Jeremy Hsu
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hsubox.bsky.social
Jeremy Hsu
@hsubox.bsky.social
Biology education researcher, teacher, and basketball enthusiast @Chapman University
📚 Bottom line: Office hours have powerful potential—and we can play a major role in helping students understand them and feel welcome to attend.

Read the full work below. Please RT and share this work!
stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10....

7/7
“Asking for help feels like a weakness”: factors shaping first-year students’ expectations of STEM course office hours - International Journal of STEM Education
Background Office hours are one of the most ubiquitous resources for students in STEM courses. However, there has been only limited work examining what students think of STEM course office hours, and ...
stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com
August 5, 2025 at 10:19 PM
2️⃣Invite students early and often! Students reported how frequent reminders made them feel more comfortable and likely to attend.

3️⃣Lower fear of negative evaluation by encouraging all questions, telling students to come listen to others' questions, and inviting students to attend with friends.

6/7
August 5, 2025 at 10:19 PM
📣 This is the first longitudinal study of how new college students perceive STEM course office hours.

💡 Our work leads to a few recommendations for instructors:

1️⃣Clearly explain what office hours are for. For instance, does your syllabus describe what office hours are and their benefits?

5/7
August 5, 2025 at 10:19 PM
🎓 A key finding: familiarity with office hours grows over time, and students who attend office hours overwhelmingly report that the experience is helpful—and that it boosts their self-efficacy (though for more reasons than you might think!).

4/7
August 5, 2025 at 10:19 PM
❌ Misconceptions about office hours:
1️⃣Like an independent study hall
2️⃣Just for struggling students
3️⃣Only useful if students have specific questions ready in advance

We use expectancy-value theory to track how their perceptions and motivations to attend shift across time.

3/7
August 5, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Most first-year students report entering college already familiar with the idea of office hours. But... what they think office hours are for can vary quite a bit. Some expectations are spot-on. Others? Not so much. For instance, we find that many students hold the following misconceptions: 2/7
August 5, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Congrats, Carrie!!!
July 20, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Congrats on the paper - excited to read soon!
July 3, 2025 at 3:20 AM
June 19, 2025 at 2:03 PM
In paper 2️⃣ @dinanewman.bsky.social, several fantastic Bsky-less colleagues, and I examine the influence of Vision & Change and the Promoting Active Learning and Mentoring (PALM) Network on participants' teaching philosophies and strategies. Check out our JMBE ms! 5/5 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
Examining the influence of Vision and Change and a mentoring network on teaching philosophies and strategies | Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
About 15 years ago, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science sponsored a large-scale rethinking of undergraduate biology education, resulting in the 2011 report Vision and Change: A Call to Action (V&C) (1). V&C outlines a set of core concepts and core competencies for biology undergraduates and promotes evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) and undergraduate research (see box 1 in reference 2). The report sparked systematic efforts to increase the use of evidence-based practices and transform undergraduate biology education, including the open-access journal of peer-reviewed teaching resources for undergraduate biology, CourseSource (3–7). In addition, multiple tools for course design aligned with V&C have been published, including the BioCore Guide and the BioSkills Guide (8, 9). Similarly, there have been several implementation frameworks and assessment instruments published that align with V&C (10–13).
journals.asm.org
June 2, 2025 at 4:59 PM
We come up with multiple implications for instructors based on our work - check it out below or in table 3 of our paper! 4/5
June 2, 2025 at 4:59 PM
We also identify that how peers & instructors communicate about OH (both in class and in the syllabus) influences students' perceptions of OH. We also apply the theory of racialized opportunity cost, finding that student and instructor identities can shape students' experiences. 3/5
June 2, 2025 at 4:59 PM
experiences in OH. We apply expectancy value theory, finding that multiple factors shape students' expectancies, values, and costs for attending OH. For instance, many students highlight how their high schools offered OH, shaping their perception of college OH (often incorrectly). 2/5
June 2, 2025 at 4:59 PM