College Student’s Intellectual and Cultural Transitions While Learning Cosmogony

In 2012, teKnoculture conducted a research project entitled “Intellectual and Cultural Transitions Among Science Students” at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) to test a cultural theory of how students acculturate back and forth from home to society and into science while immersed in a college astronomy and physics learning environment. 

QUESTIONS
Through questionnaires and interviews Reynal Guillen, Ph.D. (formerly at UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center) and Professor Juan Gomez-Quinones (UCLA History) collaborated with UCR Physics and Astronomy Dept. Professor Bahram Mobasher.

• List 5 of your favorite bands/musicians.
• List 5 to 10 of your favorite web sites.
• What zip code (if in the U.S.) or region of a country (if abroad) did you grow up in? Please make note if it is different than your birth place. 
• The National Science Foundation periodically publishes demographics of scientists and engineers, 
• http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/showpub.cfm?SubID=6&TopID=14.  Some ethnic groups are considered underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math when compared with society.  How do you ethnically identify yourself?  Do you describe your ethnicity in different categories than the U.S. Census?
• Do you think of yourself having a lifestyle or culture that is distinct from mainstream America in any way (e.g. music or art subculture, ethnic, socioeconomic, sexual orientation, international, religion, etc.)? If so, please briefly describe up to five differences.
• There are many ways to explain the origin of the universe and life, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths.  Briefly describe your understanding of the origin of life and the universe before entering this course. What sources do you rely on for this information?  Have these views changed from this course’s material? 

RESPONSE
Homework extra credit questions response:   480 (83.7% of 573 students in class)                                            

RESULTS
Results are being drafted for publication at this time.