet neither survey has been extensively tested for response process validity, which can assess the extent to which students use constructs other than their acceptance of evolution to answer survey items. In this study, we examined the response-process validity of the I-SEA and GAENE by conducting cognitive interviews with 60 undergraduate students. Interviews revealed that both surveys retain certain response-process issues. The I-SEA conflated knowledge about and acceptance of evolution for a subset of students. The GAENE measured evolution acceptance inconsistently because students interpreted "evolution" in different ways; it also measured willingness to advocate for evolution in addition to acceptance. Researchers can use these findings to better inform their survey choice when designing future studies, and to further improve the measurement of evolution acceptance.