A Course-Based Teaching Experience for STEM Undergraduates Improves Student Perceptions of Teaching Self-Efficacy and Attitudes Toward Teaching Careers

Abstract

There is a national need to recruit more science teachers. Enhancing pathways to teaching for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors could help to address this need. The Learn By Doing Lab is a course in which STEM undergraduates teach hands-on life science and physical science to local third- through eighth-grade schoolchildren visiting the campus. To measure the impacts of this teaching experience on the undergraduate participants, we administered a version of the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-Preservice survey at the start and end of the course. Significant gains were observed in the students' belief in their personal ability to effectively teach science (self-efficacy). Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative analysis of student reflections revealed that they perceived the Learn By Doing Lab experience to have helped them develop 21st-century competencies, particularly in the areas of collaboration, communication, and adaptability. Finally, the students' overall awareness and positive perception of science teaching careers increased. This indicates that providing a low-barrier course-based teaching experience for STEM undergraduates is a promising strategy to help recruit pre-service teachers, and a step toward alleviating the national STEM teacher shortage.

Full text

CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, 1–9, Spring 2022 21:ar7, 1
ARTICLE
ABSTRACT
There is a national need to recruit more science teachers. Enhancing pathways to teaching
for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors could help to ad-
dress this need. The Learn By Doing Lab is a course in which STEM undergraduates teach
hands-on life science and physical science to local third- through eighth-grade school-
children visiting the campus. To measure the impacts of this teaching experience on the
undergraduate participants, we administered a version of the Science Teaching Ecacy
Belief Instrument-Preservice survey at the start and end of the course. Significant gains
were observed in the students’ belief in their personal ability to eectively teach science
(self-ecacy). Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative analysis of student reflections
revealed that they perceived the Learn By Doing Lab experience to have helped them
develop 21st-century competencies, particularly in the areas of collaboration, communi-
cation, and adaptability. Finally, the students’ overall awareness and positive perception
of science teaching careers increased. This indicates that providing a low-barrier course-
based teaching experience for STEM undergraduates is a promising strategy to help recruit
pre-service teachers, and a step toward alleviating the national STEM teacher shortage.
INTRODUCTION
There is a well-documented national need to recruit highly qualified science, technol-
ogy, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers (Cross, 2017; Hatch, 2018; Garcia
and Weiss, 2019). Several studies support the conclusion that recruitment of STEM
majors into teaching can be positively influenced by classroom experiences involving
direct interaction with K–12 students and the incorporation of STEM content and ped-
agogy into undergraduate course work (Tomanek and Cummings, 2000; Hutchison,
2012), as well as access to programs that raise awareness of careers and opportunities
in STEM education and access to faculty who discuss teaching careers (Hubbard et al.,
2015; Marder et al., 2017). In addition to augmenting STEM teacher recruitment, such
programs also improve science learning outcomes. Undergraduates who taught genet-
ics to middle and high school students through a course-based service-learning pro-
gram showed significant gains in content knowledge in the subjects they taught
(Chrispeels et al., 2014). Similarly, undergraduates leading after-school STEM clubs
reported gains in content knowledge, metacognition, and science communication
skills (Ferrara et al., 2017). Positive learning outcomes are also seen in the K–12 audi-
ence. A survey of 35 Howard Hughes Medical Institute–funded STEM outreach pro-
grams saw increased science content knowledge and increased motivation to study
science in the K–12 students who participated in science outreach (Felix et al., 2004).
We created the Learn By Doing Lab (LBDL) at California Polytechnic State Univer-
sity in San Luis Obispo, CA, to address the need to recruit and support future STEM
Seth Bush,† Ashley Calloway,† Emily Bush,‡ and Ed Himelblau§*
†Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis
Obispo, CA 93407; ‡San Luis Obispo High School, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401; §Department of
Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
A Course-Based Teaching Experience for
STEM Undergraduates Improves Student
Perceptions of Teaching Self-Ecacy and
Attitudes Toward Teaching Careers
Brian Couch, Monitoring Editor
Submitted Jun 2, 2021; Revised Sep 7, 2021;
Accepted Oct 20, 2021
DOI:10.1187/cbe.21-04-0105
Conict of interest statement: Authors S.B. and
E.H. produced the program and curriculum that is
evaluated in this study. To the best of our
knowledge, we have not excluded any similar or
competing programs or curricula from this study.
Our aim is to assess the program and curriculum
we created in as unbiased a way as possible.
*Address correspondence to: Ed Himelblau
(ehimelbl@calpoly.edu).
© 2022 S. Bush et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education
© 2022 The American Society for Cell Biology. This
article is distributed by The American Society for
Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is
available to the public under an Attribution–Non-
commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International Creative
Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0).
“ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell
Biology®” are registered trademarks of The
American Society for Cell Biology.
CBE Life Sci Educ March 1, 2021 21:ar7

21:ar7, 2 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022
S. Bush et al.
teachers by providing a low-barrier first teaching experience
(Figure 1). Our model was inspired by the Hands-On Lab pro-
gram developed at California State University, Chico (Teasdale
et al., 2008; Mintzes et al., 2013). The LBDL serves the under-
graduate student community by providing a low-barrier teach-
ing experience that emphasizes collaboration and provides
approximately 20 hours of teaching experience. The barrier to
participation is low, because the course is open to any student
who has completed introductory science General Education
courses and there is just one teaching event per week that
occurs on campus. The LBDL serves the community by giving
local third- through eighth-grade classes the opportunity to
engage in STEM activities in college laboratory settings. To
date, the LBDL has allowed more than 1000 STEM undergrad-
uates to try teaching and to learn about the teaching profession
while also allowing tens of thousands of children to do hands-on
science activities on campus.
Our operational theory is that by offering undergraduates an
opportunity to learn about teaching—by doing some teach-
ing—we will raise awareness about careers in STEM teaching,
increase self-efficacy, and ultimately increase the number of
undergraduate STEM majors pursuing their teaching creden-
tials. This study was designed to assess the impact participating
in the LBDL has on undergraduates enrolled in the course. In
particular, we have focused on three research questions that
address our operational theory and our primary goal:
RQ1: To what extent does an LBDL teaching experience impact
undergraduates’ perceptions of science teaching and their own
self-efficacy?
RQ2: How do undergraduates perceive the impact of the LBDL
teaching experience on life and work skills?
RQ3: What attributes of the LBDL experience do undergradu-
ates value?
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Teaching Self-Ecacy
For STEM undergraduates who try teaching, persistence in that
career path will be supported if their teaching experience gives
them the sense that they can be effective as teachers. In general,
self-efficacy is a measure of an individual’s confidence in his or
her ability to successfully engage in a complex task (Bandura,
1977). In the context of science, self-efficacious teachers have
confidence in their content knowledge, their ability to scaffold
information appropriate for the student audience, and their
ability to lead a productive discussion or inquiry-based activity.
Teaching self-efficacy is known to be important beyond career
persistence; a strong sense of teaching-self efficacy in pre-ser-
vice teachers is associated with improved student outcomes
(Deehan, 2017). Research involving elementary teachers has
shown that participation in collaborative learning communities
in which teachers regularly engage in peer teaching and model
student-centered teaching methods can foster science self-effi-
cacy (Briggs, 2013; Mintzes et al., 2013). Gains in science
teaching self-efficacy among this group were greatest when
teachers were given authentic opportunities to teach an inqui-
ry-based science lesson to their peers or to observe others
teaching skillfully.
For 30 years, the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instru-
ment-Preservice (STEBI-B) has been used to determine the
extent to which teaching-related programs, particularly educa-
tion methods course work and credentialing programs, develop
a sense of teaching self-efficacy in the pre-service teachers they
serve (Enochs and Riggs, 1990; Bleicher, 2004). STEBI-B has
been validated across hundreds of studies (Deehan, 2017) and
has emerged as a reliable measure of teaching self-efficacy.
21st-Century Competencies
For students at every level and discipline, acquisition of so-called
21st-century competencies such as adaptability, complex com-
munication, nonroutine problem solving, self-management,
and systems thinking is important. Science is seen by many as a
context for fostering development of these competencies, as
many are embedded in the processes that build scientific knowl-
edge (National Research Council [NRC], 2010). It stands to rea-
son that teaching science, particularly in a highly collaborative
environment, would be an excellent way to develop and prac-
tice many 21st-century competencies, particularly those in
FIGURE 1. Inside the Learn By Doing Lab. SIs leading students in
physical science and life science activities in the LBDL. Each year,
more than 1400 local schoolchildren visit the LBDL and about 100
Cal Poly STEM majors enroll to teach hands-on science. (A) Visiting
students explore temperature/volume relationships with balloons
and liquid nitrogen. (B) Strawberry DNA is extracted as part of the
genetics curriculum. (Credit: Chris Leschinsky. Photo release was
granted by all participants.)

CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022 21:ar7, 3
Learn By Doing Lab Study
the domains of adaptability and complex communication and
critical thinking. Life science undergraduates who taught K–8
students in a STEM outreach program showed gains in critical
thinking not observed in their peers who did not participate in
outreach (Nelson et al., 2018). Another model in which stu-
dents of science are given opportunities to teach science is in
peer teaching. Research on peer teaching in pre-health pro-
grams suggests that there are benefits both to the teachers and
to the peers they mentor (Secomb, 2006). Specifically, peer
teachers reported development of “professional skills,” personal
satisfaction (particularly when the student:teacher ratio was
low), and improved content knowledge (Bruno et al., 2016).
METHODS
This study was designed to examine the potential impacts of the
LBDL teaching experience on STEM undergraduates. We applied
a pre/post approach to collect self-reported survey data. Results
were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach with qualita-
tive and quantitative measures (Creswell and Creswell, 2018).
Setting
LBDL is a two-unit, quarter-long (10 week) course at California
Polytechnic State University. Each quarter, undergraduates pri-
marily from STEM majors enroll and local schools register to
participate. The core experience of the LBDL is a teaching event
in which approximately 100 third- through eighth-grade stu-
dents visit the campus and participate in hour-long, hands-on
laboratory activities led by the enrolled Cal Poly students (Sup-
plemental Figure 1). The visiting students participate in two of
these hour-long activities, one of which is typically focused on
life science and another on physical science or engineering
practices (representative activities and examples of LBDL
materials are included in the Supplemental Material).
Typically, 20–30 undergraduate student instructors (SIs) are
enrolled in one lab section of the LBDL. This group is split into
two teaching cohorts who will collaborate throughout the quar-
ter (for a timeline of the course, see Figure 2). The experience
of the SIs begins with 2 weeks of preparation and practice.
During this time, the SIs are introduced to the core activities
FIGURE 2. Timeline of the LBDL. The LBDL takes place during a 10-week quarter. Twenty
to 30 enrolled students are initially sorted into two teaching cohorts (A team, yellow; B
team, green), each of which will teach dierent content. The first 2 weeks are dedicated to
preparation and planning with a “dry run” of the teaching activities in week 2 in which SIs
present to their peers and receive feedback. In weeks 3–5, approximately 100 local
schoolchildren visit, and the SIs teach the activities. The two cohorts of SIs switch content
in week 6 and use that week to prepare to teach a new set of activities. Weeks 7–10
resemble weeks 3–5, with SIs teaching local schoolchildren.
they will teach and are given time to work with their peers to
plan how the hour-long teaching event will proceed. For the
next 3 weeks, school groups visit, and the SIs teach, reflect on,
and refine the activities. In the sixth week, the two cohorts of
SIs switch activities (i.e., the SIs who have taught life science
for the past 3 weeks switch to teaching physical science and
vice versa). No school groups visit during this transition week,
providing time for the SI cohorts to share their insights on the
teaching they have completed and to prepare to teach new
activities. The 10-week quarter concludes with 4 weeks of
school visits during which the cycle of teaching, reflecting, and
refining continues. The SIs are also enrolled in a weekly, hour-
long seminar that occurs separately from the teaching events.
Early in the quarter, the seminar is used for planning and
reflecting; as students become more confident in their lessons,
the seminars are used to more formally introduce foundational
teaching concepts and high-impact STEM teaching strategies.
For the faculty instructors (FIs) who oversee the program, the
main responsibilities are to organize the group and to provide
support and feedback to the SIs as they begin teaching. The FIs
identify the teaching subjects before the start of the course and
assemble the necessary laboratory materials. FIs divide SIs into
two cohorts so they are somewhat balanced in terms of num-
bers, gender identity, and degree (i.e., we avoid having all the
biology students together in one teaching cohort). During the 2
weeks of preparation, the FIs guide the lesson development in a
way that gives the SI cohorts a sense of ownership over the
material. Even though the FIs have identified the teaching sub-
ject and the core activities, most decisions about scaffolding, tim-
ing, and talking points are made collaboratively by the SI cohort.
Instrument
The original STEBI-B is a 30-item survey designed to measure
the science teaching efficacy of pre-service elementary school
teachers (Enochs and Riggs, 1990). Our survey instrument used
the modified 23-item survey STEB-B validated by Bleicher in
2004 (Supplemental Material). Each item is rated on a five-
point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly
agree.” Responses are used to measure two subscales: Science
Teaching Outcome Expectancy (STOE),
which broadly measures attitudes about
how science teaching impacts young learn-
ers; and Personal Science Teaching Efficacy
(PSTE), which measures the participants’
belief about their own ability to effectively
teach science. The STEBI-B is frequently
used in science education and science
teaching research. The STOE and the PSTE
have Cronbach’s alpha reliability coeffi-
cients of 0.798 and 0.90, respectively (Dee-
han, 2017). Two surveys were created that
included the STEBI-B items. One survey
was administered before the first teaching
event (the pre survey) and included ques-
tions about gender and ethnicity, family
college history, and face-validated open-
and closed-ended questions about career
aspirations. The other survey was adminis-
tered after the final teaching event of the
quarter (the post survey) and included the

21:ar7, 4 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022
S. Bush et al.
same questions about attitudes toward teaching careers as well
as open- and closed-ended reflective questions about students’
experiences teaching in the LBDL. Pre- and post-survey items
included in addition to STEBI-B items were tested for face valid-
ity by the research team.
Participants and Design
One hundred students were enrolled in the LBDL in 2019 (49 in
the Winter quarter and 51 in the Spring quarter). During the
initial class meeting of each term, enrolled students were pro-
vided with an informed consent document approved by the
University’s Institutional Review Board (Cal Poly IRB Project
no. 2019-006) and a summary description of the purpose of the
study and were invited to participate in this study. Participation
was entirely voluntary and had no impact on students’ grades in
the class. Participants were given a 1-week window, before any
interaction with visiting children, to complete the online pre
survey. At the end of the term, following the last group of visit-
ing children, participants were asked to complete the online
post survey.
Of the 100 students invited to participate, 68 students com-
pleted the pre survey and 54 students completed the post sur-
vey. Matched pre–post data were collected for 41 unique stu-
dents. Analysis of STEBI-B data was limited to the 41 individuals
for whom unique, complete pre–post data were available. In
total, 81 of 100 invited students participated in the study, com-
pleting at least one survey, reflecting 81% participation. Partic-
ipants were not required to respond to any demographic ques-
tions and, as such, n values will be reported for each question.
Demographically, the LBDL participants reflected the cam-
pus demographics (Figure 3) but with higher representation by
women (48.41% campus-wide, 59.7% in the College of Science
and Mathematics, and 72.1% in the LBDL) and by Hispanic/
Latino students (17.49% campus-wide, 13.9% in the College of
Science and Mathematics, and 22.4% in the LBDL). The major-
ity of participants were from biological science degree pro-
grams, but 14 different majors were represented among the
participants. The majority of participants were from the College
of Science and Mathematics (COSAM), but there were partici-
pants from five different colleges within the university (Figure
3B). The majority of participants had “senior standing” (51 of
66), meaning they had completed 135 or more units of the 180
required for graduation (Figure 3C). One in four participants
(17 of 68) identified as a first-generation college student (Figure
3D), while 22.4% of participants (15 of 67) identified as His-
panic or Latinx (Figure 3E). The majority of participants identi-
fied as White (51 of 68), with seven participants identifying
with two or more races (Figure 3F).
Data on campus-wide demographics were obtained from
PolyView Report: https://content-calpoly-edu.s3.amazonaws.
com/ir/1/images/Final_Poly%20View.pdf. Data on COSAM
demographics were obtained from Cal Poly Institutional
Research: https://ir.calpoly.edu/2019-factbook.
Statistical Analysis
Matched-pair t tests were used to analyze pre–post changes
to STEBI-B subscores. A p value of 0.05 or less was used to
justify rejecting the null hypothesis that pre–post subscores
FIGURE 3. Demographics of the 2019 LBDL cohort. (A) Self-identified gender of LBDL students. (B) Major degree of LBDL students.
Degrees represented by only one student are inset. (C) Class standing (level) of LBDL students. (D) First-generation college students (i.e.,
the first in their families to attend college) among LBDL students. (E) Ethnicity of LBDL students. Represents response to the prompt,
“Hispanic/Latino; Not Hispanic/Latino.” (F) Self-identified race of LBDL students.

CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022 21:ar7, 5
Learn By Doing Lab Study
RESULTS
RQ1: To What Extent Does an LBDL
Teaching Experience Impact Under-
graduates’ Perceptions of Science
Teaching and Their Own Self-Ecacy?
Attitudes of SIs enrolled in the LBDL were
surveyed at the beginning and the end of
the quarter using the STEBI-B. For each
student, PSTE was determined to measure
changes in individuals’ belief in their own,
personal ability to effectively teach science
(Figure 4). A significant increase in PSTE
was observed in the cohort (n = 41, t =
4.99, p < 0.0001, Cohen’s d = 0.78, stan-
dardized Cronbach’s alpha coefficient =
0.56), indicating that the LBDL experience
increased science teaching self-efficacy
among these undergraduate students. In
fact, the effect observed (Cohen’s d = 0.78)
is on par with gains in teaching self-effi-
cacy associated with a science teaching
methods course intended for teaching cre-
dential candidates (Deehan, 2017). A sig-
nificant increase was also observed in the
STOE, which measures the students’ view of how instruction
relates to student learning and performance (n = 41, t = 2.35, p
= 0.024, Cohen’s d = 0.37, standardized Cronbach’s alpha coef-
ficient = 0.76). For both PSTE and STOE, significant normalized
gains were observed (PSTE: test of means, t = 5.18, p < 0.0001;
and STOE: test of means, t = 1.71, p = 0.048).
To determine whether the LBDL experience positively
impacts undergraduates’ interest in pursuing a teaching career,
two closed-ended prompts were included in the pre–post LBDL
survey (Figure 5). Agreement with the prompts “I could imag-
ine becoming a teacher” and “I plan to become a teacher” both
became significantly more positive in the post-survey responses
compared with the pre-survey responses (McNemar-Bowker
test [3-by-3], χ2 = 9.67, p = 0.021).
RQ2: How Do Undergraduates Perceive the Impact of the
LBDL Teaching Experience on Life and Work Skills?
In 2012, the NRC shared a description of core 21st-century
competencies that impact students’ future success at work and
in other life areas (NRC, 2012). These competencies were cate-
gorized in three general domains: cognitive competencies,
intrapersonal competencies, and interpersonal competencies.
Cognitive competencies focus on the ability to think and reason.
Intrapersonal competencies focus on the ability to self-manage.
Interpersonal competencies focus on the ability to express and
interpret information. These 21st-century competencies
emerged as categories during coding of SI responses to the
prompt “What skills do you feel you developed or used in the
Learn By Doing Lab that might help you in ANY career?”
Overall, the categories and subcategories identified in stu-
dent responses are well aligned with the 21st-century compe-
tencies described by the NRC (Figure 6). All three domains were
represented to varying degrees in the SI responses. About 83%
of the responders mentioned that they developed a skill that
was an interpersonal competency. Within that domain, 75%
said they gained teamwork and collaboration skills, including
were unchanged. Using t values, effect size was estimated by
calculating Cohen’s d. A means test was used to analyze
potential normalized gains in STEBI-B subscores. A p-value
of 0.05 or less was used to justify rejecting the null hypothe-
sis that there were no gains. A McNemar-Bowker’s test was
used to compare matched and paired proportions in three
categories, looking at individuals’ initial and final plans to
pursue a teaching career. Probability values less than 0.05
were used to reject the null hypothesis, in this case, that
plans to pursue a teaching career did not change. A statisti-
cal model was developed to detect interaction effects based
on reported gender, ethnicity, and first-generation status.
Within our sample, we were unable to detect potential inter-
actions between these subgroups.
Qualitative Analysis
We analyzed open-ended survey responses using a grounded
theory approach to detect emergent themes (Glaser and
Strauss, 1967). For each open-ended question, a minimum of
two researchers examined survey responses, independently
identified emergent themes, and developed a proposed coding
scheme. Researchers then discussed their proposed coding
schemes to develop an initial consensus strategy for each sur-
vey response. Each researcher then independently coded
responses using this strategy. After independently coding
responses, researchers compared their results by roughly esti-
mating their interrater reliability (IRR), dividing the number
of scoring agreements by the total number of scoring decisions
(Fink, 2010). When this estimate of IRR was lower than 90%,
researchers engaged in a discussion to refine their coding
strategy. They then used this updated strategy to inde-
pendently recode responses. This iterative process was
repeated and nearly resulted in consensus coding, with IRR
greater than 95% for each open-ended survey response.
Researchers then identified illustrative responses that high-
light emergent themes.
FIGURE 4. Perceptions of science teaching and self-ecacy. (A) Box-plot comparison of
PSTE and STOE scores for LBDL SIs sampled at the beginning of the quarter (pre, yellow
boxes) and at the end (post, green boxes) of LBDL enrollment. (B) Normalized gains for
PSTE And STOE scores. Error bars represent ±1 SE around the mean.

21:ar7, 6 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022
S. Bush et al.
I feel I gained leadership and more
interpersonal skills. I learned how to
effectively communicate with children
and how to the gain attention of an
entire group. I learned how to adapt on
a whim and good organization skills.
Many SIs identified development of
intrapersonal competencies. About 56% of
SIs said they developed intellectual open-
ness. As a representative example, one SI
shared:
Different types of explanations can be
understood by different people, no ques-
tion is a bad question, everyone is just
trying to learn, and being able to adapt
to different situations.
About 25% of students said they had a
positive core self-evaluation. For example:
I’ve gained more confidence in what I know and what I can
explain to others, which has helped my self-confidence as a
whole. I feel that I am not as timid when I am teaching and
explaining things to people.
About 38% of respondents described developing skills in the
domain of cognitive competencies, including cognitive pro-
cesses and strategies. For example:
How to be adaptable, how to properly engage people, how to
teach by showing rather than telling, as well as cooperating
with others to achieve a goal.
Additionally, SI cited the LBDL for helping them improve
their work ethic, creativity (especially as it relates to science
communication), and science content knowledge. Collectively,
the SIs appreciated that experiences in the LBDL could posi-
tively impact future academic, professional, and social
endeavors.
RQ3: What Attributes of the LBDL Experience Do
Undergraduates Value?
When SIs were asked if they would recommend that a friend
take the LBDL course, about 95% indicated that they would.
Those SIs answering affirmatively were asked in an open-ended
prompt to explain their recommendations. We view these
responses as providing insights into the aspects of the LBDL that
SIs themselves value, and these perspectives will likely be valu-
able to others seeking to implement similar courses on their
campuses. The most common responses fell into four categories
representing values that were intrinsic (to themselves) or
extrinsic (to the visiting schoolchildren; Figure 7).
SIs cite personal growth and enjoyment as the main reason
for recommending the LBDL. For example, one SI wrote:
It is a fun class and you make great friends with your teaching
groups … [the class] allowed me to re-discover why I chose a
STEM major.
effective science communication. For example, one respondent
wrote:
The importance of effective communication is amplified when
working with kids. Especially younger kids, who are often
more explicit than adults at conveying when they don’t under-
stand, they helped me remember the value in articulating and
stopping to check for comprehension.
About 47% said that they improved their leadership skills.
One representative response was:
FIGURE 6. SI perception of competencies developed through the
LBDL. SI responses to the open-ended prompt “What skills do you
feel you developed or used in the LBDL that might help you in ANY
career?” were analyzed for emergent themes. Classification of skills
presented by the NRC were used. Competencies fall into three
domains: interpersonal competencies, intrapersonal competen-
cies, and cognitive competencies. Within each domain, there are
two or three clusters each representing a group of related
competencies; these are listed along the y-axis. The percent of
respondents identifying a competency within each cluster was
determined.
FIGURE 5. Perceptions about becoming a teacher. (A) comparisons of SI responses
concerning their relationship to the teaching profession sampled at the beginning (pre)
and end (post) of LBDL enrollment. Question prompts are shown to the left of the chart.
(B) Shifts in individual respondents’ plans to become a teacher. Each point plots the pre–
post relationship of a single student in response to the prompt “I plan to become a
teacher.”

CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022 21:ar7, 7
Learn By Doing Lab Study
Another SI indicated:
This class has been an outlet of mine for relieving stress and
for sparking creativity.
These two quotes and others not recorded here suggest to us
that, for many SIs, the LBDL helped them appreciate their disci-
pline and, in a few cases, energized their engagement with their
degree subject in ways that their upper-division course work did
not.
Other comments indicated to us that the SIs were aware that
the LBDL helped them develop important skills that would ben-
efit both their academic and professional lives. For example,
one SI said:
LBDL taught me valuable interpersonal information to which
my other classes didn’t expose me. I felt more capable as a
result of the responsibility we were given and that feeling
translated to my ability to learn in my other classes.
SIs also appreciated the potential impact the LBDL had on
the visiting schoolchildren:
This class was a joy to be in and I loved every minute. Not only
was it a good learning experience, but I genuinely think that I
affected some of the kids’ lives.
About 20% of SIs specifically cited some aspects of course
mechanics as enhancing the value of the LBDL. The built-in
preparation and reflection times, the on-campus teaching
events, and once-per-week evening seminar were all mentioned
in SI responses. These course elements all represent conscious
choices made during the development of the LBDL class (see
Supplemental Material).
Overall, the emerging picture from these responses was that
the SIs valued the LBDL experience, with most citing multiple
elements that contributed to this view.
DISCUSSION
The LBDL was started in 2009 out of a need to provide a
low-barrier teaching experience for STEM undergraduates. This
experience, it was hoped, would lead to an increased awareness
of teaching career pathways and improve the perception of
those pathways among the participating students. By analyzing
pre–post survey data, we have examined the impact of LBDL
participation framed by three research questions.
RQ1: To What Extent Does an LBDL Teaching Experience
Impact Undergraduates’ Perceptions of Science Teaching
and Their Own Self-Ecacy?
Students who participate in the LBDL emerge with greater
interest in becoming science teachers and with increased feel-
ings of self-efficacy in science teaching. Gains in teaching
self-efficacy are similar in magnitude to those observed in more
formal science teaching methods courses. These are promising
results. Given the well-documented need to recruit STEM teach-
ers in the United States (Cross, 2017; Hatch, 2018; Garcia and
Weiss, 2019), implementing a course-based early teaching
experience like the LBDL could be part of a recruiting strategy
to address this challenge.
RQ2: How Do Undergraduates Perceive the Impact of the
LBDL Teaching Experience on Life and Work Skills?
SIs see the LBDL as helping them develop competencies that
align closely to the NRC 21st-century competencies. In particu-
lar, competencies related to teamwork and collaboration, lead-
ership, and intellectual openness are most cultivated by experi-
ence in the LBDL. The SIs appreciate that these competencies,
developed through a science teaching experience, are applica-
ble throughout their academic and professional lives. This
insight could be helpful to faculty considering implementing a
similar course, because recruiting need not be limited to stu-
dents considering teaching. The course can be advertised as a
way to develop competencies that are highly valued in 21st-cen-
tury workspaces and can help students better prepare to enter
the workforce (NRC, 2010).
RQ3: What Attributes of the LBDL Experience Do
Undergraduates Value?
SIs identify both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for valuing the
LBDL experience. Intrinsically, many SIs see LBDL as providing
a fun way to engage with their academic content distinct from
their upper-division degree course work. Extrinsically, SIs value
that the LBDL provides science content for local schoolchildren.
Course mechanics, particularly the low barrier to participation
in the LBDL, are also valued by the students. These results pro-
vide insights for faculty developing programs with goals similar
to those of the LBDL.
In addition to the evidence presented here that students see
the LBDL as improving perception of teaching careers, teaching
self-efficacy, and 21st-century skill acquisition, our experience
as faculty observing hundreds of students teaching in the LBDL
bears out the myriad of positive gains among the SIs. Students
we have known to be passive learners in their regular course
work have emerged as leaders in the LBDL. Students with sig-
nificant anxiety regarding public speaking have grown more
comfortable speaking in front of a group. Students who had
never considered teaching and enrolled in the LBDL because it
“sounded like fun” have become teachers (and some have even
brought their classes to Cal Poly to take part in the LBDL). There
are also examples of students who were considering teaching
FIGURE 7. Reasons for recommending the LBDL to a friend. More
than 90% of respondents indicated that they would recommend
registering for the LBDL to a friend. Those replying positively were
asked in an open-ended prompt to provide justification. The four
most common responses are summarized in the figure.

21:ar7, 8 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022
S. Bush et al.
and who, after completing LBDL, decided teaching was not a
viable career path for them. For this group, LBDL provided the
opportunity to explore the teaching profession in a low-stakes
manner that provided useful career guidance.
We provide evidence (Figure 3) that women and Latinx stu-
dents enroll in the LBDL at a rate higher than the overall demo-
graphics of the university would predict. While this study only
analyzes enrollment over two 10-week quarters, our experience
has shown that this enrollment pattern is typical for the LBDL
across many years. Anecdotally, we can add that LBDL seems to
be a magnet for first-generation college students and LGBTQIA+
students. This suggests to us that LBDL has come to be viewed
as a welcoming space among a diverse group of students.
Benefits of the LBDL to the Campus and Local Community
Beyond providing a low-barrier teaching experience for under-
graduates, the LBDL provides other benefits to the campus and
community. For the campus, the LBDL provides an opportunity
for faculty to develop content that could, potentially, be related
to their research and provide significant broader impacts to
research proposals. A core group of faculty from the biology and
chemistry departments oversees the LBDL; however, faculty
from other STEM departments are encouraged to participate,
either as FIs or as content developers. The administrative sys-
tems needed to run the LBDL (i.e., student recruitment and reg-
istration, school group registration, logistics for the day of visit,
etc.) are in place. Therefore, the LBDL is a low-barrier opportu-
nity for faculty to develop science outreach activities and have
them reach hundreds of local schoolchildren. To date, faculty
from biology, chemistry, computer science, earth science, engi-
neering, and physics have all developed teaching modules used
in the LBDL (for descriptions of some LBDL curricular modules
and examples of materials distributed to visitors, see the Sup-
plemental Material). A benefit to the LBDL of having multiple
content developers is that if students enroll in the LBDL for a
second (or third or fourth!) time they are likely to be teaching
new content that prevents the experience from feeling
redundant.
Another benefit of the LBDL is that it provides what we
believe to be a positive, high-impact field trip for children from
school districts surrounding the university. In a 10-week quarter,
the LBDL hosts 1400–2100 third- to eighth-grade students, typ-
ically in excess of 3500 students annually. The majority of stu-
dent visitors are from high-needs districts, with a high propor-
tion of emergent bilinguals. For many visiting students, this is
the first time they have had an opportunity to visit a university
campus. The LBDL is routinely praised by teachers as a highlight
of the academic year. Teachers appreciate the science content,
but also cite the additional benefits of bringing their students to
the college campus laboratories where they interact directly
with a diverse group of college students who are ambassadors
for science. Studies have suggested long-term positive educa-
tional outcomes of having primary and secondary students visit
college campuses, and these outcomes are especially strong for
groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education
(Gullatt and Jan, 2003; Hirst and Waltz, 2011; Swanson et al.,
2019).
The LBDL integrates with professional development for
third- to eighth-grade teachers in our region. Our COSAM has
a 20-year history of supporting STEM-focused professional
development for in-service teachers, most recently through
the Center for Engineering, Science and Math Education
(CESAME; https://cesame.calpoly.edu) and the Central Coast
Science Project, a regional hub of the California Subject Matter
program (https://csmp.ucop.edu). Many teachers who bring
their students to the LBDL are also a part of our regional pro-
fessional development community. Visits are designed to help
reinforce professional development experiences and connect
teachers to a durable lending library of hands-on STEM teach-
ing materials.
CONCLUSIONS
The findings of this study indicate that a course-based science
teaching experience positively affects STEM undergraduates’
perceptions of teaching careers and increases perceptions of
their own science teaching self-efficacy. Student participants
value the role of the LBDL experience in developing 21st-cen-
tury competencies. Students derive both intrinsic and extrinsic
value from the class. Together, the findings suggest that a course
with a low barrier for entry in which students develop and
teach science content could be an effective part of a program to
recruit STEM students to teaching. (Guidance for implementing
such a course can be found in Supplemental Material.) We
believe that the course also provides important experiences to
local schoolchildren and their teachers. Measuring the impacts
of the LBDL on these populations will be a next step required to
understand the full benefits of providing course-based teaching
experience for STEM undergraduates.
This study focuses on the self-reported experiences of the
undergraduate students enrolled in the LBDL. We have informal
evidence that the LBDL has a positive impact on enrollment in
the credentialing program. While the decision to enter a creden-
tialing program is influenced by many factors and experiences,
it would be interesting to collect correlational data for an initial
look at the how strong a factor the LBDL was for former SIs who
obtained a credential. Anecdotal feedback from teachers indi-
cates that visiting the LBDL is positive for their students in
terms of generating interest in STEM. It is important to deter-
mine the degree to which a visit to the LBDL is a formative
experience for primary and secondary students in terms of
motivation in STEM. Also of interest would be to investigate
how the visiting schools leverage the LBDL content and curric-
ulum after the visit.
LIMITATIONS
This study was limited by the number of participants for whom
pre- and post-survey responses were available. The study was
not reproduced over multiple terms with multiple FIs. Data
were exclusively self-reported. To address these limitations, we
could repeat the measure with alternative FIs and use what we
have learned to develop an interview protocol and observa-
tional rubrics to dive more deeply into the extent to which LBDL
participation is a determining factor in the choice to become a
STEM teaching professional.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We acknowledge the California Polytechnic State University,
COSAM, especially Dean Emeritus Phil Bailey, for supporting
and sustaining the Learn By Doing Lab as well as the Depart-
ments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and

CBE—Life Sciences Education • 21:ar7, Spring 2022 21:ar7, 9
Learn By Doing Lab Study
Physics and the College of Engineering. We thank the California
State University Mathematics and Science Teacher Initiative for
supporting the Learn By Doing Lab. A.C. was supported by the
William and Linda Frost Fund. We are grateful to the Center of
Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education, including
former director Susan Elrod and current director Chance Hoell-
warth, for providing support to LBDL activities and to Jenny
Cruz, Tiffany Kwapnoski, Jenny Bush, and Kaylene Wakeman
for their roles in organizing the LBDL. We are grateful to faculty
and staff who have brought their creativity and energy to the
LBDL: Tom Bensky, Jen Carroll, John Chen, Kathy Chen, Jenny
Cruz, Lynn Moody, Grace Neff, John Oliver, Kelly Polakek, Brian
Rebar, Sean Ryan, and David Zigler, and others who have con-
tributed ideas and taught in the LBDL as FIs. We thank Bev
Marcum for sharing her blueprint for a course-based teaching
experience and for inviting us to CSU Chico to observe the
Hands-On Lab.
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