Welcome to the Roses Growing from Concrete video highlighting our work from the National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Project entitled, What Black Doctoral Students in STEM Want & What Their Faculty are Giving: How the Differences Impact Students’ Mental Health and Career Trajectory Decisions. We are early in the project (Year 1 of 3) and have chosen to focus sharing results from our participatory action research method pilot conducted in the form of a photovoice study. Specifically, we asked Black doctoral students to represent their experiences in navigating STEM environments through collected and selected photographs. Our Co-Constructors (name given to research study participants working with us to generate this new knowledge and meaning) took photographs in their environment and submitted them labeled with descriptive captions to our research team. Following submission of the pictures, we held focus group conversations with multiple co-constructors at a time to discuss the submitted photographs and to reflect on the deeper meanings and representations associated with them. We found the rich discussions to reveal layered significance to the pictures, which was not explicitly stated in the captions. We are now reflecting on our pilot and invite you to share your perspectives, critiques, feedback, questions, and considerations. Below are a few questions to stimulate thoughts related to our video. We’d love to have you engage with us!

1) What is your most important takeaway from the video?

2) How might participatory action research methods be leveraged to advance transformative changes in toxic STEM cultures?

3) What do you see as a potential impact of this work and who is responsible for acting upon what we learn?

Hi, Dr. Coley and Team, thank you for this wonderful submission and more importantly for your collaborative work with students. I was moved by the narrative, the images, and the text and find myself reflecting on post-qualitative approaches to engaging with "truths" in ways that inspire feeling, emotion, and ultimately action. There seems to be embedded in your methods and approach an inherent platform for communicating the purpose of this work and the action you and your team hope to inspire.

I also find myself wondering about the relationships between research method/design, communication, and impact in action research. What are some ways someone less familiar with action research reframe or restructure their approach to research if they want to highlight those types of relationships? I suspect there are multiple answers to this question, so I pose it to anyone interested in sharing their perspective.

Hi, Dr. Dou, 

Thank you so much for your comment. We felt the use of photovoice could be a powerful way of disseminating our findings because using photos or another artifact communicates more than a regular interview would. In photovoice activity basically, students are making meaning of their doctoral journey and at the same time interacting with their peers. They are becoming part of a community through their shared activity and conversation. So, I would say the research question plays the most important role-RQs decide how you can integrate postmodern ways of thinking-as you pointed out that there is not a single truth in qualitative research. Also, the research question decides the methods. For example, in one of our studies with community college students we used photographs to build rapport with the participants, it was not a regular photo elicitation. We used photographs at the beginning of the interview so that they share more later. Hence, a lot of activities can be included in a study to empower the participants at the same time those activities will capture the essence of their experiences. 

An important take-away for me from your video - that poetry and visual-language based data communicate in meaningful and nuanced ways that dependence on only verbal-descriptive language cannot... I look forward to hearing your reflections on the pilot - and the potential for using the approach - either at my own institution and/or perhaps via a cohort/network of STEM organizations...?  Do you have plans for a publication?

This project offers an excellent and unique way to capture the meaning behind the experiences of Black doctoral students in STEM. I can imagine the rich discussions in the focus group among co-constructors and thinking about the challenge you have to capture and share the power of the research and the findings, while preserving the very personal elements of the stories they reveal. Working for equity systems change means looking past the obvious rhetoric, and this project offers a special way to capture new understanding that can feed improved policies and actions that support success for the next generation of STEM students.  I will be interested in learning more and following your  findings to inform what we are doing in our work.  

Thank you for preparing this visual representation of your important work.  This work has the potential to make a positive contribute to the literature related to STEM recruitment and retention of Black  graduate students.

I am curious about the data collection  and analysis procedures:

How many students were included in the study?

What are the demographics of the participants (age, gender and ethnicity (Black is a broad racial category)?

How long did the participate in the study? How many photos were taken and submitted?

How was the data analyzed? 

What about focus group data used?  How was the data used and does the video include data from the focus groups?

Beautiful narrative, Dr. Coley! May we change the culture and systems so students can thrive in environments that support them and cultivate their well-being. 🟢

Dr. Coley and team, I really appreciated the tone of this video presentation. The Pac reference provided a perfect illustration of how students underserved communities are able to thrive in STEM disciplines. The project's emphasis of mental health is worth noting as it is tempting for faculty to focus on the products of doctoral students without giving attention to lived realities that might impact students' abilities to thrive in their programs. I loved the methodology and analysis. I am interested to learn more about how these findings can be translated into recommended practices for STEM faculty seeking to mentor Black (and possibly other racially marginalized) doctoral students.

I think you would be interested in our project which has developed an Equity Systems Change Compass. It is a tool designed to help groups engage in difficult conversations about the root causes of inequity and move from discussions to actions that change the status quo. We would be happy to explore ways that we might collaborate. 

Vivian,

Thank you for your comment. Sounds like a great resource for our project too- we are also trying different techniques so that we can have the "difficult" conversation around race. Do you have any published document that we can possibly refer to? Also, please feel free to send an email so that we can possibly collaborate. dmaitra1@asu.edu/Brooke.Coley@asu.edu

Our publication and Equity Compass tool will be available in a couple weeks and we'll alert you.  Info about the publication is available on our video discussion.  You can also check out stelar.edc.org.  Hope we can find some ways to collaborate.  

Very powerful video!  We all have a lot to learn from what you learn. Thank you!

Janet,

We just launched the data collection for -collaborative Proposal: What Black Doctoral Students in STEM Want & What Their Faculty are Giving: How the Differences Impact Students’ Mental Health and Career Trajectory Decisions-project. Now, we are having conversation with Black doctoral students, later we will talk to the students who made an early departure from the program. For our next phase of the study, we will interview the faculty members. We will know more about the gap in terms of advising and mentoring once we interview the faculty.