Sara and collaborator Sarah Eddy co-wrote a review paper "Beneath the numbers: A review of gender disparities in undergraduate education across science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines." This was published as part of a special collection on Gender in Physics in the journal Physical Review Physics Education Research.
In this article, they review studies on gender disparities across college STEM on measures that have been correlated with retention. These include disparities in academic performance, engagement, self-efficacy, belonging, and identity. They argue that observable factors such as persistence, performance, and engagement can inform researchers about what populations are disadvantaged in a STEM classroom or program, but we need to measure underlying mechanisms to understand how these inequalities arise. They present a framework that helps connect larger sociocultural factors, including stereotypes and gendered socialization, to student affect and observable behaviors in STEM contexts.
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This work was featured in a Nature news article on women in physics.