Christen Priddie, a Postdoctoral Scholar who received her Ph.D. in the Higher Education program, has won the Bobby Wright Dissertation of the Year Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education. 

Priddie said her reaction to winning the award was pure shock.

“When I was writing my dissertation, I did not necessarily think that it would be acknowledged beyond the defense day. When you're in the midst of writing, you usually are focused on just making sure it is finished so to receive this prestigious honor has been a welcomed surprise,” she said.

Priddie’s dissertation, "A Pathway Toward Cultural Relevance: A QuantCrit Analysis of Collaborative Learning Experiences for Black STEM Students through an Anti-Blackness Lens,” focused on the collaborative learning experiences of Black students in STEM majors in higher education. Before she started her dissertation, Priddie had heard anecdotally that Black students tend to be more isolated within group work in the classroom and wanted to explore this experience more concretely and within a developed understanding about how college STEM environments can be harmful for Black students.

“In addition to the content area, I conduct the majority of my research using quantitative methods and I wanted my dissertation to use quantitative methods to really dig into race, racism and anti-blackness within STEM education,” she said. “Critical quantitative methodologies are up and coming in higher education research, and I wanted my dissertation to serve as a guide for how other scholars could conduct this work with intentionality and care.”

“My research interests generally focus on how we create more equitable environments for Black students within STEM educational spaces in higher education,” Priddie added. “Many STEM education researchers are focused on this issue, but I intentionally focus on Black students because that is an experience I relate to the most. I also focus on Black women's experiences across the higher education landscape. A key component of my research is how I use critical quantitative methodologies to examine these issues.”

Priddie recently had the opportunity to work with Rachel Renbarger on how QuantCrit, which is the connection of Critical Race Theory to quantitative methodologies, can help researchers better examine racially minoritized student experiences in the gifted education field. She and Renbarger combined their different expertises together for this labor of love and recently published an article on their work.

The next step Priddie plans to take in her research is to work with other racially minoritized scholars to study the collaborative learning experiences of other racially minoritized groups: “The way I conducted my dissertation cannot be specifically applied to other groups because I designed every part to center Black students and Black people. Therefore, I would love to work with other scholars who have different cultural expertise than myself to provide scholarly input on how to intentionally design a study for another racially minoritized group.”