Professor The University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas, United States
Introduction: Demographic information about the student populations being studied is needed to identify inequities in current educational programs and the potential effectiveness of novel interventions. For example, unintended impacts on students from disadvantaged backgrounds may be missed if information on students’ backgrounds isn’t routinely collected, reported, and assessed. The goal of this analysis was to examine the frequency of reporting student demographics in biomedical engineering education literature.
Materials and
Methods: We examined papers published in Volume 3 (January 2023 and July 2023 issues) of the journal Biomedical Engineering Education. We determined if each paper reported research on students and, if so, the educational level of the students (e.g., undergraduate). For papers that reported student data, we assessed which student demographics were described and the methods used to collect student demographics. In addition to demographic variables pertinent to the NIH’s interest in diversity (NOT-OD-20-031: race, ethnicity, disabilities, disadvantage background, and gender), we also noted whether sexuality was reported.
Results, Conclusions, and Discussions: Of the 31 papers examined, most reported student data (26/31, 84%) with undergraduate students being the most common student population studied (23/26, 89%). Less than half of the papers reporting student data (10/26 = 39%) included information on student demographics and most papers didn’t state clearly how demographic data were collected. The most reported demographics were gender (6/26 = 23%) and race and/or ethnicity (5/26 = 19%), though race and ethnicity were not typically presented as separate aspects of identity as described in the NIH’s interest in diversity (NOT-OD-20-031). Few of the papers examined reported on student demographics related to disadvantaged backgrounds (2/26 = 8%) and none of the papers examined clearly reported on student demographics relevant to disability or sexuality.
Acknowledgements (Optional): Supported in part by NIH grant T32 EB007507.
