Glossary
Academic Achievement Gap: Academic performance differences between different populations of students.
Active learning: A process through which students actively engage with and reflect upon course content. It may involve several different techniques, activities, and strategies, such as clicker questions or think-pair-shares.
African Americans: US citizens whose ancestors came from Africa and lived in the USA before or during the transatlantic slave trade.
AHN: African Americans/Blacks, Hispanic/Latino(a), and Native Americans/Alaskan Natives
Anxiety: A mental state characterized by a variety of symptoms which vary in intensity and frequency. Symptoms include nervousness, uncontrollable worry, restlessness, sweating, trembling, insomnia, and the inability to maintain focus.
Belonging: An affinity for a place, situation or group; a feeling that you are welcome and ‘fit in’.
Bias: Prejudice against one thing, person or group. Usually it is considered to be unfair.
BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color
Black: People with dark skin pigmentation, most of whom have African ancestry.
Blocking: A method of studying where students focus exclusively on a single topic for the majority of the study session.
Career Achievement Gap: Refers to income and employment gaps between majority and minority populations.
Classroom communication apprehension (CCA): the fear of being inadequate in front of professors or peers. It affects about 70% of students at least some of the time.
Cold Calling: Calling on a student to publicly answer a question in front of the class without them first volunteering.
Colorblindness: A misguided ideology that emphasizes sameness and postulates that individuals have the same opportunities and should thus be treated equally regardless of their starting circumstances.
Continuing Generation (CG) students: Students who have at least one parent with a degree from a 4-year college.
Cultural mismatch: Difficulties conversing-with and relating-to groups who have norms, experiences, and cultural values that are different from our own.
DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
First generation (FG) students: Students whose parents do not have a degree from a 4-year college.
Fixed mindset: The idea that a person’s intelligence is unchangeable.
Generational Wealth and income (GWI): Refers to the amount of generational wealth and household income a person possesses. Considered to be more respectful and than the “socioeconomic status (SES)” while maintaining the same meaning.
Growth Mindset: The belief that people can increase their intelligence with effort and practice.
Hispanic: People descended from Spanish-speaking populations. (e.g. someone from Spain).
Intersectionality: Describes how all aspects of an individual’s identity (i.e., class, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation etc.) are meaningful and worthy of consideration when trying to understand a given person’s experiences and challenges.
Instructor Immediacy: Behaviors that reduce the perceived distance between students and instructors and make the instructor seem more present and accessible.
Implicit Bias: Refers to unconscious attitudes, beliefs, or stereotypes that can affect our actions, decisions, or thoughts about certain groups.
Imposter Phenomenon: Occurs when high-achieving individuals fail to internalize their success and accomplishments, have self-doubt that they belong where they are, and fear being exposed as an imposter.
Intellectual Marginalization: Phenomenon through which women and students of color may have their ideas ignored during teamwork.
Latinx: Latin America, which includes South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, is so named because it’s inhabitants primarily speak Spanish and Portuguese, two languages derived from Latin. Latino is used for males, Latina is used for females, and Latinx can be used for either, for those of non-binary gender, or for mixed groups of both genders.
Metacognition: Awareness and self-reflection about one’s own thinking, learning strategies, and performance.
MGS: Minoritized Groups in STEM. Includes both underrepresented minorities and students with a low generational wealth and income.
Microaggressions: Short, often subtle, statements or actions that consciously or unconsciously disparage others based on their background, personal characteristics, race, ethnicity, or perceived group membership.
Microaffirmations: Occur when the instructor uses positive language to increase inclusion, build relationships, and encourage students.
Mindset: A person’s mindset describes whether they believe intelligence is fixed (i.e. fixed mindset) or malleable (i.e. growth mindset).
Native Americans: Indigenous peoples whose ancestors lived in the Americas prior to European colonization.
Non-transfer student: A student who has done all of their undergraduate education in a single institution.
Multiculturalism: Ideology that acknowledges racial, ethnic, and cultural differences and views them as a strength.
PEERs: Persons excluded because of their ethnicity or race.
POC: People of color. Refers to all people who are not White/Caucasian.
Psychosocial intervention: Activities that interrupt negative recursive behaviors (e.g. feeling like a failure can lead to more failing) in order to improve health and well-being.
Racism: Prejudice and/or discrimination directed against against groups of people with a particular skin color or ethnic background.
Self-efficacy: The belief someone has in their own ability to succeed.
Stress: Feelings of pressure, frustration, and mental discomfort that occur when an individual feels overwhelmed and unable to adequately cope with their current situation.
Social anxiety: The fear of embarrassment in social performance situations, affects about 13% of people.
Social-Psychological Factors: Also known as non-cognitive or affective factors, include interest in science, science identity, science career aspirations, attitudes, beliefs, confidence, belonging, attention, self-discipline, self-esteem, enthusiasm, effort, responsiveness, ethnicity stigma conscious (ESC, a measure of stereotype threat), and anxiety.
Socioeconomic status (SES): Refers to the amount of generational wealth and household income a person possesses.
Stereotype: A widely held belief about a particular group of people.
Stereotype threat: Occurs when students are conscious of stereotypes about their social group and either believe these stereotypes are true, or fear their actions might inadvertently confirm and perpetuate negative stereotypes about their group.
Stigmatization: Public disapproval, shame, and/or unfair treatment due to someone’s status as a member of a particular group. For example, there is a lot of stigmatization against those with mental health issues which can make them feel ashamed and decrease the chances that they will seek medical help for their conditions.
Task Assignment Bias: When students assign tasks to themselves or others it can result in women and students of color being assigned tasks that are less considered valuable or desirable.
Test anxiety: Involves the fear of performing poorly on exams, quizzes, or other assessments, affects about 38.5% of students.
Transfer shock: Performance decline following a transfer from one institution to another. Often accompanied by feelings of being overwhelmed.
Transfer student: A student who transferred from one undergraduate institution into another.
Unlevel playing field: Refers to the unfair or inequitable starting conditions or circumstances when comparing two or more populations.
URM: Underrepresented minority, does not include Asians, women, people with mental or physical disabilities, or anyone from the LGBT community unless they are also an underrepresented racial minority. This label can be applied to all students that fit the description or to an individual student included within that category.
Utility-value: How useful students find a particular topic or exercise to their lives and future career aims.
Vertical Transfer: When a student transfers from a 2-year to a 4-year institution.
Warm calling: Involves asking students to work on answers as a group and then report their group’s answer (or something they heard during the discussion) in order to take the pressure off the individual student.
White/Caucasian: Historically it referred to people with light skin pigmentation of predominantly European ancestry. Racial terms such as these are now considered to be obsolete as they are based on the disproven biological theory of race.
