Coming Out in Class: Challenges and Benefits of Active Learning in a Biology Classroom for LGBTQIA Students

INTRODUCTION

Individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA1; see Table 1 for a set of definitions relevant to this paper) make up an estimated 3.6% of the overall U.S. population (Gates and Newport, 2015). As a group, LGBTQIA individuals have been thought to be historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but few empirical studies have been done (Patridge et al. 2014; Cech, 2015). We also know very little about the undergraduate STEM experience for individuals who identify along the LGBTQIA spectrum, making it difficult to pinpoint why LGBTQIA individuals are at risk for leaving STEM. Institutions rarely collect this demographic information from students, and there are only a small number of studies that have explored this population in the context of STEM education (Cech and Waidzunas, 2011).

LGBTQIA identity is a unique social identity for a number of reasons. First, it is often an invisible identity, meaning that people may need to “come out” to let others know that they identify that way (de Monteflores and Schultz, 1978; Reynolds and Hanjorgiris, 2000; Quinn, 2006). We live in a heteronormative and gender-normative society in which sexual orientation is typically assumed straight until told otherwise, and gender is usually assumed to align with biological sex unless otherwise indicated (Chrobot-Mason et al., 2001; Kitzinger, 2005; Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009; Braun and Clarke, 2009). Second, awareness and saliency of LGBTQIA identity changes over time, and for some individuals, there is a degree of fluidity and rejection associated with their identities (Kinnish et al., 2005; Morgan, 2013). Lesbian, gay, and bisexual identity development often occurs between ages 12 and 25, but each LGBTQIA individual has a unique timeline for becoming aware of and internally accepting his/her/their identity (de Monteflores and Schultz, 1978; Rust, 1993; Calzo et al., 2011). Finally, LGBTQIA is a social identity that is still stigmatized to some degree and can be a source of tension, particularly for individuals and their families with certain beliefs or religious identities (Newman and Muzzonigro, 1993; D’Augelli et al., 1998; Etengoff and Daiute, 2014). As such, many members of the LGBTQIA community may feel as though they need to conceal their identities, at least in certain situations, and sometimes the decision to come out is associated with concern for losing straight privilege (Goffman, 1963; Chrobot-Mason et al., 2001; Quinn, 2006; Orlov and Allen, 2014).

Undergraduate classrooms are particularly relevant places to examine the experiences of LGBTQIA individuals, because many individuals begin exploring their LGBTQIA identities during college (Vaccaro, 2006). To our knowledge, there are no studies of the experience of LGBTQIA students specifically in undergraduate classrooms. The limited research on the experiences of LGBTQIA students in college more generally indicates that they have been subjected to overt homophobia, subtle discrimination, and feelings of isolation on some college campuses (Herek, 1993; Rhoads, 1994; Love, 1997, 1998; Rankin, 2003; McKinney, 2005). These experiences can negatively affect the mental health of LGBTQIA students; for example, lesbian and bisexual college women are more likely to experience mental health issues such as anxiety, anger, depressive symptoms, self-injury, and suicidal attempts than their straight counterparts (Kerr et al., 2013). Although much has changed recently as far as public opinion and campus climate regarding this social identity (Dugan and Yurman, 2011), including the national legalization of marriage equality in 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges), there is still evidence that LGBTQIA individuals face discrimination and double standards compared with their straight counterparts (Human Rights Campaign, 2015; American Physical Society [APS], 2016; Mishel, 2016). For instance, LGBTQIA instructors perceive that they could lose their professional authority if they come out to students (Russ et al., 2002). A 2014 survey of workplace climate, including faculty members, found that 70% of participants said that talking about gender identity or sexual orientation in the workplace was “unprofessional” (Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 2014), and the term “heteroprofessionalism” has been coined to describe how gay men are discouraged from expressing an identity that is seen as outside normal (Mizzi, 2013). The 2016 LGBT Climate in Physics report concluded that isolation was a common theme for many LGBT physicists (APS, 2016). Even though coming out at work and working for an organization that was presumed to be more supportive of the LGBTQIA community was related to higher job satisfaction and lower job anxiety (Griffith and Hebl, 2002), there is still a prevalent view that it is irrelevant to share LGBTQIA identities in the workplace, especially the scientific workplace (Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009), and many scientists are not out to most of their colleagues (APS, 2016).

STEM disciplines are historically dominated by white, straight, cis-gender men (National Science Foundation/National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2015), and these disciplines in particular have been prone to a lack of tolerance and/or acceptance for the LGBTQIA community (Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009; Cech and Waidzunas, 2011; Cech, 2015; Patridge et al., 2014; APS, 2016). Unlike non-STEM disciplines, STEM disciplines are typically assumed to be objective and devoid of influence of social identities, which may be why STEM disciplines are generally less accepting of individuals sharing their LGBTQIA identities (Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009). LGBTQIA employees in STEM fields report more negative experiences due to their identities than LGBTQIA employees in non-STEM fields (Cech, 2015). Further, scientists who are out to their colleagues report pressure from their STEM colleagues to “tone down their ‘gayness’” (Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009, p. 90; APS, 2016). In the college context, LGBTQIA engineering students have to “navigate a chilly and heteronormative engineering climate by passing as heterosexual,” and issues of sexual orientation are usually considered irrelevant or inappropriate in the engineering environment (Cech and Waidzunas, 2011). Thus, STEM classrooms may be particularly challenging places for students who identify as LGBTQIA.

As we shift our STEM classrooms away from traditional lecturing toward active learning (Freeman et al., 2014), the classroom climate changes. In traditional lecture classes, students could come to class and invisibly listen to a lecture. In contrast, in active-learning classes, students are asked and often required to actively engage with other students and the instructor (Eddy et al., 2014; Eddy, Brownell, et al., 2015a). While active-learning approaches have been shown to decrease achievement gaps among students of different social identities (Eddy and Hogan, 2014), the interaction among students in active-learning classrooms can promote greater awareness of who other students are and may exacerbate feelings of isolation for students who have a minority social identity. Students who are in a minority status in the classroom may try to remain invisible or seek out opportunities to work with other students who they perceive to be similar. In a recent study based in an introductory biology class, historically underrepresented racial minority students were shown to be more likely to prefer the role of listener in small-group work compared with white students, who preferred the role of leader (Eddy, Brownell, et al., 2015a). Another recent study in an active-learning introductory biology course showed that, over the duration of a semester, black students sought out other black students to work with, even if that meant moving outside the requested seating in the lecture hall (Freeman et al., in press, 2017). These studies support the idea that, in contrast to traditional lecturing, active learning changes the dynamics of the classroom so that who the instructors and students are has a larger impact on the student experience, particularly for students who are in the minority. Given the small percentage of LGBTQIA students and the likely lower perceived percentage of LGBTQIA students, since most students are not out to the whole classroom, we hypothesize that LGBTQIA students hold perceptions that they are in a minority status in most classrooms.

In this study, we set out to examine the experiences of LGBTQIA students in undergraduate biology classrooms, with specific interest in how active learning could influence that experience. In this paper, we use Tinto’s theory of college student departure (1975), which focuses on social integration in an active-learning classroom, as a lens to explore the unique experiences of LGBTQIA students. Tinto proposed that social integration, defined as student involvement in the social system of college (e.g., interactions with peers and faculty), is a key predictor of student persistence in college (Tinto, 1975, 1997). He proposed that participating in collaborative-learning groups in the classroom context, which was called active learning in the model by Braxton and colleagues (2000), enables students to develop a small community of supportive peers. Participating in active-learning classroom activities may help students develop peer relationships that help them to integrate into the larger college community and, ultimately, may lead to increased persistence in college.

While Tinto recognized the potential for student social connections to emerge from collaborative-learning activities, he did not explore the direct impact of students’ social identities on the development of peer relationships stemming from these activities in the college classroom (Tinto, 1997). As we transition our classrooms to be student centered, with more opportunities for students to engage with instructors and with one another, we suspect that students’ social identities will become more apparent and important as students form and strengthen social connections within the classroom. However, we must be mindful that, while active learning may provide opportunities for social inclusion in the classroom, some students may feel more isolated if they perceive that their identities are not accepted or acknowledged. As such, in this study, we used an adapted Tinto’s theory of student departure that includes social identities as a key factor in the development of social integration through active learning (Figure 1). Using this lens, we explore the experiences of LGBTQIA individuals in undergraduate biology classrooms that adopt active-learning teaching strategies. We hypothesize that their identities will influence how active learning leads to social integration.

METHODS

Institutional and Classroom Context for Recruitment

We recruited students from one upper-level undergraduate biology course at a large public research-intensive institution in the U.S. Southwest. This course was cotaught by a male and a female instructor in an active-learning way that relied on student group work in nearly every class session. Students were asked to complete assignments outside of class based on the readings to help prepare for class. Class sessions of ∼180 students were held two times per week in a large lecture hall with traditional seating. Roughly 70% of the lectures were spent on student-centered activities, which almost always involved group work. Individual instructor approaches to active learning varied but often included clicker questions with peer discussion, students completing worksheets in groups, and students comparing concept maps with one another. Students also met for one class session per week (called recitation) in a studio classroom for approximately 45–60 students with tables for six students each. Approximately 90% of the recitation sessions consisted of student-centered activities, which always were structured around group work. In both the lecture and the recitation, students were usually able to choose whom they sat next to and worked with, although the instructional team typically prompted students who were sitting or working alone to join a group.

Recruitment

An instructor of the course sent out an email to the whole class that invited students who identify as a member of the LGBTQIA community to participate in an interview about LGBTQIA student experiences in undergraduate biology courses in hopes of creating a more inclusive biology community. Students were informed that they would receive a gift card in return for participating.

Of the 181 students enrolled in the course, seven students responded with an interest to participate in the interviews. This 3.9% of the class aligns with the national estimate of 3.6% of the population identifying as part of the LGBTQIA community (Gates and Newport, 2015), making it likely that we recruited most students from this class who identify as LGBTQIA. While seven students is a small number, it is important to keep in mind that most studies on LGBTQIA students have small sample sizes, given how difficult it can be to access this population. One of the strengths of our recruitment is that we had a diversity of LGBTQIA identities represented in our sample, including transgender and genderqueer students who are rarely studied. Further, because we sampled from a single class that used active learning and group work extensively, we were able to document both shared and unique experiences of LGBTQIA individuals in response to the same active-learning environment. Finally, given the general paucity of information on the experience of LGBTQIA students in undergraduate biology classes, this exploratory qualitative study is an important first step in documenting their experiences, and the opinions of these students are sufficient to begin to explore these questions.

Data Collection

We conducted two sets of semistructured interviews, all of which were conducted by one interviewer (K.M.C.). Each interview was audio-recorded, transcribed, and then coded for themes and subthemes by two reviewers (K.M.C. and S.E.B.) using a combination of content analysis and grounded theory (Glaser et al., 1968). The semistructured interview format allowed the interviewer to explore interesting topics that came up in conversation with different students. Therefore, a topic explored in depth in an interview with one student may not come up in an interview with a different student. For this reason, the topics that make up a subtheme were not necessarily explored with each student. The three major themes presented in the Results section were supported by data from interviews with all seven students unless otherwise noted. Student quotes were minimally edited for clarity and member checked (Patton, 1990). Data were anonymized, and pseudonyms have been given to the students.

The first set of interview questions was intended to explore the students’ LGBTQIA identities and how, if at all, their identities impacted their experiences and relationships in biology classes and the broader biology community (interview questions can be found in the Supplemental Material). We conducted this interview in the middle of the term. We suspected that students had not previously been asked about how their LGBTQIA identities might impact their experience in a classroom, so we decided to give students time to articulate their thoughts before the interview began. Immediately before the interview, we gave them a handout with specific priming questions (see the Supplemental Material). We gave them about 5 min to write down their thoughts, and students were told that they could use the piece of paper as a reference during the interview. Students expressed that having time to think through the questions just before the interview was helpful, because most had not been asked to discuss their identities in the context of the biology community. Some students referenced the handout when answering interview questions, and all students elaborated on their responses in the interview itself. We used grounded theory to identify interesting themes that emerged from the initial interviews that we wanted to explore further. Differences in student experiences between traditional lecture and active-learning biology classes emerged from the data and informed a second set of interview questions.

In this second set of interviews, we used an adapted Tinto’s theory of college student departure (1975, 1997) as a lens to explore how, if at all, students’ LGBTQIA identities impacted their active-learning experiences and subsequent social ties to other students in the classroom. The second set of interviews was conducted with the intention of exploring participant experiences as LGBTQIA students in active-learning and traditional lecture biology courses. Questions were created to align with this theory (interview questions can be found in the Supplemental Material). The second set of interviews was conducted within a month after the active-learning course had ended to ensure that students felt they could talk freely about their experiences in the course without having to worry that it would impact their grade, but before they would forget details about their experiences.

This study was done in accordance with an approved IRB.

Qualitative Approach

We predicted that the ways in which LGBTQIA identities influence student experiences within an active-learning classroom would be unique to each student’s individual identity and the context of a particular setting. Therefore, we chose to explore our research questions using qualitative methodology, which studies people in the context of their situations (Taylor et al., 2015). Recruiting and interviewing students from the same active-learning biology class allowed us to minimize the variability of different settings and focus on how different students experience the same phenomena (Morse et al., 2002). This is particularly important, because there is not a single, agreed-upon definition of active learning (Freeman et al., 2014; Eddy et al., 2015b), and we were interested in exploring how students experience specific elements of an active-learning classroom (e.g., group work in this particular active-learning class). Limiting the population of this study to LGBTQIA students enrolled in the same upper-division biology course maximized our chances of saturating the data by identifying recurring themes (Morse et al., 2002). This exploratory interview study is a first step in identifying key themes that we suspect may be shared by LGBTQIA students in other active-learning classrooms, which would be of interest to explore in future studies.

RESULTS

LGBTQIA Participants

All of our interview participants had unique identities, backgrounds, and experiences. While we identified some interesting themes that emerged from the data, we cannot make any generalizations about whether these perceptions or experiences are true of the larger LGBTQIA population. We want to emphasize that these students are not intended to be representative members of that particular identity along the LGBTQIA spectrum. Individuals have different levels of saliency of the identity for themselves but also have different levels of being out to friends, family, and acquaintances. The identity itself, how important that identity is to the individual, and the degree to which the individual is out to others can all change over time. Thus, in this paper, we present the opinions and responses of seven students who identify in specific ways along the LGBTQIA spectrum at this particular point in time.

Further, even if two student responses represent a similar theme, it is highly likely that each student has a nuanced experience in the classroom as it relates not only to an LGBTQIA identity but also to other social identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status). To capture these personalized experiences, we often included quotes from different students throughout the paper to illustrate findings. These findings are meant to be exploratory and thought-provoking, but future work needs to be done on this understudied population to delve into the intersectionality of students’ other social identities.

Language is particularly important for members of the LGBTQIA community, including the label that individuals use to describe themselves. For example, a female who is interested in a same-gender partner may prefer the term “lesbian” or “gay” or “queer,” and it may be important for her sense of identity that her preferred label is used. As much as possible, we tried to describe participants’ LGBTQIA identities both in and outside the classroom using their own language. We summarize these data in Table 2.

Throughout the paper, we refer to these students as members of the LGBTQIA community. Although there are differences in the experience of individuals of a specific identity (e.g., gay vs. bisexual vs. asexual) that we lose by aggregating them into one group, there is some evidence that the experiences among gay, lesbian, and bisexual students are more similar than they are different in college environments (Dugan and Yurman, 2011). However, gender identity is fundamentally different from sexual identity, so it is likely that transgender students have distinct experiences, and there are limited data on how the experiences of transgender students compare with those of gay students. What is similar among all of these students is that they are managing their identities in a classroom culture that is currently heteronormative and gender normative and historically homophobic and heterosexist (Reynolds and Hanjorgiris, 2000).

Theme 1: LGBTQIA Students Do Not Perceive Overt Discrimination, but They Do Not Perceive the Biology Classroom Community Broadly as a Welcoming or Accepting Space for Their Identities

We probed broadly about whether students who identified along the LGBTQIA spectrum felt as though they were comfortable in undergraduate biology classrooms. Overall, we found that LGBTQIA students do not perceive the biology classroom to be accepting of their identities. We present several subthemes that emerged below.

LGBTQIA Students Feel That It Is No Longer Socially Acceptable to Be Overtly Homophobic, However, Students Still Experience Subtle Forms of Homophobia in the Biology Classroom

All participants stated that they felt as though it was not socially acceptable to be openly homophobic, although some of them mentioned that it was still acceptable to be transphobic:

The two students who identified as trans-masculine/queer and transgender indicated a higher level of concern than the other students for overt discrimination in the classroom setting. This may be due to having a more visible identity and/or it may be due to less general acceptance of transgender people in society (Lombardi et al., 2002; Lombardi, 2009):

Despite not perceiving overt homophobia, all but one of these LGBTQIA students indicated that, at some level, they perceived the undergraduate biology classroom to not always be a welcoming or accepting environment for their identities, although this was often perceived as being subtle and/or embedded in other beliefs:

Sharing One’s LGBTQIA Identity with the Biology Community Is Perceived to Be Inappropriate

Several students discussed how sharing one’s LGBTQIA identity was inappropriate information to bring up in a science community, which echoes findings from other studies focused on STEM environments (Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009; Cech and Waidzunas, 2011). Margaret had a specific example of when someone told her that it was inappropriate to share her identity as someone who is bisexual. On a biology class discussion board, a student posted a comment that was negative toward transgender people, so she felt the need to come out about her own identity on the discussion board:

In another example of how students did not perceive undergraduate biology classes to be accepting of their identities, Josephine reflected concern over whether she could share her LGBTQIA identity with an instructor. This internal struggle was reflected in her worry about whether coming out to an instructor would be considered unprofessional, even though she recognized this as a double standard that was not true for straight students:

Josephine highlights this paradox between wanting to talk to people about how to navigate her identity in a professional setting and not feeling as though she can share her identity with faculty members. She feels as though this identity is “too personal” to share, even though this identity is an important component of who she is. Further, this student mentioned that she perceived “professional consequences” associated with being gay, indicating that she thinks being gay comes at a cost for her career in the broader biology community. She went on to elaborate on her worry of the potential backlash of being gay as a biology instructor:

Most of the students expressed some level of internal conflict about whether or not to express their identities in the biology classroom, although many of the students had difficulty describing their internal conflicts or explaining why those conflicts exist (McCarn and Fassinger, 1996). Interestingly, they illustrated concern for how other students would react to them coming out but could not seem to connect that concern back to why they were hesitant about coming out. Even though they all expressed that being a member of the LGBTQIA community is an important part of their identities, some worried about their identities not being taken seriously by others or that they could lose social and academic status or be negatively judged for identifying as LGBTQIA:

Another student, Josephine, expressed concern that, if she came out, it would be perceived by others as making a big deal about her sexuality or her having a specific agenda related to her sexuality, even though she just thought of it as something personal:

Students Report That They Would Feel More Comfortable in an Active-Learning Classroom Where They Knew the Instructor Identified as LGTBQIA, but They Worried about the Negative Impact of Coming Out on the Instructor or Other Students

We asked students whether they would feel more comfortable in an active-learning classroom where the instructor openly identified as a member of the LGBTQIA community. Six of the seven students said they would feel significantly more comfortable in a classroom where they knew that an instructor identified as LGBTQIA. All students mentioned that knowing an instructor was a member of the LGBTQIA community would positively affect them, because they would know they have something in common with the instructor. This seemed to be particularly important for the students who identified as queer and asexual, because they felt as though it was uncommon for them to encounter others with similar identities, especially instructors:

Despite the majority of students agreeing that they would feel more comfortable in a class if they knew the instructor identified as part of the LGBTQIA community, these LGBTQIA students still appeared to be apprehensive about instructors coming out to the entire class. They were concerned about how an instructor coming out would affect other students and how it might negatively impact the instructor. However, they recognized a double standard that straight professors talk about their spouses and children freely, and they never perceive a problem with straight professors talking about their families. This is evidence that these students perceive biology classrooms broadly to be unaccepting of LGBTQIA identities, even for the person with the most authority in the classroom:

However, Sonja, who identifies as lesbian, has a different perspective than the other students. She did not demonstrate any conscious worry about how welcoming the instructor or other students in the biology class would be toward her identity. She indicated that she did not like it when people questioned her identity or doubted that she was a lesbian and acknowledged that discussing LGBTQIA issues could make people upset, but that it did not impact how she felt about her own identity, nor did she feel it affected her experience in the classroom. At least outwardly in the interview, she did not exhibit signs of worry about what others thought of her identity. This is demonstrated in an example she gave of when she came out to another student in class:

However, this is in contrast to the other students, whose statements indicated they broadly did not perceive the classroom to be a welcoming place for individuals, either for students or instructors, to express their LGBTQIA identities.

Theme 2: Active-Learning Classrooms Increase Interactions among Students as Well as between Students and Instructors, Increasing the Relevance of LGBTQIA Social Identities in the Classroom

All seven students indicated in some sense that they were more aware of their LGBTQIA identities in active-learning classrooms than traditional lecture classrooms. They perceived that, in traditional lecture classrooms, students do not need to interact with other students and instructors, so individual students’ social identities are less relevant. Several of the students indicated that they could be invisible in traditional lecture classrooms. However, in active-learning classrooms, students are requested, if not required, to work with other students, which seems to heighten students’ awareness of their own identities:

Sonja indicated that this active-learning class was the first college class in which she came out to the people around her. Although she had difficulty articulating why she came out to the people who sat next to her, she indicated that it had something to do with the interaction among students in an active-learning class:

Increased Interaction with Other Students in an Active-Learning Classroom Increases the Opportunity for Students to Be Identified Due to Their LGBTQIA Identities

Owing to the increased number of interactions among students in active learning, these students have to juggle learning biology content and deciding whether or not to either come out or to assert their LGBTQIA identities. Discussions about biology content in small groups often extend to more personal discussions in active-learning classrooms, which may lead to questions that put LGBTQIA students in the tenuous position of being forced to come out about their sexual orientation, change the topic, or lie:

The students who believed that others perceive them as straight expressed that there is often an assumption that all students are straight, which means they have to come out in order to have their identities expressed. LGBTQIA students have to make the decision to share this information with people in a class, and sometimes there is not a good opportunity to talk about it, even if they want to share it:

Florence, who identifies as asexual, indicated that she felt more of a need for her to be out to active-learning classrooms than traditional lectures, because of the higher degree of interaction with other students:

Allan, who identifies as gay, indicated that, for him, the advantage of being out in an active-learning class is that it could enhance the quality of the active-learning exercise, so he felt some motivation to come out in order to have a better academic experience:

Increased Interaction with Other Students and Instructors in an Active-Learning Classroom Increases the Opportunity for Transgender or Queer Students to Be Misidentified

Students who wanted to pass as their preferred gender felt as though there was greater pressure in active-learning classrooms to come out, because there were more opportunities for misidentification:

However, Alex indicated that, during group work in both active-learning lectures and recitation sessions, his group members consistently used incorrect pronouns, misgendering him, and he had to consciously decide whether to correct them and, further, reflect on why he had not been able to change his voice or physical appearance enough to pass as male:

Although misidentification of a student’s identity can happen in either a traditional lecture class or an active-learning class, there is often also increased interaction between the instructor and students in an active-learning classroom. While at times this may provide students with additional opportunities to explain their identities to an instructor, it also increases the possibility of accidental misidentification. Specifically, Alex had a problem with instructors who misidentified him when they called on students in whole-class discussions. For example, Alex had an instructor who repeatedly would use the wrong pronouns but then would catch the mistake and correct it in front of the whole class. Not only did this bring attention to the student’s identity, but it made the student feel uncomfortable about being misidentified in front of the class:

While this student was trying to be patient with the instructor and saw this as an opportunity to help teach people about being transgender, the instructor misgendering him caused this student to become more aware of his transitioning status during class. Alex explained that, in traditional lecture classes, he did not usually participate in whole-class discussions, but because he knew the students and instructors in active-learning classes, he was more likely to speak out in class discussions. However, he also indicated that, at the same time, he was self-conscious of participating in front of the whole class, because he was concerned about how others would perceive him with respect to his gender:

Student Concern Regarding Gender Identity May Increase Cognitive Load in Active-Learning Classrooms

Alex’s concern for how other students may perceive him also implies that he is spending class time thinking about his gender identity, increasing his cognitive load (Quinn, 2006). The effort required in maintaining an identity at the same time as learning biology means that these students are having to juggle multiple thoughts in their working memory (Sweller, 1988). Students who do not worry about how students perceive their gender do not have to occupy mental capacity in navigating these issues and instead can focus more on the academic content. Moreover, this misidentification and heightened cognitive load is less likely to happen in a class in which there are fewer interactions between the instructor and students, as well as among students. For example, Mar explains that, in active-learning courses with significant student discussion, they are especially aware of how other students perceive them, which prevents them from focusing on the material in class:

Active-learning classrooms are typically regarded to have more frequent assignments than traditional lecture classrooms. Whereas a traditional classroom may only have exams, most active-learning classrooms have weekly, if not daily, assignments. Often, students have to complete assignments outside class to demonstrate that they did the required reading. Additionally, some active-learning classrooms, including the one that we recruited from, frequently use worksheets in the class on which students put their names. For students who are in the early stages of transitioning and/or have not yet legally changed their name, this means that, almost on a daily basis, they have to use a name they do not identify with in order to use email and course-management sites (e.g., Blackboard) and to complete assignments. Consequently, these students are not fully able to express their gender identities in the classroom when they are required to write their legal name:

Mar, who identities as queer, transitioned names during that semester, so they began the class as “Kelcie” and then halfway through the term, they identified as “Mar.” This student indicated that, at the end of the term, they felt no connection at all with their former name. The instructors were aware of this student’s transition, so they informed the student that they could use the preferred name on assignments. This seemed to have a positive impact on the student. Mar stated that if they had been required to use the old name, then that could have been a reason not to come to class. Mar’s comment highlights this internal conflict that LGBTQIA students may experience between needing to follow the rules of school to be successful in the course and being comfortable with their identities, which for this student was dependent on using a name that is representative of their identity:

Active-Learning Classrooms May Provide Additional Opportunities for Students to Come Out and Find Similar Others

Although active learning presents a number of challenges for LGBTQIA students in terms of a greater emphasis on their identities, there are also some positive opportunities associated with active learning compared with traditional lectures. For example, active-learning classrooms may provide LGBTQIA students with a larger number of opportunities to come out and find people who share similar identities. In the class from which these students were recruited, all of the students were asked at the beginning of the term to write their preferred names on name tents. They were asked to bring the name tents and display them during each class. Alex decided to write his preferred pronouns on the name tent to help people around him know which pronouns he preferred. This was how the instructors of the course became aware of him being transgender, so they started using his preferred pronouns. It eliminated the need for a student-initiated conversation about gender with his instructors:

The increased interaction with other students in the active-learning class also gave LGBTQIA students the opportunity to teach them more about their identities and for LGBTQIA students to meet other LGBTQIA students:

In fact, it has been shown that individuals who have more contact with LGBTQIA individuals in college tend to have more positive attitudes in general toward members of the LGBTQIA community (Liang and Alimo, 2005). Thus, active-learning classrooms in which students feel comfortable enough to come out could have positive implications for the LGBTQIA community that extend beyond the classroom.

Theme 3: Group Work in Active-Learning Classrooms Presents Situations for LGBTQIA Students to Be Uncomfortable

How comfortable students feel is influenced by their own social identities and the social identities of others around them, particularly in their small groups (Eddy, Brownell, et al., 2015a). We found that nearly all of our students were mindful about who they sat next to, because they wanted to work with someone who would be accepting of their identities.

LGBTQIA Students Tend to Be Mindful about Who They Collaborate with during Group Work, Because They Prefer to Work with Others Who Are Accepting of Their Identities

Students indicated that, at times, they used past experiences with students who have specific social identities as a metric for how accepting members of those social identities would be toward them now. In short, they stereotyped people based on some characteristic that they associated with not being accepting of their LGBTQIA identities. Students admitted that they felt somewhat uncomfortable profiling people’s acceptance based on their membership in another social identity, but that it was a way to try to quickly find people who would be more likely to accept their identities. Specifically, some students mentioned that they avoided anyone who looked as though they were members of a fraternity or sorority, because they perceived that those students would be less accepting of their LGBTQIA identities. They often used membership in a fraternity or sorority as a way to categorize individuals who were hypermasculine or hyperfeminine, characteristics of individuals who have been shown to harbor more intolerance for LGBTQIA individuals (Caballero, 2013; Worthen, 2014):

Students also said that they used political or religious cues as indicators for whether someone would be accepting of their LGBTQIA identities. Again, they stated that they knew that many religious people and conservative people were accepting of their identities, but they felt that, given the costs associated with not being accepted for their LGBTQIA identities, they wanted to play it safe. As a result, they usually tried to avoid students they knew were religious or politically conservative based on their past experiences with those students. They also tended to not sit next to students who wore visible crosses or religious shirts. These students’ assumptions that individuals who are religious or politically conservative are less likely to be accepting of LGBTQIA individuals are supported by the literature (Nagoshi et al., 2008; Hooghe et al. 2010; Holland et al., 2013):

Florence, who identifies as asexual, would try to avoid sitting next to anyone who seemed romantically interested in her:

Coming into the class and finding a seat is not simple for these LGBTQIA students. Their responses indicate the need to navigate social, political, and religious boundaries to find people who would be most accepting of their identities. All of the students were very careful to indicate that they knew people in all of these demographic groups who were accepting of their identities and that they did not mean to classify any demographic group as anti-LGBTQIA. However, due to a combination of their own personal experiences and broader societal influences, they perceived that these demographic groups displayed a higher degree of intolerance toward them, and they wanted to avoid this possible lack of acceptance for their LGBTQIA identities.

Contrary to the other students, Sonja expressed that she did not think about whether other students would be accepting of her identity when choosing a seat in class or interacting with her classmates:

Assigned Groups and Changing Groups Present Additional Challenges for LGBTQIA Students

In active-learning classrooms, assigned groups and changing groups during the term presented challenges for many of these LGBTQIA students. They had to “test the waters” with new group members to get a sense for their acceptance and, again, sometimes used religious and political identities as proxies for being accepting of LGBTQIA students. Students who felt as though they had a choice in whether to come out tried to establish whether a person would be accepting of their identities before making the decision to come out to that person:

Several students indicated that they particularly sought out other students whose physical appearance did not match gender norms, because they thought these people would be more accepting of their LGBTQIA identities:

However, it was not just as simple as finding other LGBTQIA students to sit with, because even within the LGBTQIA community, students may not necessarily understand or respect other LGBTQIA identities. Florence, who identifies as asexual, ended up working with Alex, who identifies as transgender, and it became apparent that both of them perceived that the other did not completely understand their experience, even though they both were members of the LGBTQIA community:

Assigned groups or changing groups during the term led to potential discomfort for most of the LGBTQIA students because of the potential for group members to not be accepting of their identities and the need to reestablish whether or not to come out. However, it seemed to be most uncomfortable for the queer and transgender students, who felt as though they must establish their identities, since pronouns would likely be used during group interactions. Because both of these students recently transitioned, they were often misidentified as female and had to correct group members for using the wrong pronoun or name. A new group meant having to spend time and energy to come out to the new group and to reestablish comfort in being able to correct other students’ misidentification of their gender. In fact, the queer and the trans student both felt very uncomfortable when they came to class late, because that meant that they usually had to sit in new groups:

In this active-learning class, the instructors usually gave students the choice of whom to sit with in groups, although the instructors asked students to sit with a new group in the beginning of the term in order to try to increase participation among students. In another instance, one instructor offhandedly told students at the beginning of one of the classes that they were going to change groups in the weekly recitation. The instructor ended up deciding not to change groups; however, just the perceived threat that they were going to change groups was sufficient for Mar, who identifies as queer, to choose not to come to recitation for a few weeks. Further, this student highlighted that the interactions among students in an active-learning classroom made it difficult to want to come to an active-learning class on days when they did not feel like talking to other people:

DISCUSSION

Despite the national push to transition STEM classrooms to be more student centered (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011), there is relatively little research on how students perceive active-learning environments. However, as we work to create a more diverse and inclusive biology community, it is important to consider who students are, and how their backgrounds and identities influence their experiences within reformed classrooms (Tanner and Allen, 2007; Tanner, 2013; Eddy et al., 2014; Eddy, Brownell, et al., 2015a). This study is to our knowledge the first to explore the experiences of LGBTQIA students in active-learning undergraduate biology courses. This is an exploratory study that captures the unique and nuanced experiences and opinions of seven students who identify along the LGBTQIA spectrum. It is important to acknowledge that the experiences and opinions of these individuals are not intended to be generalizations of that identity (e.g., asexual or gay) or the larger LGBTQIA community. However, from these seven students, common themes from their interviews give insights into how inclusive we are making our biology classrooms and, particularly, what we may need to be mindful of when we are converting our classrooms into active-learning spaces.

Moving Past Stigmas toward Greater Understanding and Respect for LGBTQIA Identities

Through these interviews, students expressed that they had concern over coming out to other students and whether it was appropriate to share their LGBTQIA identities. Overall, the student comments reflect an underlying fear of rejection for an identity that they perceive is still stigmatized in the context of a biology classroom.

Instructors can begin to make their classrooms more inclusive and welcoming to this population of students by learning about the different identities within the community. Further, instructors may want to improve their own cultural competence regarding LGBTQIA students, which would be the ability of people who identify within a straight or cis-gender culture to understand, communicate, and provide effective services to people who identify within the LGBTQIA culture (Tanner and Allen, 2007). Improving instructor cultural competence broadly within active-learning biology courses has been highlighted as a critical element of moving toward a more diverse and inclusive scientific community (Tanner and Allen, 2007). To help educate both students and instructors, many college and universities provide resources such as LGBTQIA centers, and some universities use Safe Zone training (Safe Zone Project, 2015) as a way to broaden awareness and inclusive practices. There are online resources, such as the “Get Educated” section of the online University of California, Davis, LGBTQIA Resource Center (2015), which provides tips, training, and a glossary for those looking to learn more about the LGBTQIA community. There is a language important for understanding the experiences of LGBTQIA students that may be unfamiliar to some instructors (e.g., “passing,” “heteronormative,” “gender fluid”), which may be useful for instructors to understand in order to better communicate with these students and move toward inclusive active-learning classrooms.

Although the root of a subset of these identities is based on sexual behavior, and this may be the reason why students in this study indicated they felt it was unprofessional to share, the LGBTQIA identity is much broader in scope. Many members of the LGBTQIA community have moved away from using terms such as “homosexual” or “sexual orientation,” because these terms reduce this identity down to a set of sexual behaviors (Fassinger, 1991; McAllan and Ditillo, 1994), when in fact the identity extends much further than sexuality (e.g., sharing a common ideology, fighting for legal and social acceptance, attending pride events, having a family). In fact, prior studies have demonstrated student discomfort with overtly sexual terms to describe their identities (Lopez and Chims, 2010). Further, LGBTQIA identities encompass gender identity (e.g., transgender), so these components of LGBTQIA identities are not based at all on same-gender sexual attraction. The emphasis on the sexual part of the identity is likely part of the reason why it is perceived by students as too personal to share, so it is important to be mindful of the multiple facets of these identities and the changing landscape of language surrounding this identity.

Instructors can make it explicit that it is acceptable to share this identity in the classroom by collecting information from students at the beginning of the term about their preferred pronouns or names (e.g., having students write this information on index cards) or administering an online survey in which students can fill out demographic information, which includes gender and LGBTQIA status. However, instructors should be aware that, given some of the negative stigma associated with these identities, students may choose not to disclose. Any of these collection methods should be done voluntarily, and students need to have the option of skipping questions and writing in their own responses with their own preferred labels.

One possible way to help LGBTQIA students feel as though they can have that identity and be part of the biology classroom community is to give students examples of LGBTQIA scientists (Tanner and Allen, 2007; Gomillion and Giuliano, 2011; LGBT+ Physicists, 2013; National Organization for Gay and Lesbian Scientist and Technical Professionals, 2016). If instructors identify as part of the LGBTQIA community, they may want to consider the positive impacts that their coming out could have on LGBTQIA students in their classes (Mintz and Rothblum, 2013). Prior research has indicated that interpersonal contact with members of the LGBTQIA community can lead to diminished heterosexist attitudes (Herek and Glunt, 1993; Herek, 1994; Liang and Alimo, 2005), and specifically, when instructors come out to their classes, student attitudes toward LGBTQIA people generally became more positive (Waldo and Kemp, 2012).

How to Maximize the Positives of Active Learning and Minimize the Potential for Discomfort

These students indicated that active learning could lead to them being more comfortable in the class, because there are greater opportunities to share their identities and meet others who identify along the LGBTQIA spectrum. However, what became apparent from their responses is that how active learning is implemented is important for their overall comfort in the class.

These students indicated that being able to choose where to sit in the classroom and who to work with was very important. In short, they wanted to work with people who would be accepting of their identities. This implies that they likely wanted to avoid people who may make comments that could offend them or others in the community but, further, that they wanted the possibility of feeling comfortable enough to come out to their groups. Concealing one’s identity has been shown to strain social relationships (Ullrich et al., 2003), so it is likely that these students could have better active-learning experiences if they are out to their groups. One student, Allan, indicated that he perceived that he engages in higher-quality active learning when he is close friends with the people he is working with and that coming out is needed to become close friends. However, whether coming out more broadly has an impact on student learning would need to be further explored with a larger population of LGBTQIA students who have or have not come out to their groups in an active-learning classroom.

These findings, while based only on the experiences of seven students, suggest that assigning groups can raise concerns for LGBTQIA students and that allowing students to choose who they want to sit with may alleviate these concerns. The extra cognitive load of needing to establish whether group members might be accepting of one’s LGBTQIA identity, debating whether or not to come out, and then going through the process of coming out means that frequently switching up groups during the term may lead to significantly more stress on LGBTQIA students that could detract from their learning. While relatively little is known about improving student comfort during group work in biology active-learning classrooms, our findings are supported by other studies that have reported that college students who have choice in who they work with report more positive group-work experiences than those who do not (Mahenthiran and Rouse, 2000; Hilton and Phillips, 2010). Furthermore, helping students feel more comfortable by allowing them to choose who to work with aligns with a recent study conducted in an active-learning biology classroom that showed women were more comfortable working in a group with their friends (Eddy, Brownell, et al., 2015a).

If instructors feel strongly about assigning groups for active-learning activities, then student perceptions from this study suggest that instructors may want to consider keeping groups consistent for the term. Admittedly, these were only seven students, but six of them indicated that they had higher cognitive load when they were faced with working with a new group of people. Further, based on the experiences of Mar, who described how there were certain days when they emotionally did not want to engage with anyone in part due to their gender dysphoria, instructors might consider giving students the leeway to work individually and not press students to work with a partner.

There is emerging evidence that suggests that whole-class discussions in active-learning classrooms may be more stressful for students of different identities. For example, in an active-learning classroom, women report more anxiety in speaking out in whole-class discussions compared with men (Eddy, Brownell, et al., 2015a). Whole-class discussions in which instructors are calling on specific students may also be more stressful for transgender students because of the increased risk of public misidentification. However, if the instructor knows that the student is transitioning and can use the preferred gender and name of that student, it can be positive for that student to hear the preferred pronoun or name used in front of everyone. Once the instructors of this class knew that these two students were transitioning, they were able to call the students by their preferred names and use their preferred pronouns. They knew that Alex was transitioning, because he wrote “he/him/his” on his name tent. They knew that Mar was transitioning, because Mar wrote an email to one of the teaching assistants and signed it “Mar, formerly Kelcie.” While both of these were subtle ways for the students to come out, members of the instructional team picked up on it and changed the pronouns they used for the students, which made the students feel like their identities were accepted in the classroom:

For instructors who are unsure of how to navigate these situations, it is important for them to try not to assume anything of students (e.g., assume that a student is straight or assume that a student is transgender) and to be attentive to subtle cues from students. Most importantly, if instructors can create an environment that is perceived as inclusive, then students will likely be more comfortable sharing this information. In turn, instructors may need to be flexible in their instructional practices (e.g., changing the name in the grade book) to help students feel comfortable in their active-learning classrooms.

Modifying Tinto’s Theory of College Student Departure: From a Linear Relationship between Active Learning and Social Integration to a Reciprocal Relationship between Active Learning and Social Integration

Tinto’s theory posited that collaborative-learning activities in the classroom (e.g., active learning) leads to social integration, which can be linked to positive impacts on student retention (Tinto, 1997; Braxton et al., 2000; Severiens and Schmidt, 2009). We used this theory to explore the impact of social identities, specifically LGBTQIA identities, on student social integration in the context of active learning. In this study, we find that these students perceive their LGBTQIA identities to affect their social integration, unfortunately often in negative ways. If extrapolated, this could mean that the lower social integration could lead to decreased LGBTQIA student persistence in college.

However, we propose a modification to this linear relationship between active learning and social integration. Our findings suggest that the relationship between active learning and social integration is actually reciprocal: active learning can lead to more social integration, but higher levels of social integration could also lead to higher engagement in and potential benefit from active learning (Figure 2).

For students who develop higher social integration in the classroom, the higher social integration likely extends to other college settings (e.g., clubs or future classes), which can influence student retention (Tinto, 1975, 1997). However, that higher social integration in the class can also lead to greater engagement in the active learning itself. This may allow students to move away from superficial discussions of the course material to more sophisticated discussions, including more interactive peer discussions with greater explanations for their reasoning, which is speculated to lead to more learning (Knight et al., 2013; Chi and Wylie, 2014). This greater academic benefit could be conceptualized as academic integration, which was originally part of Tinto’s theory and encapsulates earning good grades and high levels of intellectual development (Tinto, 1975).

Thus, this modified theory suggests that social integration can directly lead to student persistence in college. In addition, social integration can indirectly lead to student persistence through better engagement in active learning, which leads to academic integration. In contrast, students who may not establish social integration for any number of reasons would not gain the direct or indirect benefits for retention. We predict that social identities, particularly identities that are in minority status, influence social integration, and that a lack of social integration in active-learning classrooms could be a reason why particular social identities are at risk for attrition.

This study on the experiences of LGBTQIA students supports components of that assertion. These students generally feel that their LGBTQIA identities are socially unacknowledged or unaccepted in the biology classroom, and this can affect how comfortable they feel doing group work in active-learning classes. Feeling uncomfortable in groups could lead to less social integration in their groups, which could cause them to withdraw from the active-learning exercises, especially activities predicated on group work. In contrast, feeling comfortable with their group members, and for some this meant coming out to group members, could lead to more engagement in active learning. We hypothesize that student comfort in group work is essential for this social integration and is a factor that instructors and education researchers should examine further in the context of active learning. We also recommend that future research be done to explore how social integration can affect retention for this population of students.

Finally, the cognitive load that some students experience when considering their LGBTQA identities in an active-learning classroom may detract from their learning. While this may not impact social integration itself, it can influence the quality of the active learning. Active learning can provide students with more opportunities to interact with other students and instructors, and such opportunities may be more likely to lead to isolation than integration if students do not feel comfortable in light of their identities. Enhancing student active-learning experiences by maximizing all students’ opportunities to feel socially accepted in the active-learning classroom is an important step in creating a more diverse and inclusive biology community.

Limitations

As with any interview study, there could be a volunteer bias associated with these particular people who volunteered to participate in the study that could skew the data. However, given the national data, which estimate that around 3.6% of the population identifies as LGBTQIA (Gates and Newport, 2015), we ended up interviewing 3.9% of the class, which is likely close to the total percentage of LGBTQIA students in the class.

During these interviews, many of the students indicated that they had never been asked to talk about their LGBTQIA identities in relation to the biology community, or their biology courses, so it is possible that, if students were given more time to think about these issues, their responses may have been different. This calls for a need to do longitudinal studies of this population of students, some of which are ongoing (e.g., National Study of LGBTQ Student Success, 2013).

Directions for Further Research

We felt as though the best way to begin exploring LGBTQIA student experiences in active learning was to embed the study in the context of a single active-learning classroom in order to identify how, if at all, specific elements of an active-learning classroom were influenced by students LGBTQIA identities. Further research should explore whether these student experiences are shared by other members of the LGBTQIA community in different active-learning classrooms and in other geographic locations. This study was conducted in a politically conservative state that has historically been anti-LGBTQIA. Thus, the experience of LGBTQIA students in a more liberal state could be considerably different. While this study was conducted in a state that has not necessarily been friendly to LGBTQIA individuals, it was conducted at a public institution that has Safe Zone training. It would also be interesting to explore the experiences of LGBTQIA students at private institutions, particularly some religious institutions that have been vocally anti-LGBTQIA. We invite instructors from other institutions in different parts of the country to explore whether students at their universities share similar experiences. This exploratory work could set the stage for more large-scale, national studies. In addition, we need to explore the experiences of multiple students who hold the same identity (e.g., asexual) to see the extent to which these student experiences are generalizable.

Furthermore, we suspect that student experiences in active-learning classrooms may ultimately impact retention in college, which is consistent with Tinto’s theory of college student departure. In this study, we only interviewed students who identified as life sciences majors and were currently pursuing undergraduate degrees. Additional studies could focus on LGBTQIA students who have left STEM majors or college to identify whether experiences in active-learning classrooms and a lack of social integration contributed to their departure from the major or from college.

Disclaimer about Tolerance and Acceptance

Several students indicated in their quotes that they actively avoided members of fraternities/sororities, religious organizations, and politically conservative groups. We include these statements because they are the students’ opinions and experiences, and these examples illustrate the complexity of how these students feel they need to navigate the active-learning classroom. These examples are similar to the opinions expressed by LGBTQIA individuals in other studies (Patridge et al., 2014) and reflect established historic and current discrimination correlated with membership in these groups (Hooghe et al., 2010; Holland et al., 2013; Goodstein, 2015). Our students were clear that they knew that not every member of a group holds the same attitudes toward LGBTQIA individuals, but they needed to maximize the probability that their group members would be accepting of their identities. We encourage members of fraternities/sororities, religious organizations, and politically conservative groups to challenge these LGBTQIA students assumptions about their intolerance and build bridges between these different communities.

CONCLUSION

Through an exploratory interview study of seven students holding unique identities along the LGBTQIA spectrum, we examined the experiences and perceptions of LGBTQIA students in an active-learning biology class. We hope that this research will draw awareness to the diversity of student experiences in active-learning classrooms and help our classrooms become more inclusive for this population of students.

FOOTNOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

REFERENCES

Boldface names denote co–first authors.