PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jayson Nissen
AU  - Ben Van Dusen
AU  - Sayali Kukday
TI  - A QuantCrit investigation of society’s educational debts due to racism, sexism, and classism in biology student learning
AID  - 10.1101/2022.05.05.490808
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.05.05.490808
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/05/06/2022.05.05.490808.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/05/06/2022.05.05.490808.full
AB  - We investigated the intersectional relationships between racism, sexism, and classism in inequities in student conceptual knowledge in introductory biology courses using a quantitative critical framework. Using Bayesian hierarchical linear models, we examined students’ conceptual knowledge as measured by the Introductory Molecular and Cell Biology Assessment. The data came from the LASSO database and included 6,547 students from 87 introductory courses at 11 institutions. The model indicated that students with marginalized identities by race, gender, and class tended to start with lower scores than continuing-generation, White men. We conceptualized these differences as educational debts society owed these students due to racism, sexism, and classism. Instruction added to these educational debts for most marginalized groups, with the largest increases for students with multiple marginalized identities. After instruction, society owed Black and Hispanic, first-generation women an educational debt equal to 60-80% of the average learning in the courses. These courses almost all (85/87) used collaborative learning and half (45/87) supported instruction with learning assistants. While research shows collaborative learning better serves students than lecture-based instruction, these results indicate it does not repay educational debts due to racism, sexism, and classism.Competing Interest StatementThe first and second authors are the directors of the LASSO platform, which was used for the data collection.