Content area
Full Text
Professional identity development of undergraduate STEM majors is associated with their retention, engagement, and career success. Student professional identity development is posited to occur when students engage in professional roles. Learning assistants (peer learning facilitators) assume roles of authority, leadership, and content experts, which we posited would foster a more mastery perspective of learning (focused on concepts over facts) and internalize perceptions of themselves as professionals. Our research on a group of STEM education learning assistants revealed over time the students tended to shift toward a mastery perspective of learning and used internal cues to communicate their professional identity.
INTRODUCTION
The development from novice to expert is a long term process with concentrated effort and practice (Ericsson, 1998). Becoming an expert involves acquiring deep content knowledge, developing efficiency in skill application, and understanding of the norms of a domain (Ericsson, 2006). Developing expertise is particularly challenging in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) due to the complexity and integrated nature of STEM knowledge, relationships and applications of domain knowledge, and the increasing interconnection of STEM concepts and norms (National Academy of Engineering [Ν??] & National Research Council [NRC], 2014). Solving problems within STEM disciplines and the more integrated STEM problems associated with food, energy, clean water, and access to healthcare requires the application of knowledge and skills from multiple STEM domains. We argue that the confidence and efficacy required to effectively engage at the professional level in solving STEM problems is correlated with the extent to which individuals identify themselves and are identified by others as STEM professionals. Therefore, we assert that STEM students' development of their professional identity is critical to their success as STEM professionals.
We posit that STEM student engagement as peer learning facilitators could catalyze the development of their STEM professional identity due to experiential learning interactions that are aligned with those of a professional; such as holding a high level of content knowledge, reliance on a range of communication skills, adaptability to a range of individual needs, development and implementation of student-focused learning conditions, and interactions and collaborations with faculty as peers. We created and distributed a survey to determine if engagement as a learning assistant (i.e. peer learning facilitator) impacted student professional identity development. Of particular interest...