The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology points out that students from historically marginalized groups are not well represented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Specifically, individuals from historically marginalized groups account for only 7.6% of researchers in doctorate-granting research universities. Efforts have been taken to increase the proportion of women and historically marginalized groups in STEM departments through a top-down administrative approach. However, these efforts often ignore individual departments' unique climate, thus leading to ineffective interventions for achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion within each unique community. To support departments in building more inclusive academic climates, we developed the Departmental Climate around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DCaDEI) survey. In this presentation, following the <i>Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing</i>, we will describe how we gathered evidence that the DCaDEI allows one to make valid and reliable inferences. The survey was completed by 601 graduate students and postdoc fellows across three years from the same chemistry department within a research-intensive university<i>. </i>The preliminary results from the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis indicate that four factors emerged from the data: advisor support for research advice, advisor support for non-research advice, sense of belongings to the department, and department efforts to achieve DEI. Additionally, reliability evidence was gathered through Cronbach’s alpha, and it demonstrates that the data collected with DCaDEI is sufficiently reliable for interpretation. Future research will be conducted to expand the sample size across different departments to gain more insights into the development of the survey instrument, and utilize the survey results to support STEM departments in building a more inclusive academic climate.

Design and evaluation of the Departmental Climate around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DCaDEI) survey

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