Using personas to help students explore science identity

Research has shown that interventions that address sense of belonging and science identity can help improve retention and persistence in STEM. As a part of a re-design of our introductory curriculum, we have chosen to explicitly focus on learning goals related to science identity. In this poster, we will showcase the activities we have used to address these learning goals, focusing on a novel use of personas. Personas are imaginary people that are constructed out of well-understood and detailed data about real people. They are typically used by developers to allow them to design for individuals rather than data. In a similar way, students might be able to better engage with ideas about science identity if they are discussing individuals instead of data. By examining student responses to the activities, we will address how and to what extent the use of personas helped to facilitate learning around science identity.