51-8 Framework for Measuring Service and Outreach Impact on Women’s Geoscience Identity and Retention

Session: Geoscience Education Research: Methods, Frameworks, and Results from Emerging Scholars

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Declining geoscience enrollment and persistent inequities in representation highlight the need to examine retention factors for underrepresented students. This study explores how service and community engagement influence science identity and belonging among 12 women‑identifying geoscience majors from eight US institutions. Through individual phenomenological interviews coded with grounded theory and interpreted using Carlone and Johnson’s identity framework and Lave and Wenger’s community of practice model, we found that mentorship and outreach activities strengthened performance, recognition, and competence. However, contributions that went unrecognized accrued emotional and logistical burdens. To address this dual dynamic, we theorize that integrating service and outreach into the performance dimension of the Carlone and Johnson science identity framework, alongside measures of unrecognized labor, will serve as a significant predictor of participants’ science identity and retention outcomes. Data collection for the national survey is ongoing to test these relationships and further refine the model. 

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

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