About

Marilyne Stains is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Virginia with a focus on chemical education research. Her work aims to enhance students’ outcomes by unpacking postsecondary instructors’ practices, with a particular emphasis on evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) that promote conceptual understanding and positive attitudes toward STEM. Her research addresses the challenge of fostering effective instructional reform on a national scale by exploring faculty knowledge, instructional practices, and the influence of departmental and institutional factors on teaching decisions. She is specifically interested in developing new methods to characterize instructional practices in STEM college classrooms, understanding how faculty and teaching assistants think about their teaching, and evaluating the impact of pedagogical professional development programs. Her research group contributes to discipline-based education research (DBER) and seeks to improve undergraduate science education, especially among women and underrepresented groups, to support workforce development and diversify the scientific community.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Mathematics education
• Psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Medical education
• Medicine
• Physics
• Social psychology
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Balancing Equity in General Chemistry Laboratory Courses: The Complex Impact of Specifications Grading on Student Success and Opportunity Gaps

  JACS Au · 2025-05-19 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Specifications grading has been proposed as an alternative grading method to better promote student success over traditional grading schemes. Within the chemistry community, specifications grading has been growing in popularity over the past decade as demonstrated by the rise of publications and conference talks. While several studies describe shifts in the final grade distribution as a result of the implementation of specifications grading, no study explores the differential impact on students of different social identities. In this study, we analyze over 9700 final course grades of a year-long general chemistry laboratory course under both traditional and specifications grading schemes. Data are analyzed by individual student's social identities (i.e., gender, generation status, underrepresented minority status, and transfer student status) and students' intersectional identities. Our results are mixed and conflicting. More systemically minoritized students pass these courses with high grades under specifications grading, but opportunity gaps between systemically minoritized students and their systemically advantaged counterparts remain. The results of this implementation show that the impact of specifications grading on students is complex and that much still needs to be understood about students' experiences with different grading schemes and their impact.

  PublisherDOI

• Unlocking Instructors’ Assessment Insights: General Chemistry Instructors’ Perspectives on Types of Questions and their Classroom Application

  Journal of Chemical Education · 2025-09-03

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Assessment communicates to students the takeaways from a course. Unfortunately, studies have demonstrated that assessment in general chemistry courses typically includes lower-cognitive demand questioning, such as recalling information and calculation-based questions. To support chemistry instructors' inclusion of higher-cognitive demand questions, chemistry education researchers have developed research-based assessment tools (e.g., Three-Dimensional Learning -3DL - and concept inventory). However, previous reports have highlighted a low uptake of these tools. To explore the reasons behind this slow adoption, instructors' thinking about these types of assessment tools should be probed. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 general chemistry instructors to explore whether and how instructors would use four different types of multiple-choice questions, including a standard conceptual question, a calculation-based question, a 3DL question, and a concept inventory-type question in their courses' exam/midterm, homework, and/or in-class activity. Instructors in this study were interested in using the research-based assessment tools in at least one assessment context (i.e., home, in-class, or exam). The most common modification described by the instructors across the four types of questions was shifting the format from close to open-ended as it allows instructors to better understand student thinking and can promote better conversations among students in class settings. Finally, the analysis of interviews shows variations in instructors' expectations for the cognitive demand of questions on exams. Taken together, these findings suggest a need to further probe instructors' assessment literacy to inform the development of professional development programs and policies that would support higher-quality assessment in general chemistry courses.

  PublisherDOI

• Why chemistry instructors are shifting to specifications grading: perceived benefits and challenges

  Chemistry Education Research and Practice · 2025-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Previous research extensively explored factors that are associated with instructors’ adoption of evidence-based instructional practices. However, an overlooked yet important aspect is exploring instructors’ motivation for implementing pedagogical innovations that are seemingly popular yet lack evidence of effectiveness. One such innovation that is gaining attention in postsecondary chemistry education is specifications grading, which aims to emphasize the learning process while mitigating some of the drawbacks of traditional grading. This study aims to provide insights into chemistry instructors’ decision to adopt specifications grading. In particular, we interviewed 29 chemistry instructors from 24 academic institutions in the United States who currently use this alternative grading scheme. The goal of these semi-structured interviews was to characterize these instructors’ perceptions of the advantages of specifications grading, their potential dissatisfaction with traditional grading, and potential challenges associated with implementing specifications grading in their courses. Our results indicate that instructors adopted specifications grading as a means to address their dissatisfaction with traditional grading. The commonly cited relative advantages of specifications grading include a perception that specifications grading increases student learning gains and provides greater flexibility for students. These findings provide insights into the dissemination strategy of innovation, highlighting a need for direct alignment between perceived advantages of pedagogical innovations to instructors’ dissatisfaction and instructors’ expressed real-world needs and aspirations for their classroom.

  PublisherDOI

• Aligning graduate chemistry training with diverse career paths: insights from student perceptions of valued skills

  Chemistry Education Research and Practice · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Chemistry graduate programs have often been criticized for their perceived overemphasis on preparing students for academic research careers, overlooking the broad range of professional skills necessary in other career sectors. This disparity highlights a need to examine the alignment of skill development in chemistry graduate programs with the varied demands of different career sectors. Further empirical evidence is needed to understand how professional skills are currently being valued and developed in chemistry graduate programs. This study is guided by socialization theory, which serves as a framework for understanding how graduate students acquire the values, attitudes, norms, knowledge, and skills necessary to perform in a professional role. This qualitative investigation examines the perceptions and experiences of 33 chemistry doctoral students from 10 doctorate-granting institutions in the United States to identify how professional skills are valued and developed in chemistry doctoral programs. This study aims to understand not only why graduate students value certain skills, but also how they perceive these skills are valued within their programs. Additionally, this work explores the experiences that shape the professional skill development of chemistry doctoral students. Findings suggest that students personally value professional skills based on their perceived importance for success within their program or future careers. Students’ perceptions of the value of professional skills held by community members (group members and department members) were heavily influenced by the presence of formal development opportunities.

  PublisherDOI

• Characterization of physics and astronomy assistant professors’ reflections on their teaching: can they promote engagement in instructional change?

  Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research · 2024-04-17 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The development of reflective practitioners is one of four dominant change strategies in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) higher education literature. However, little research concerns the characterization of faculty’s reflections. Before professional development programs can effectively incorporate reflective writings as a tool for pedagogical improvement, it is necessary to first understand the current state of faculty’s reflections. To accomplish this goal, 98 physics and astronomy instructors were recruited from a teaching-focused professional development workshop and were asked to write a reflection on a self-identified challenging teaching experience. A combination of a priori coding to analyze the content and depth of the reflections, as well as in vivo coding to better capture instructors’ thinking were utilized. The majority of instructors wrote low-level reflections, wherein connections were not made between an instructors’ actions and the observed outcomes or the described experience was not centered on students’ outcomes or educational research literature. Approximately half of the instructors contemplated their own growth and the relationships with their students. However, only a small minority of instructors considered larger societal, cultural, or ethical factors. Plans created by instructors to address future, similar situations heavily relied on the instructors themselves, regardless of the depth of their reflections, and few planned to seek out knowledge from other resources such as peers or the education literature. This study indicates that instructors may not engage in the types of reflection that are considered to promote meaningful instructional change. Trends in the instructors’ plans show that ongoing support is necessary for them to effectively reflect and grow as practitioners. Overall, this work provides valuable insight into the poorly understood nature of faculty’s reflections and showcases the need for more research to fully characterize reflections across STEM disciplines and to better inform professional development.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A National Snapshot of Introductory Chemistry Instructors and Their Instructional Practices

  Journal of Chemical Education · 2024-03-13 · 25 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The effectiveness of active learning on promoting students' academic outcomes and persistence has been established in the literature. However, despite the effort of purposeful change agents, the uptake of active learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is slow. While previous research from the chemistry education community has provided insights into the implementation of specific active learning strategies across the United States, the extent to which chemistry instructors leverage these strategies in general remains unknown. This article presents the results of a national survey aimed at exploring introductory chemistry instructors' knowledge and implementation of active learning, variations on this knowledge, and use across tenure statuses and institution types. This paper also aims to address the gap in the literature in our understanding of the characteristics of instructors of these courses. We thus provide a description of instructors' demographics, training, teaching experience, and teaching responsibilities. Our findings reveal that instructors in these courses are prominently males of European descent. Additionally, instructors come into their teaching position with minimal pedagogical training and participate mainly in short training once in their position. While the majority of instructors have knowledge of specific active learning strategies, their consistent implementation remains limited, with lecturing still being the instructional practice of choice. Variations were found between institution types and across tenure statuses within institutions in terms of pedagogical training, use of specific active learning strategies, and proportion of class time spent lecturing. The findings provide a baseline for future studies that aim to assess the effectiveness of interventions fostering the implementation of active learning in introductory chemistry courses and highlight the critical need for improved communication about teaching practices across institutions and tenure statuses.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• STEM department chairs’ perspectives on navigating teaching culture to influence instructional change: a four-frames model analysis

  Frontiers in Education · 2024-07-23 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Academic departments have been highlighted as key targets to sustainably transform the learning environments of postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses in the United States. Despite STEM department chairs playing a critical role in shaping their unit, few studies have characterized how chairs view the teaching culture within their department and how cultural features influence instructional change. This study addressed this gap by applying the four-frames model for organizational change to analyze interviews conducted with 14 STEM department chairs at one research-intensive institution in the United States. The department chairs identified several challenges to supporting and advancing teaching culture. These challenges were mostly related to the structures and symbols frames and included an institutional emphasis on research over teaching, inadequate methods to evaluate effective teaching, and weak teaching feedback mechanisms available to faculty. The chairs also described how they leverage their power to affect people and thereby influence the teaching culture. For example, they strategically position teaching as an important aspect of the departmental culture during hiring processes and elevate certain groups of faculty who have demonstrated interest and efficacy in teaching. This study contributes to the literature by providing a rich description of the teaching culture in STEM departments at a research-intensive institution from the perspective of department chairs. This unique focus on department chairs helps identify opportunities for instructional reforms that are grounded in the reality of the departmental environment and provides a framework for considering how change might occur in STEM departments at research-intensive institutions. The opportunities identified emphasize the importance for department chairs to consider and leverage all four frames to enact instructional change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Why do we assess students? investigating general chemistry instructors’ conceptions of assessment purposes and their relationships to assessment practices

  Chemistry Education Research and Practice · 2024-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Assessment plays a critical role in instruction and curriculum. Existing literature on instructors’ assessment practices and related factors has been intensively focused on primary and secondary education. This study extended the contexts of previous literature to post-secondary chemistry education by exploring general chemistry instructors’ conceptions of assessment purposes and their assessment practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 general chemistry instructors from 14 institutions across the East Coast region of the United States of America. The results demonstrate that instructors predominately perceive the purpose of Assessment of Learning ( i.e. , evaluation of student performance) with only few of them mentioning purposes of Assessment for Learning ( i.e. , assessment provides actionable feedback for both the instructors and the students) and Assessment as Learning ( i.e. , assessment promotes self-regulation). The use of various assessment practices is related to the number of assessment purposes instructors recognize. In addition, the study demonstrates that instructors perceive their assessment practices to be influenced by academic culture and departmental norms. This nuanced understanding can guide practical and research efforts to improve chemistry instructors’ engagement in assessment reforms.

  PublisherDOI

• Students’ Perceptions of Specifications Grading: Development and Evaluation of the Perceptions of Grading Schemes (PGS) Instrument

  Journal of Chemical Education · 2024 · 16 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Mathematics education
  • Computer Science

  Instructional reforms of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses in higher education have primarily focused on instructors' teaching practices. While this area has been well explored, other areas of instructional reform lag. One such broad area is assessment and evaluation, which includes grading schemes. In recent years, alternative grading schemes and movements have increased in popularity. Within chemistry, specifications grading is favored. Specifications grading has been proposed as an alternative grading scheme to address the reported flaws of the traditional, 100-point or A–F grading system. Advocates for specifications grading expect increases in students' motivation to learn, grading transparency, and reductions in stress. However, empirical investigations testing these hypothesized outcomes are rare. To empirically test the hypothesized outcomes of specifications grading, we developed the Perceptions of Grading Schemes (PGS) instrument, which explores students' perceptions of the implementation of specifications grading as compared to a traditional grading scheme experienced in other STEM courses. We analyze the psychometric properties of the PGS instrument data from students enrolled in a specifications-graded, year-long general chemistry laboratory course. Analyses demonstrate good data-model fit through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and high reliability of the instrument subscales, indicating that the instrument functions well with students in specifications-graded courses. Data suggest that implementations of specifications grading may not be achieving all of the hypothesized student outcomes.

  PublisherDOI

• Characteristics of departments with high-use of active learning in introductory STEM courses: implications for departmental transformation

  International Journal of STEM Education · 2024-02-12 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Background It is well established in the literature that active learning instruction in introductory STEM courses results in many desired student outcomes. Yet, regular use of high-quality active learning is not the norm in many STEM departments. Using results of a national survey, we identified 16 departments where multiple instructors reported using high levels of active learning in their introductory chemistry, mathematics, or physics courses. We conducted interviews with 27 instructors in these 16 departments to better understand the characteristics of such departments. Results Using grounded theory methodology, we developed a model that highlights relevant characteristics of departments with high use of active learning instruction in their introductory courses. According to this model, there are four main, interconnected characteristics of such departments: motivated people, knowledge about active learning, opportunities, and cultures and structures that support active learning. These departments have one or more people who are motivated to promote the use of active learning. These motivated people have knowledge about active learning as well as access to opportunities to promote the use of active learning. Finally, these departments have cultures and structures that support the use of active learning. In these departments, there is a positive feedback loop that works iteratively over time, where motivated people shape cultures/structures and these cultures/structures in turn increase the number and level of commitment of the motivated people. A second positive feedback loop was found between the positive outcome of using active learning instruction and the strengthening of cultures/structures supportive of active learning. Conclusions According to the model, there are two main take-away messages for those interested in promoting the use of active learning. The first is that all four components of the model are important. A weak or missing component may limit the desired outcome. The second is that desired outcomes are obtained and strengthened over time through two positive feedback loops. Thus, there is a temporal aspect to change. In all of the departments that were part of our study, the changes took at minimum several years to enact. While our model was developed using only high-use of active learning departments and future work is needed to develop the model into a full change theory, our results do suggest that change efforts may be made more effective by increasing the robustness of the four components and the connections between them.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Evaluating the Uptake of Research-Based Instructional Strategies in Undergraduate Chemistry, Mathematics, & Physics

  NSF · $72k · 2017–2020

• Collaborative Research: Evaluating the Uptake of Research-Based Instructional Strategies in Undergraduate Chemistry, Mathematics, & Physics

  NSF · $39k · 2019–2022

• WIDER: EAGER: Evidence-Based Instructional Practices in Action: Enhancing Exemplary Teaching at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

  NSF · $300k · 2012–2015

• CAREER - The Winding Roads to Effective Teaching: Characterizing the Progressions in Instructional Knowledge and Practices of STEM Faculty

  NSF · $960k · 2016–2020

• CAREER - The Winding Roads to Effective Teaching: Characterizing the Progressions in Instructional Knowledge and Practices of STEM Faculty

  NSF · $446k · 2019–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Andrew L. Feig

  65 shared

• Jodi L. Wesemann

  University of Toledo

  65 shared

• Peter K. Dorhout

  Iowa State University

  64 shared

• Philip W. Hammer

  Johns Hopkins University

  64 shared

• K. S. Bjorkman

  University of Toledo

  64 shared

• Jennifer L. Ross

  Syracuse University

  64 shared

• Rigoberto Hernandez

  Johns Hopkins University

  64 shared

• Ashley Donovan

  American Chemical Society

  64 shared

Awards & honors

• PECASE (2019)
• ACS Women Chemists Committee Rising Star award (2019)
• NSF CAREER award (2016)