Who's technical?

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Aug 30, 2024

What defines someone as technical? This discussion challenges traditional views on technical skills and emphasizes the impact of diverse backgrounds in tech. It highlights how visual symbols foster community belonging and the importance of social skills alongside cognitive abilities. The conversation critiques outdated hiring practices, urging inclusivity and broader skill recognition. Lastly, it promotes blending creativity with technical know-how for innovative problem-solving, celebrating individual contributions in a nurturing environment.

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ADVICE

Rethink Evaluation Criteria

Challenge your criteria for evaluating candidates and include unusual examples of skills.
This broadens your hiring pool and helps you find candidates with diverse skill sets.

ANECDOTE

Coffee-Making as Problem-Solving

Ashley Juavinett uses a problem-solving question on her program application.
One applicant described their coffee-making process, demonstrating scientific thinking.

ANECDOTE

Hidden Research Project

Cat Hicks helped a student realize the value of a self-directed research project.
The student initially dismissed it as "not real science" because it lacked formal lab experience.

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What makes someone technical? What are our preconceptions about "technical" skills? How do those beliefs influence outcomes, and the success of who we include? Ashley and Cat dig in.

Credits
Ashley Juavinett, host + producer
Cat Hicks, host + producer
Danilo Campos, producer + editor

On Communities of Practice, Ashley has published a paper on the impact of the program she co-directs:

Zuckerman, A. L., Juavinett, A. L., Macagno, E. R., Bloodgood, B. L., Gaasterland, T., Artis, D., & Lo, S. M. (2022). A case study of a novel summer bridge program to prepare transfer students for research in biological sciences. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 4(1), 27. Available here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s43031-022-00067-w

On Ambient Belonging, here is a great representative article that includes the evidence Ashley was sharing about the impact that stereotypical cues can have for women in technical spaces:

Cheryan, S., Plaut, V. C., Davies, P. G., & Steele, C. M. (2009). Ambient belonging: how stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science. Journal of personality and social psychology, 97(6), 1045. PDF here:

https://sparq.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj19021/files/media/file/cheryan_et_al._2009_-_ambient_belonging.pdf

The cogsci paper Cat mentioned is this one: Fendinger, N. J., Dietze, P., & Knowles, E. D. (2023). Beyond cognitive deficits: how social class shapes social cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(6), 528-538.

Here's an article that's a good introduction to Alison Gopnik's Child as Scientist work:
Gopnik, A. (2012). Scientific thinking in young children: Theoretical advances, empirical research, and policy implications. Science, 337(6102), 1623-1627.
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1223416

Cat mentioned Contest Cultures in tech and Field-specific ability beliefs. Here’s Cat’s blogpost on her own research.

This is a study that explores how Contest Cultures lead to exclusion: Vial, A. C., Muradoglu, M., Newman, G. E., & Cimpian, A. (2022). An emphasis on brilliance fosters masculinity-contest cultures. Psychological Science, 33(4), 595-612.

And this study explores the basic dynamics of field-specific ability beliefs and shows their connection to gender inequities in academic disciplines: Leslie, S. J., Cimpian, A., Meyer, M., & Freeland, E. (2015). Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science, 347(6219), 262-265.

Learn more about Ashley:

Learn more about Cat: