# Effects of Popular Science Writing Instruction on General Education Student
Attitudes Towards Science: A Case Study in Astronomy

Briley L. Lewis Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
90095 USA  Cluster Program, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA  K. Supriya Center
for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences (CEILS), UCLA, Los
Angeles, CA 90095 USA  Center for the Integration of Research Teaching and
Learning (CIRTL), UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA  Graham H. Read Molecular
Biology Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA  Center for the Integration
of Research Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA
Kaitlin L. Ingraham Dixie Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the
Sciences (CEILS), UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA  Center for the Integration
of Research Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA
Rachel Kennison Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences
(CEILS), UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA  Center for the Integration of
Research Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA
Anthony R. Friscia Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, UCLA, Los
Angeles, CA 90095 USA  Cluster Program, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA

###### Abstract

For many students, introductory college science courses are often the only
opportunity in their formal higher education to be exposed to science, shaping
their view of the subject, their scientific literacy, and their attitudes
towards their own ability in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
(STEM). While science writing instruction has been demonstrated to impact
attitudes and outlooks of STEM majors in their coursework, this instructional
strategy has yet to be explored for non-majors. In this work, we investigate
student attitudes towards STEM before and after taking a writing-intensive
introductory astronomy course. We find that students cite writing about
science as beneficial to their learning, deepening their understanding of
science topics and their perspective on science as a field and finding writing
to be a “bridge” between STEM content and their focus on humanities in their
majors. Students also report increased perceptions of their own ability and
confidence in engaging with STEM across multiple metrics, leaving the course
more prepared to be informed, engaged, and science literate citizens.

Interdisciplinary astronomy; Astronomy Education; Popular Science Writing;
Introductory Courses; Physics Education; Writing in the Disciplines; Writing
Across the Curriculum; Writing Pedagogy; Science Education; College Education;
Higher Education

##  1 Introduction

In the past few years, disbelief in science has been an issue of national
news, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the general public’s
attitudes towards science are often filled with misconceptions, leading to
polarization in beliefs and mistrust of scientists (Rutjens et al., 2018;
Kreps & Kriner, 2020). Yet, at the same time, science is respected as a career
and often seen as requiring innate talent and intelligence, especially in the
physical sciences; there are many inaccurate stereotypes of scientists that
are pervasive in society as well, such as the “lone male white genius” trope
(Bruun et al., 2018). These negative attitudes and misconceptions about
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields naturally lead us to
ask – how do students develop these beliefs? How has their science education
failed to address these beliefs, and what can we do to make a positive impact
on students’ attitudes towards science?

For many students, their main exposure to science in higher education is an
introductory course that fulfills a general education (GE) requirement.
Research has shown that interventions to teach scientific literacy in science
courses for non-science majors (e.g. introductory GE courses) can be quite
effective in their ability to engender positive attitudes towards science and
build science literacy skills (Wittman, 2009; Hobson, 2008). Links between
increased science literacy and improved attitudes towards science in
introductory astronomy courses for non-majors (Wittman, 2009; Duncan &
Arthurs, 2012) have been well-established in the literature and provide
support that attitudes and beliefs about science can be altered by effectively
teaching science literacy.

Interventions involving current research and science writing are well
established in the literature for STEM students, but there is less information
available for these techniques in an introductory non-major/GE course. Studies
show that engaging with recent science literature exposes STEM students to
active research questions and provides real-world motivation to learn the
content, making it clear how the course is relevant to their careers (Donohue
et al., 2021). More generally, research has shown that providing students with
a real-world writing task is incredibly impactful, leading to changes in
student beliefs, and deepening student learning (Kiefer & Leff, 2008).
Additionally, STEM students benefit from broader perspectives that can be
developed by targeted interventions in discipline-based reading and writing
skills. These writing skills help students develop broader perspectives on
their work in science, put science concepts into context, and learn how to
contribute to scientific discourse (Sørvik & Mork, 2015; Szymanski, 2014;
Lewis, In Prep). Writing is a prime example of an active learning strategy,
which has been shown to be pedagogically inclusive in many disciplines
(Penner, 2018; Theobald et al., 2020). Science writing has also been shown in
the literature to be an effective tool for improving attitudes towards science
in STEM students, but this result has not yet been extended to non-major/GE
students (Pelger & Nilsson, 2016; Erkol et al., 2010).

The goal of this project is to demonstrate that popular science writing can be
an effective tool for improving student attitudes towards science and
increasing student engagement with science in an introductory general
education science course. That is, students in such a course generally do not
intend to major in a STEM discipline, and are taking the course to fulfill a
science requirement amidst their major coursework in the humanities. In this
work, we report qualitative information gathered on student experiences and
attitudes in a uniquely writing-focused introductory GE astronomy course,
investigating how science writing interventions with non-STEM students
affected multiple factors: students’ interest in science/astronomy, their
perception of the benefits and personal relevance of science, their perception
of their own ability to engage with and communicate about STEM, and their
perception of stereotypes of scientists such as STEM fields requiring innate
talent.

The factors measured within this work all have a basis in the literature as
desirable outcomes for students in an introductory non-major STEM course, or
as factors that improve student learning. Student interest in a subject has
been linked to student engagement and learning in a course – naturally, if
students are interested and curious about a topic, they are more likely to
apply themselves to learning about it (Renninger & Hidi, 2015). Thus, one
measure of a ”successful” introductory science course is an increase in
student interest in the subject. Additionally, increased student understanding
of the benefits of learning the subject matter at hand and of the relevance of
the material to their lives is key for increasing student buy-in (Cavanagh et
al., 2016; Wang et al., 2021; Stuckey et al., 2013; Newton, 1988; Frymier &
Shulman, 1995).

When discussing student attitudes about science, there are three main
categories of thought about STEM fields we want to influence: what they think
of scientists, how students think of the benefits of learning science, and how
they think of the relevance of science to their lives / society. Many
introductory GE science courses aim to promote diverse representation of
current STEM practitioners and positively influence the views of students
about scientists (Yuretich et al., 2001). This is in response to persistent
stereotypes of scientists, especially for the physical sciences like physics
and astronomy. Stereotypes regarding gender, age, ethnicity, and more exist,
such as the idea that stereotypically female gender roles aren’t compatible
with the skills and personality of a scientist (Carli et al., 2016), that
scientists are generally older white men (Ferguson & Lezotte, 2020; Bruun et
al., 2018; Losh, 2010), and that being a scientist requires a high degree of
innate talent (Leslie et al., 2015). The benefits of science are not only
important for student buy-in, but also public buy-in to public funding for
science (Muñoz et al., 2012). Relevance is also often cited as a key metric of
good science teaching (Newton, 1988) – a 2013 review even described that the
literature states “making science learning relevant both to the learner
personally and to the society in which he or she lives should be one of the
key goals of science education” (Stuckey et al., 2013). As perceptions of
science courses became more negative in the 2000s, studies cited “irrelevance”
as a student concern about their science education, and as a result there was
a large push to connect science to students’ lived experiences and better
motivate them to learn about science (Stuckey et al., 2013; Holbrook, 2003,
2005; Gilbert, 2006; Dillon, 2016). Although relevance is often ill-defined in
education studies, Stuckey et al. (2013) suggests three dimensions: relevance
in preparing students for careers, relevance for understanding scientific
phenomena, and relevance for students becoming effective future citizens. In
this study, we asked students about the broad concept of relevance, to which
students responded with their personal interpretations.

We hypothesize that a science writing intervention in this introductory GE
astronomy course will have a positive effect on non-major students’
perceptions of science. Based on experience with a prior iteration of the
course in this study, we believe that science writing instruction will help
students of diverse non-STEM majors use writing as a method to connect science
concepts to their own interests and their humanities coursework, and that
writing as a real-world task will engender a belief that students are capable
of engaging with scientific concepts.

There are also four tasks that we investigate to judge student
ability/confidence in science-related activities, all related to activities
they have practiced during the course: reading primary literature, reading
science news, explaining science concepts, and writing about a scientific
discovery. High amounts of technical jargon often make it difficult for
students to read primary literature in the science, with even graduate
students reporting apprehension reading research articles (Lewis, In Prep).
Yet, despite research literature’s inaccessibility, K-12 and undergraduate
classes seek to incorporate cutting-edge research and even primary sources
into their curriculum to increase relevancy and real-world applicability
(Nieves, 2020; Eales & Laksana, 2016). Understanding the role of scientific
publishing, and its reliability as a source, is also key to public perceptions
of science (Miller, 2004). Additionally, in science writing and journalism,
tackling research papers is one of the first – and often most challenging –
steps in the writing process that a new writer has to learn (Witze, 2020).
There are clearly many benefits to exposing students to primary sources in
scientific research, but there is also the distinct challenge of approaching a
genre written for an expressly technical audience. This task is expected to be
the most difficult and intimidating, followed by writing about a discovery
(which requires significant knowledge and synthesis), while reading science
news and informally explaining concepts are expected to be more accessible to
students, and more likely to be activities they continue in their daily lives.

In Section 2, we detail the study population as well as the design of the
course and assessments. In Section 3, we report and explore student responses
to open-ended survey questions both before and after the course. Finally, in
Section 4, we explore the implications of these results and offer
recommendations for writing-based science education and future work on this
topic.

##  2 Methods

###  2.1 Course Description and Study Population

Student participants were all first-year undergraduates at a large public
university in the United States at the time of the study. These students were
enrolled in a seminar on astrobiology and science journalism. This seminar is
part of a program offered only to first-year students that provides a range of
year-long (three academic quarters) courses that cover “Big Ideas,” and all
fulfill various general education (GE) requirements. Each year, this program
offers ten of these multi-disciplinary courses, drawing faculty and teaching
assistants from multiple departments. These courses are open only to incoming
freshman students, and about one-third of the university’s freshman class
enrolls in a course through this program.

The first two quarters of these courses are “traditional” lecture/discussion
section courses – students attend lecture with the entire class two or three
times a week and a smaller discussion section of 20 students led by a Teaching
Assistant once a week. During the third quarter of the course, students choose
a seminar to take, taught by a member of the teaching team which delves deeper
into a related topic in a small (20 student) seminar course. Specifically,
student participants in this study were enrolled in the year-long program
focusing on the evolution of life and the Universe. The teaching team for this
course includes an astronomer, geologist, and two biologists, and covers the
history of the universe from the Big Bang to the evolution of humanity,
including topics on the formation of the elements, planetary geology and
biological evolution. The emphasis is on science as a process rather than
specifics of a particular field or topic. This series of courses fulfills
their GE requirement for scientific inquiry, as well as their disciplinary
writing requirement.

The disciplinary writing requirement is satisfied by courses where students
learn to write within a specific discipline/field. In this year-long program,
students write short (5-6 page) papers in the first two quarters of the
course, and also receive instruction on using the library and how to read
scientific literature. The assignment in the first quarter is a literature
review based around one of a list of primary scientific papers provided to the
students. They must put the paper in the broader context of its field,
understanding how it builds on prior knowledge and is in turn built upon. For
the assignment in the second quarter, students chose from a provided list of
scientific debates and must use the skills learned in the previous quarter to
research the debate and come to their own conclusion about the most supported
viewpoint. With both papers, the assignment is scaffolded, with various parts
due throughout the quarter and students are given feedback throughout the
writing process. The bulk of writing expected to satisfy the requirement,
though, is meant to be part of the third quarter seminar course.

The course in question for this study is a seminar in the third and final
quarter of the year-long program, focusing on astrobiology and science
journalism. It is designed as a writing-intensive science course for non-STEM
majors. Since this course fulfills science requirements, students with non-
STEM majors typically enroll. Additionally, since this year-long experience is
not a required program, there is a possibility that the program self-selects
for particularly interested and motivated students, and students have some
prior exposure to concepts about science from the first two quarters – to
adjust for the latter, we compare pre- and post-course surveys to get a sense
of the changes that happened over the duration of only the writing-intensive
science course, as opposed to the whole year-long program. 11 out of 21
students from the 2021 offering of the course consented to the retroactive use
of information from their course evaluations for this study, and 19 out of 21
students from the 2022 course responded to the assessments designed for this
study. 5 students from those two course offerings agreed to interviews to
discuss their experiences. Demographic information such as race and gender was
not collected from participants, as it is outside the scope of this study.

###  2.2 Interventions

In this writing-intensive science course, students worked through projects to
develop a popular science article, from idea to pitch to full draft, on some
topic related to astrobiology (e.g. planetary science, search for
extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), astronomy, space exploration). They had
two major writing assignments: (1) a “translation” piece where they summarize
a research article for a lay audience using the Astrobites format (Sanders et
al., 2012, 2017; Khullar et al., 2019; Lewis et al., In Prep) and (2) a more
open-ended project that is scaffolded to take them from an initial idea to a
fully developed article with an accompanying pitch for publication.

These major assignments were supported with smaller assignments to explore
other multimedia forms of science communication (e.g. social media,
podcasting, video), a weekly writing journal to practice science writing
skills, and readings from science publications, both technical and non-
technical. There were also in-class activities to build various writing
skills, such as genre awareness, knowledge of audience, skill in word choice
and structuring writing, and revision. Readings and discussions included
mention of diverse practitioners of science, how to interview scientists for
journalism, what science is and how it’s done, and reflection on existing
perceptions of science. The course met once a week for 2 hours and 50 minutes
for 10 weeks, with approximately 9 hours of out-of-class work each week for a
total of 12 hours.

###  2.3 Assessments and Data Collection

Assessments were administered in Weeks 0 and 1 (pre-course) and in Week 10 and
Finals Week (post-course) to gauge student attitudes before and after the
course, in the form of a Google Forms survey. The survey contained both
Likert-scale quantitative questions and open-ended written response questions.
Student responses were not anonymous, but identifying information was only
used to match pre- and post-survey responses. All protocols for this study
were approved by UCLA’s Institutional Review Board (IRB#22-000440).

Likert-scale questions were drawn from the Astronomy and Science Student
Attitudes (ASSA) instrument, recently developed to fill a gap in astronomy
education research tools (Bartlett et al., 2018), and the widely used
Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Sciences (EBAPS) (Elby, 2001).
ASSA provides insight into discipline-specific attitudes across 8 factors, six
of which are strongly relevant to this study: student interest in astronomy,
interest in science outside of school, perception of ability in science,
future aspirations in science, perception of benefits of science, and personal
relevance of science. EBAPS captures broader attitudes about science as a
whole across five dimensions: structure of scientific knowledge, nature of
knowing and learning, real-life applicability, evolving knowledge in science,
and source of ability to learn. Combined, these two instruments should provide
a thorough view of students’ perceptions of science and their ability to
engage with it. Additionally, some Likert-scale questions were designed for
this course to specifically probe student attitudes towards science writing,
using scales based on Vagias (2006). However, this quantitative data is not
analyzed beyond basic descriptive statistics in this work (see Section 3.4);
instead, we limit our scope to focus on mainly the qualitative data due to the
small sample size.

The open-ended questions are designed to gather nuanced information on student
experiences and how they felt writing related to their changes in
perspectives. Some of these questions were taken from Raved & Assaraf (2011),
which provided a qualitative look at student attitudes in a 10th grade
classroom via interviews. The written response open-ended questions were the
same on the pre- and post-course surveys, and were as follows:

  1. 1.

Are you interested in astronomy? Why or why not?

  2. 2.

Why do you want to learn about science journalism?

  3. 3.

How is the science you learn in school relevant to your daily life?

  4. 4.

How do you benefit from learning about science in college?

  5. 5.

How do you feel when reading scientific research articles?

  6. 6.

How do you feel when reading about science in magazines, newspapers, etc.?

  7. 7.

What does it take to be a good scientist?

  8. 8.

How do you feel about explaining science concepts to others?

  9. 9.

Do you think you could write about a new scientific discovery? Why or why not?

  10. 10.

Is it important for scientists to have good writing skills? Why or why not?
(Note: this question is not used/analyzed in this work)

  11. 11.

What do you think of the way science is portrayed to the public? (Note: this
question is not used/analyzed in this work)

Responses to Questions 1-9 were coded into various emergent categories,
described in their respective sections below. Questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and
9 were also coded into 5 categories based on their change from pre- to post-
course responses: positive change / improved, no change (positive), no change
(neutral), no change (negative), and negative change / decreased as described
in Figure 1. Positive change is defined as moving towards the desired outcome
(e.g. increased interest in STEM, increased confidence and sense of ability in
STEM, more diverse and open views of science and scientists). The three
categories of “no change” indicate that student views have either remained
positive, remained neutral, or remained negative. Student responses,
particularly long quotes or those presenting multiple ideas, may be coded as
multiple emergent themes, but each student responses is only counted in one of
the change categories (e.g. an answer cannot count for both “yes” and “no”).
To visualize the results of the coding of student responses with respect to
change in attitudes, we created a summary bar chart (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Definition of “positive” versus “negative” change for each question
coded based on matched pre- and post-course responses.

The post-course survey included an option for students to be contacted for
interviews about their experiences to gather further qualitative data. Student
quotes from interviews and open-ended questions are reported in Section 3, and
the interview questions were as follows:

  * •

How has writing about science impacted your experience with learning about
science?

  * •

What do you feel is the most important lesson you’ve taken away from this
course?

  * •

Which of your views about science has changed the most while taking this
course?

  * •

How do you feel about engaging with science beyond this course?

Although this investigation had not yet been designed during the first
offering of this course in Spring 2021, we did collect some pre- and post-
course survey data as well as qualitative feedback from students about their
attitudes towards writing and science and their experiences in the course.
Students were asked for consent to use their responses to explore if there
were any valuable insights that may be useful to this study. All student
responses are from the 2022 study, unless otherwise noted as information
pulled from the 2021 course evaluations.

##  3 Results

A summary of changes in student attitudes based on responses to open-ended
survey questions is presented in Figure 2. Results in this chart will be
further discussed in the following subsections in five main categories:
interest in astronomy, perceptions of benefits and relevance of science,
perceptions of ability in science, perceptions of scientists, and other
insights from interviews with student participants. We also briefly discuss
the quantitative data gathered. Only responses from students who completed
both pre- and post-course surveys were used to code for changes in attitudes.

Figure 2: Bar chart illustrating changes in student responses from before and
after the courses, for a sample of N=13-15 students. Dark teal indicates an
improvement from students’ starting opinions, and dark pink represents a more
negative opinion (with negative and positive defined as in Figure 1). The
three lighter colors – light teal, grey, and light pink – represent no change
from the initial opinion, where students’ opinions remained positive, neutral,
or negative respectively. Students display little change in their interest in
astronomy, but increases in their perceptions of the benefits of learning
science, perceptions of their own ability to engage with science, and their
confidence in explaining science concepts.

###  3.1 Interest in Astronomy

Of all the metrics measured in this study, student interest shows the smallest
positive change, and is the only metric to show a decrease in some students,
as shown in Figure 2. Most students showed no change, either coming in with an
interest in astronomy and maintaining that interest, or coming in neutral and
remaining neutral. Narrative responses investigating student interest in
astronomy were coded into two main positive and four negative categories,
displayed in Figure 3. Student responses expressing interest almost
universally explained that their interest stemmed from a curiosity or sense of
entertainment when thinking about their place in the Universe, while one
student referenced astronomy as a way to understand what’s happening on our
own planet. Most of the decreases in claims of interest seem to stem from
responses that students are not interested because it’s not what they see as
their career – indicating that students may have interpreted the question
somewhat differently than intended, as if “interest” requires a commitment to
career on the topic.

Figure 3: Student responses to the question “Are you interested in astronomy?
Why or why not?” coded by the theme of their response. Students came in
interested, and stayed interested, but confirmed their career choices in other
fields. Figure 4: Student responses to the question “Why are you interested in
learning about science journalism?” coded by the theme of their response.
Interest level seems similar between before/after, but comments became more
specific (e.g. mentioned things like jargon, audience, difference between
research and public articles).

As mentioned in Section 2, this student population likely had high interest
coming in, due to the self-selecting nature of this course and their previous
exposure to the topic in the earlier parts of the year-long program. Another
question on the survey probed their interest in this course’s other main topic
– science journalism – upon entry to gauge reasons for taking the course.
Students replied in four main categories: a desire to improve their general
writing skills, a desire to improve their discipline-specific (e.g. science)
writing skills, a belief in the importance of communicating science to the
public, and a desire to better understand science by writing about it,
summarized in Figure 4.

The following are examples of student responses conveying these sentiments,
with their corresponding codes:

> “It is interesting to see how different parts of life work, and that
> includes journalism. It is cool to feel like you are on the writing side for
> once when for the rest of your life, you are the one reading articles.”
> [Code: Understanding portrayals/dissemination of science]

> “I want to learn about science journalism because it is important to
> understand how the science that we read about in publication is released to
> the public.” [Code: Understanding portrayals/dissemination of science]

> “Science is important to understand even if it is not something you want to
> do with your life.” [From 2021 Evaluations]

> “Science is so cool and even though I might not understand all of the
> physics/math/computer coding, appreciating the topics conceptually is so
> important and I want to continue to stay informed.” [From 2021 Evaluations]

###  3.2 Perceptions of Benefits and Relevance of Science, and Scientists
Themselves

A majority of Americans currently think science is mostly beneficial to
society, and perceptions of science as beneficial scale positively with
science education level (Pew Research Center & Funk, 2020). Unsurprisingly,
students nearly unanimously agreed that there was some benefit to learning
about science in college, either entering with positive views and remaining
positive, or entering neutral and becoming more positive. (The benefits of
science are emphasized in the first two quarters of the year-long program this
course is a part of.) Their responses were coded into the following
categories, listed in Figure 5: science broadens their perspective on the
world, helps them understand the world, improves critical thinking skills,
helps them be informed on current events, provides additional career options,
and helps them become a better advocate for science. Only one student
explicitly said that science did not benefit them, and this student did not
fill out the post-course survey so it is unknown if the course changed their
view.

Figure 5: Student responses to the question “How do you benefit from learning
about science in school?” coded by the theme of their response. Students had
strong reasons for why science is relevant to their lives. 5/14 clearly show
more positive perceptions of the benefits of learning science. All other
students with responses for both surveys either showed an addition of nuance
to their responses, or no change from views that were already positive.

Similar to perceptions of the benefits of science, students already appreciate
the relevance of science before the course, but added some nuance or detail to
their responses after the course. Student responses fell into 5 main
categories, which in turn parallel the categories of “relevance for
understanding scientific phenomena” and “relevance for being an effective
citizen” from Stuckey et al. (2013). These categories of student responses,
shown in Figure 6, are: relevant for understanding and appreciating the world,
critically approaching news, understanding the scientific process, becoming
informed on climate change, and being informed on personal health. These last
two categories parallel some of the largest science-related events in the news
at the time of this study: the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 6: Student responses to the question “How is the science you learn in
school relevant to your daily life?” coded by the theme of their response.
Most students appreciated science coming in, but some added nuance or emphasis
to their appreciation after the course.

Students in this course identified many of the expected positive qualities of
a scientist – hard-working, dedicated, curious, open-minded, passionate – in
both the pre- and post-course surveys, as visualized in Figure 7. Only 2/16
students responded with stereotypes requiring innate talent or solitary
brilliance in the pre-course survey, and even then they mentioned it with a
caveat (e.g. innate talent can help but hard work is needed). This is again
unsurprising, as these are features of scientists that are explored in the
first two quarters of the year-long program. In this seminar course, students
were also able to make a direct connection to their instructor, an early
career, female, first-generation astronomer, and the course featured
representation from and discussion of other diverse scientists and writers.
Additionally, awareness of negative stereotypes of scientists has existed for
years (Losh, 2010), and it appears that the many mitigation strategies in
place (e.g. outreach programs such as Skype a Scientist and pedagogy
initiatives such as Steinke (1997); Thomas et al. (2006); Yardley (2015);
Jarreau et al. (2019)) are making a difference. Interestingly, though, there
was a noticeable addition of mentions of ethics, morals, and communication to
the required skills of a good scientist after the writing-focused science
course. One student left a particularly illustrative response on this point:

> “My whole life I was told it was objectivity. Now I would disagree with that
> though. Science isn’t objective, it is widespread, pervasive, and extremely
> personal. It is our future and our money. So, the most important qualities
> in science are being a good communicator and being ethical.” [Codes: good
> communicator, morals / ethics / integrity]

Figure 7: Coded student responses to the question “What does it take to be a
good scientist?” Students list standard positive qualities with no strong
notice of change before/after. Few students entered with stereotypes of
requiring innate talent. There is a noticeable addition of mentions of ethics,
morals, and communication to the required skills of a scientist post-course.

###  3.3 Perceptions of Ability in Science

Although students came in with positive perceptions of the importance of
science as a field, and the belief that someone of any identity can be an
effective scientist, these beliefs did not appear to extend to themselves.
Many students entered extremely hesitant about their abilities to learn,
write, and discuss about science topics. As shown in Figure 2, all four
metrics of student ability to engage with STEM significantly increased after
the course. We asked students about their feelings towards four tasks related
to science: reading scientific research papers, reading popular science
writing (e.g. magazines, news), explaining science concepts to others, and
writing about a new scientific discovery.

Figure 8: Student responses to the question “How do you feel when reading
scientific research articles?” coded by the theme of their response. There was
a clear improvement in student comfort with reading primary research articles.
9/15 students report an improved attitude towards reading scientific articles.
4 report no change, and still find them intimidating, and 2 report no change,
as they were already confident at the start.

Students overwhelmingly began the course with negative attitudes towards the
prospect of reading scientific technical writing, with “overwhelmed” being the
most used word in their responses, as illustrated in Figure 8, while
acknowledging that there may be interesting content hidden within. Although
students were exposed to primary scientific literature in the other portions
of the year-long program, those experiences do not seem to have made them feel
more prepared for engaging with technical scientific writing – it would be
interesting in future work to determine if this prior experience changed
student attitudes, determining if more typical non-STEM majors in a GE course
hold the same beliefs. This metric shows an extremely positive change after
the course, where students experienced directed reading assignments, guidance
on how to tackle research articles, and assignments where they translated the
big ideas of the articles for a more general audience. Students report feeling
“better” “comfortable” and even “confident” in reading research papers post-
course, with some even claiming to “enjoy” the challenge, while at the same
time acknowledging that this is a difficult task. For example, see the
following quotes from student responses:

> “I used to be very intimidated by the jargon and the non-engaging writing
> style, but now I feel comfortable at least skimming those articles.” [Code:
> comfortable]

> “I used to feel overwhelmed but now I see it as a challenge and something
> exciting to learn about.” [Codes: challenging, excited]

Figure 9: Student responses to the question “How do you feel when reading
about science in magazines, newspapers, etc.?” coded by the theme of their
response. 8/14 students report an improved attitude towards reading about
science in the news. 3 show no change, remaining neutral about it, and 3 show
no change, as they already enjoyed it coming in. No students like reading
about science less than when they started. Responses also illustrated a
greater understanding of genre, and the distinguishing features (namely
audience) between research papers and popular science writing. Overall more
positive attitudes both before and after than towards primary research
articles.

In their daily lives, students are more likely to encounter secondary sources
of science news, such as popular science articles in magazines.
Unsurprisingly, given that students are the target audience of these types of
publications unlike primary research articles, incoming attitudes about
reading popular science articles were much more positive. Over half of
students still report increased positive attitudes towards reading these types
of articles, describing them as “cool” and “interesting” and saying they
“enjoyed” them, as shown in Figure 9. Responses also illustrated a greater
understanding of genre, and the distinguishing features (namely audience)
between research papers and popular science writing. Students seemed to
understand that these articles were meant for them, and indicated appreciation
for the form, such as in this student response:

> “[I feel] much better than when I read scientific research. This material is
> accessible while educational, enabling someone without a professional
> background to understand the science involved. I feel like there’s actually
> a point to reading it.” [Codes: better than technical sources, purposeful,
> can understand]

Figure 10: Student responses to the question “How do you feel about explaining
science concepts to others?” coded by theme of their response. 9 students
became more confident in explaining science, as defined in Figure 1, and 2
remained neutral while 2 entered already confident. The language students used
in response to this question changed from comfortable (with mentions of
worries of being incorrect), to a mostly confident.

Beyond being a passive consumer of scientific information through reading, we
also probed student abilities to actively engage with science, such as through
explaining scientific concepts to others. This is an extremely relevant skill
to take away from an introductory science course, and can empower them to be
scientifically literate and involved citizens. The language students used in
response to this question changed from “comfortable” (with mentions of worries
of being incorrect), to mostly “confident,” as shown in Figure 10. Students
also mentioned that practicing explanations helped them improve their own
understanding, such as in the following responses:

> “I think to be able to explain science concepts to others is a way to prove
> that you actually understand the concept yourself.” [Code: N/A]

> “After taking this class I feel like, if I put enough time and work into
> understanding the concept myself, I could find a way to explain it clearly
> to others.” [Code: can do it]

Figure 11: Student responses to the question “Do you think you could write
about a new scientific discovery? Why or why not?” coded by the theme of their
response. 9 students felt more confident about writing a new scientific
discovery, 1 remained neutral, and 4 entered with confidence in their
abilities. There is some evidence of additional understanding of different
modes/audiences of scientific writing, and some students said their confidence
level depended on the audience.

Lastly, we gauged student attitudes towards writing about science before and
after the course. This is arguably the most active and involved task related
to engaging with science in this study, and requires students to synthesize
many of the prior skills: reading and understanding primary sources,
understanding the style, audience, and purpose of popular science writing, and
explaining science concepts to a lay audience. Responses showed a clear
positive trend, with students having more confidence in their abilities at the
end of the course, as shown in Figure 11. Pre-course, students hedged with
words and phrases like “maybe” and “with help” or “with a good editor” or
“with enough time.” Post-course, students showed more confidence, but still
wanted more practice and time to hone their skills. There is some evidence of
additional understanding of different modes/audiences of scientific writing,
and some students said their confidence level depended on the audience or
topic. One student response really captures the transition from pre- to post-
course attitudes and the value of a course focusing on science writing and
communication:

> “I think that, after taking this class, I could write about a new scientific
> discovery because I have been taught the process and worked through it with
> someone who has practice.” [Code: can do it]

###  3.4 Quantitative Data

Although the sample size is small, and accordingly the quantitative data does
not show any trends significant at the p$<$0.05 level using a Wilcoxon signed
rank test, we present descriptive statistics on the quantitative data to check
for consistency with the qualitative data. These statistics are presented in
Figure 12. The categories presented are based on the ASSA, described earlier
in Section 2 (Bartlett et al., 2018). Category scores are calculated by taking
the average of student responses over each question within the category. It is
interesting to see that the medians are so similar for ability in science and
benefits of science (which was high to begin with), but there is an increase
in interest and relevance of science. It is also worth noting that the
questions for perception of ability from the ASSA were quite general, and may
not have reflected student gains in specific skills and pathways for
engagement with science covered in the course. For example, one of the ASSA
items was that ”Science is one of my best subjects.” Given the students’
strong preference and identity in the humanities, it is difficult to imagine
them saying that science is one of their best subjects even after this course
– they all still knew, as evidenced in Figure 3, that humanities was their
bread and butter. We also hypothesize there may have been a mismatch in
interpretation where they didn’t think of this course as a “typical” science
course, leading them to respond to items like “I get good grades in science”
differently. In future studies, it may be worth using more specific items in
any quantitative surveys.

Figure 12: Summary of descriptive statistics from Likert-scale questions,
combined based on their category, visualized above with the full data table on
bottom. Improvements are seen in perceptions of relevance of science, interest
in astronomy, and interest in general science, whereas perception of ability
in STEM and benefits of science showed nearly zero change. P values are not
listed, as none of them were significant at the p$<$0.05 level.

###  3.5 Insights from Interviews

In this section, we present quotes from student responses to interview
questions, and comment on their contents.

####  3.5.1 How did writing about science impact your experience learning
about science?

> “I think by having to relay the information in an accessible, clear manner,
> you have to really understand it…Like you have to understand it well, in
> order to explain it to different groups of people. So I think it just forced
> me to have a firm grasp of it, in order to be able to like, explain it
> clearly.”

> “With science, you really have to know what you’re talking about. So if you
> weren’t sure about something, it kind of inspires you to go research, go
> back and check.”

> “It really did. Because a lot of times science and STEM stuff feel super
> divorced from humanities. Which, if you’re a humanities major, or just have
> humanities interests, like, oh, well, I guess this isn’t really meant for
> me. But like, this is kind of marrying it. I love synthesis. And so this
> synthesis of like, the sort of critical thinking that you have to use in
> like, an English major, and kind of applying that to science is the best of
> both worlds for me.”

> “Writing helped me really think about it from my perspective…when I was
> writing about it, I was able to actually think about my opinion on it. And,
> like, really get deep into it. So helped me like, synthesize what I learned,
> and form my view of the topic.”

Students reported that the process of teaching material through written
explanations increased their comprehension of the material, and the
requirements to write and explain the material helped them to reiterate and
remember the information in a way that they claim hadn’t been present in their
other STEM-related courses. Some students found that writing about science
made the learning more “manageable” and others who had previously not enjoyed
learning about science in the more “traditional” ways (e.g. from textbooks and
lectures) found this method of active, project-based, writing-focused learning
more interesting and engaging. Some students, including one quoted above,
explained that incorporating writing into science education helped make
science feel more relevant and related to their experiences and interests in
the humanities, providing them with an entry point into the material based on
their prior experiences – more on this in Section 4.4. Others explained that
writing about science forced them to consider their perspectives on debates
and current events in science, and to dive deep into the topic at hand. This
may connect to the earlier comment on objectivity in science in Section 3.2,
and a theme of students’ view of the field of science expanding to consider
ethics, communication, politics/opinion, and the role of individuals, which
will be discussed further in Section 4.2.

####  3.5.2 “What was your biggest takeaway from the course?”

> “We need to spread the word that scientists and like everybody needs to know
> how to write…the biggest thing I learned is probably that it’s super
> important for the [science] writing to be accessible. That’s what’s gonna
> make people not be scared of the truth and the facts, is like if they can
> kind of understand it a little bit more.”

> “The most most important lesson is that I think things seem scary before you
> try it. Because all scientific writing, as I said before, was really
> intimidating. And it was just academic and boring for me. But after I, like,
> tried it, I mean, we had to kind of try it with their writing journals and
> stuff, after we started writing more often helped me realize that, like,
> things may seem scary at first, but when you try them, it’s like, you’ll get
> used to it and might not be as hard as you think it is.”

> “I think that a lot of classes should integrate more writing as part of like
> a science education…And I think I really would have benefited from that,
> just because that’s part of the way that I learn.”

Many of students’ major takeaways from the course related to the elements of
writing – audience, style, structure, sentence-level concerns, etc. – and
their ability to connect different pieces of evidence into a coherent story,
which is reasonable, and even expected or hoped for, given that this course
fulfilled one of the students’ major writing requirements. Other students
mentioned takeaways about the science content, such as the idea that science
is cool/awesome/interesting and their perspectives on life in the universe
have changed (understandable again, given that this is a course focused on
astrobiology and aliens.) Some students mentioned takeaways that related more
to perceptions of science and the role of communication in STEM, such as the
fact that they now see writing as an extremely important skill, even for
scientists, and the idea that better science writing will lead to better
science literacy in our society (see above quote). Others mentioned
metacognitive takeaways, such as the idea that trying new things and pushing
yourself is important for learning, as cited in the second quote of this
section. They even directly identified writing as a key part of what made
their learning successful in this course, claiming that more courses should
integrate writing (as in the last quote above) and pinpointing that active
learning activities like the writing in this course led to a better learning
experience for them. We will discuss the takeaway of writing as active and
experiential learning for science further in Section 4.3.

####  3.5.3 “Which of your views about science changed most during the
course?”

> “Probably the idea that it can be a creative endeavor as well…like, the
> scientific method, it seems very structured. And while I love structure,
> it’s like…if you structure it too much, then that can feel confining.”

> “There are people who like…take articles and information and just make it
> accessible to people…There are people who are trying not to make it
> [science] as gate kept.”

> “Scientists need to communicate, because all of them are doing different
> things, and it’s very naive to believe that they’re all on top of each
> other’s work all the time, even though that’s kind of the impression you get
> from not being in that field.”

Students report leaving this course with a better understanding of the media
landscape surrounding science, likely due to the unique focus on science
journalism in this course. As a result, this also changed their views of
science itself – one student cites a change in his previous view of science as
a centralized “institution,” now understanding that science is more of a
collaborative collection of people working independently but cooperatively.
Another, quoted above, mentions their expanded view of who participates in
science and how – they were previously unaware of writing and outreach roles
in science, jobs beyond the stereotypical scientist role, which they were
excited to learn existed to make the field more accessible to people like
themselves. This student described this expanded view as helping them move
away from the idea that science is “stuffy” or “elitist.” Similarly, students
gained a greater appreciation and more accurate picture of what being a
scientist is actually like on a day-to-day basis, upending tropes of boring
scientists, becoming familiar with the activities of the job (e.g. analyzing
data, communicating results), and understanding that science requires
creativity, not just following a rigid set of rules. One student expressed a
distaste with the idea of science as rigid, and almost a sense of relief at
the realization that there was a connection between the creativity they sensed
in their own humanities and artistic studies and real science. Additionally,
other students expressed an appreciation that the skills they learn in
humanities courses (e.g. writing, communication) actually are relevant and
transferrable to science, helping to bridge the often daunting gap between the
two fields (discussed further in Section 4.4). Another common thread amongst
student responses was that this course changed their view on whether or not
life exists beyond Earth – an interesting outcome, and somewhat expected for
an astrobiology course, but not particularly relevant to this investigation.

####  3.5.4 “How do you now feel about engaging with science, and has that
changed since the beginning of the course?”

> “I can approach it [science] with more understanding, like if I’m reading an
> article or something, or like listening to a new story about whatever. I
> feel like I can grasp the full picture. Like when they launched the
> telescope [JWST], I feel like I understand like, okay, like, this is what
> it’s like trying to achieve and do, even if they don’t say that explicitly.”

> “I knew going into college, I didn’t want to like be in STEM, I didn’t want
> to necessarily be practicing science. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t
> like engage with it. So that’s kind of like my big takeaway. Like, I could
> still for fun, like write science articles online if I wanted to, or just
> things like that. I didn’t really ever think about that [before].”

In the interviews, students expressed not only an increased interest and
confidence in engaging with science, but shared some concrete ways in which
they are taking steps to engage more with science in their lives. One student
decided to take some climate change courses as part of their undergraduate
education, and one is considering adding a science minor after their
experiences in this course. Another student, involved in a journalism group on
campus, mentioned that they now have more confidence to take on journalism
assignments related to science, whereas before this course they would pass on
science-related assignments offered by their editors.

As illustrated in the first quote of this section, students also mentioned
that this course and the science writing instruction within helped them know
what to look for in science news, providing them with both reading skills and
science content to help determine if an article is reliable or worth their
time to read. Clearly, this course impacted their confidence in their ability
to be a critical consumer of science-related news and journalism – a key skill
for being an informed and active modern citizen.

Additionally, the second quote of this section highlights an interesting theme
– that someone who is interpreting, but not necessarily synthesizing or
creating new scientific information, can have an identity within science as a
field. This is discussed further in Section 4.1.

####  3.5.5 “Is there anything else about how this course impacted you that
you’d like to share?”

> “Your course just kind of broadened even more like the idea that anybody can
> be a scientist, you just have to kind of try at it and be curious. And like
> anybody can learn things. Definitely it’s helped me move on to be a little
> less nervous about jumping into things that I’m not entirely sure about,
> like, scientifically.”

> “I can write about science for the rest of my life without even having to
> formulate my own experiments/do research! (Not that I have anything against
> research, I was just surprised by how accessible the process of science
> writing actually is.).” [From 2021 Evaluations]

Lastly, space was given to students to mention anything else relevant to their
course experience. Many students commented on facets of the course, such as
their thoughts on the course instructor, which were not relevant to this
investigation – however, there were two relevant and interesting responses
from students, which are quoted above. One explicitly states “that anybody can
be a scientist” – an oft-quoted goal for student conceptions of scientists in
our increasingly more diverse and inclusive field (Rahm & Downey, 2002; Rubey,
2022). Additionally, the second student response here further illustrates the
broadened conception of participation in STEM, as discussed in the preceding
section.

##  4 Discussion

Student feedback and responses from this investigation revealed a number of
interesting takeaways for both how and why science writing education was
impactful for their learning and views surrounding STEM. In this section, we
discuss two major themes of how this learning experience affected their views,
and two major themes of why this experience was so influential and science
writing was a useful tool for learning about astronomy / science.

###  4.1 How: Expanded Views and Increased Confidence in Ability for
Engagement with Science

Takeaway # 1: Writing-focused science education expands how students think of
engaging with science, providing new pathways beyond careers for them to be
involved in STEM, and greatly increases their confidence in their own ability
to engage with STEM in various ways.

In the student responses displayed above in Section 3, students showed
increased confidence in a variety of tasks, covering a range of cognitive
processes and domains of knowledge (Bloom et al., 1956; Krathwohl, 2002;
Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), related to engagement with science content:

  * •

Remember, Understand, and Evaluate: Critically reading articles about science,
for both general and technical audiences

  * •

Remember, Understand, and Apply: Explain science concepts to others

  * •

Understand, Analyze, and Create: Write about a new scientific discovery

Additionally, students, both in survey responses and interviews, demonstrated
a broader understanding of how people can be involved with science – an
expansion of students’ prior conception that only active researchers, who
pursue STEM as a career, can engage meaningfully with scientific knowledge.
Often, the conceptualization of what it means to be “involved” with science is
extremely limited to those who are active practitioners within
professionalized scientific careers (that is, those practicing science as
their main job), and students are aware of few in-roads to further engagement
with science beyond science as a profession (Avraamidou & Schwartz, 2021). The
quotes in Section 3.5.4 illustrate that this course, including exposure to
science writing and more explicit discussions about how science works, may
have been able to broaden student knowledge and awareness of varying levels of
engagement with STEM (e.g. as a career, citizen science projects, amateur
astronomy, writing and journalism, consuming news) that are available as valid
options in their lives. Students seem to see engagement with science, from the
citizen/non-professional point-of-view, as a meaningful part of science – an
attitude that science communication and citizen science efforts try to foster
(Bonney et al., 2016; Williams, 2000; Azevedo & Mann, 2018; Ibrahim, 2015).

Determinations of the level of the change in student engagement (e.g. no
interest vs. appreciation of news, passing interest vs. career) are currently
limited by the data collected, but could be probed in future work. It will be
important to consider what our goals are for students’ engagement levels,
since we can not (and should not) aim to convert everyone to a STEM major or
career; it is also worth articulating exactly what we hope to gain with
increased engagement, and this should be considered in future discussions and
investigations.

###  4.2 How: The Roles of Ethics, Communication, Individuals, and Opinion in
Science

Takeaway # 2: Writing-focused science education creates students who are
better prepared to deal with science in a real-world context by emphasizing
important “soft” skills used both in research and research-adjacent outreach
work. By discussing ethics, effective communication, and the agency available
to individual scientists, students gain a more comprehensive understanding of
work in and around science and develop new ideas about the skills and norms of
an ideal scientist.

In this course, students were exposed to a variety of careers related to
science beyond the pure research scientist jobs they are used to seeing
represented (e.g. teaching, outreach, writing, policy, etc.). Within the
scientific community, communication is increasingly well-established as a
critical skill for scientists (Fleming, 2009), but even in studies of student
perceptions of STEM jobs, these roles are not taken into consideration
(Christensen et al., 2014). After this course, students reported an expanded
view of the different skillsets and roles it takes to make “science” happen,
and they noticed the importance of communication – both within scientific
communities and between scientists and the general public. Another interesting
observation by a student was that they no longer saw science as a monolithic
institution, but instead understood that there are individual people at work –
all with their own opinions and even goals – working collaboratively.

Students also didn’t list ethics or communication as traits of
science/scientists before the class, but they did after – this is an
interesting change, and additional evidence of students building their
understanding of science in context and recognizing that science is political
(Brown & Malone, 2004; Ball, 2021), which is crucially important. For students
to be able to critically approach science as it appears in their lives and
become active and informed citizens, they must gain a greater understanding of
the human elements of science, including ethics, politics, and science
communication (Backhaus, 2019; Hodson, 2003; Elgin, 2011; Feinstein et al.,
2013). Some programs are already incorporating this sort of discussion
explicitly in Science-Technology-Society (STS) programs (Han & Jeong, 2014),
such as the Human Biology and Society undergraduate major at UCLA (UCLA, 2022)
and the Science Technology and Society Studies graduate certificate at the
University of Washington (UW, 2022), but this investigation shows that
science-writing-focused pedagogy can provide a platform for exploring these
topics through discussion. Discussions of the role of science communication in
science and public discourse were provoked by lessons on audience (who we’re
writing for in different genres, e.g. research papers vs. magazine articles),
whereas conversations on ethics (for science journalists, scientists, and
other stakeholders) and politics came about when reading recent science news
articles critically as examples of good writing.

###  4.3 Why: Science Writing as Active and Experiential Learning

Takeaway # 3: Writing-focused science education enhances learning because it
is active and experiential, immersing students in a real-world task and
requiring significant and meaningful engagement.

Active learning strategies – wherein students must actively engage in tasks
related to their learning, instead of passively receiving information – have
been repeatedly proven to be beneficial to student learning and concept
mastery (Ritchhart et al., 2011; Zayapragassarazan & Kumar, 2012; Chickering &
Gamson, 1987; Prince, 2004). Writing is an extremely active form of learning,
requiring research skills, synthesis, and self-directed inquiry (Hamdan*,
2005), and writing exercises have been shown to be an effective strategy for
active learning (Linton et al., 2014; Butler et al., 2001). Similarly, peer
learning has been demonstrated as an effective tool for increasing student
learning (Hamilton-Hinch et al., 2021), and writing-to-learn is an established
strategy in writing pedagogy (Ackerman, 1993; Rivard, 1994; Bangert-Drowns et
al., 2004). The use of writing, both in writing-to-learn activities and more
polished journalism activities, in this course seems to have positively
affected student learning of the content as well.

Additionally, journalism / science writing assignments are relevant, real-
world tasks that connect to aspirational goals (e.g. publishing an article)
beyond the course; real-world assignments and incorporating recent discoveries
are both effective strategies for increasing student engagement in the
classroom (Nieves, 2020; Eales & Laksana, 2016; Laware & Walters, 2004;
Wollschleger, 2019). Reading news articles critically is also a real-world
task, one that we hope students carry through their lives – this is the crux
of science literacy, and especially by talking about current events, they know
that their classwork is relevant.

###  4.4 Why: Science Writing as a “Relatable” Entryway for Humanities
Students

Takeaway # 4: Writing-focused science education enhances learning because it
relates otherwise seemingly irrelevant/unapproachable material to the primary
work of a non-STEM major / someone who does not wish to pursue a career in
science.

There are a number of well-known challenges in introductory STEM courses. One
of these challenges is that humanities students sometimes see science as just
fulfilling a requirement, and are therefore not that invested. Increasing
student buy-in (Cavanagh et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2021) and demonstrating
the relevance (Stuckey et al., 2013; Newton, 1988; Frymier & Shulman, 1995) of
the content are key issues in motivating students in class. Student comments
on their perceptions of the relevance of science to their lives are discussed
earlier in Section 3.2, but relevance of course content is a different issue
than their absolute interpretation of the relevance of science. Even science
content, otherwise possibly irrelevant to their lives, can be made relevant
with effective teaching techniques, such as incorporating current events and
research. This investigation shows that science-related writing instruction
may be another avenue to increase relevance; students report feeling that they
are still gaining valuable skills in reading, writing, and critically
interpreting science-related current events, even if they are learning content
that is not directly related to their careers or aspirations.

Additionally, since science is often framed as opposition to humanities, there
exists an aura of fear/intimidation around STEM fields for many who see
themselves as “non-scientists.” By incorporating writing – something students
are familiar with – into science courses, we can reduce that barrier to entry.
Student familiarity to some part of the task at hand can improve learning
outcomes and motivation (Soppe et al., 2005). In this study, students do in
fact report feeling that this course was more “relatable” or “approachable”
than other STEM courses, indicating that the approach may be beneficial for
introductory science courses and may make a larger or more lasting impact on
student learning of science content and especially their attitudes towards
science.

##  5 Conclusions

After a quarter-long writing-intensive introductory science course, the
culmination of a year-long GE course, student attitudes towards astronomy
improved in multiple ways – an increased perception of the benefits of
science, a more nuanced and modern view of science as a field and scientists
as people, and greatly increased confidence and belief in their own ability to
engage with science. In interviews, students expressed directly that the
science writing instruction was critical to their engagement and learning,
essentially forcing them to develop a greater understanding of the material
and helping them find purpose in course content through tasks that were both
relevant to the real-world (e.g. interpreting science news) and relevant to
their humanities-focused majors and prospective career paths.

Overall, this qualitative study explored the effects of science writing on
non-STEM major introductory students, and found that there were many positive
impacts, adding evidence to the idea that interdisciplinary pedagogy including
a focus on writing skills is useful for not only science majors, but also
students learning about science who do not plan to pursue a STEM career. This
is a first step towards gathering evidence for exploring and expanding writing
pedagogy in science coursework, particularly in physics and astronomy where
communication training is often absent. This course helped foster many
desirable attitudes in students which point towards increased science literacy
and breaking down stereotypes of scientists, and the following investigation
provided evidence that discipline-based writing pedagogy in STEM courses has
benefits and should be explored further with research and pedagogical
interventions.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation
Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 2021-25 DGE-2034835. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the authors(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the National Science Foundation. This study was conducted with a UCLA IRB
Exemption Certificate IRB#22-000440. Thank you to UCLA CIRTL for your support
and guidance throughout this “Teaching as Research” project. Thanks to Sophie
Bartlett and David McKinnon for providing further information on the ASSA and
its interpretations. B. Lewis would also like to thank Laurel Westrup, Peggy
Davis, Liz Galvin, and Greg Rubinson for their mentorship and motivation to
study science writing in her discipline, and thanks to Casey Shapiro for
guidance with regards to IRB approval.

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