A request from Scott Freeman, Principal Lecturer in Biology at University of Washington...

Dear Members of the Chemical Education Research Community,

I am leading a team that is conducting a meta-analysis of how innovations in undergraduate STEM courses have impacted traditional achievement gaps experienced by students who are 
1) female, 
2) members of underrepresented minorities (African-American, Hispanic, Native American, or Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian), 
3) from low-income backgrounds, and/or 
4) first-in-family to complete college. 
This project is a follow-on to a paper that our group published in PNAS in 2014, showing that for all students in STEM, active learning has large benefits compared to traditional lecturing (http://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/8410.abstract).

Because it is extremely important for us to include as many datasets on this question as possible--published or unpublished, and whether they showed an impact or not--I am inquiring to find out if you have data on whether course innovations you’ve been involved in affected the performance of any or all of the types of students listed above in a negative, neutral, or positive way.

If so, and if you would be willing to contribute these data to the meta-analysis (again, they do not need to be published), please email me at [log in to unmask] and I’ll send you a description of exactly the data we need.

Thank you so much for considering, and for your important work on behalf of student success.

With best wishes,

Scott

Dr. Scott Freeman, Lecturer
Department of Biology, Box 355320
University of Washington
Seattle WA 98115  USA