PRISMATIC Products

Workshop Overview: 

In this interactive workshop, we first describe the context of our work. Second, we discuss best practices and considerations for conceptualizing, designing, conducting, and disseminating higher education research involving LGBTQIA+ participants in STEM education by engaging with materials from our professional development module, developed in 2024 and tested in 2025. We engage our audience in an exploration and discussion of resources developed through PRISMATIC, including critical questions to ask, recommendations for researchers, and scenarios of research situations (informed by real experiences) that raise significant ethical concerns. We emphasize areas of caution or tension and discuss evidence-based responses and suggestions for future research. 

Workshop Audience: 

This workshop is for education researchers and instructors to ensure that research with LGBQTIA+ individuals meets the most ethical and responsible standards, for graduate and undergraduate students who may participate in such research, and for those who review proposals and journal articles involving such research. This workshop is also for members of Institutional Review Boards.

Typical Workshop Structure: 

The initial introduction of the workshop will provide context to the audience members about PRISMATIC, the goals of the community, and the outcomes of the workshops, hybrid conference, and subsequent module development and testing. The presenters will also generally introduce the freely available toolkit to help guide researchers through ethical considerations. After that, audience engagement will be paramount to the workshop. Audience members will work in small groups to talk through a number of scenarios provided by the presenters and available with the toolkit. These scenarios include a variety of issues researchers may encounter, including questions of overall research design, theoretical framework, funding issues, data collection concerns, and dissemination. Audience members will have the opportunity to talk through multiple scenarios, after which there will be time for groups to share out. Next, presenters and audience members will collectively walk through a scenario using the toolkit and consider the questions asked in the toolkit to make decisions for the scenario. The final portion of the workshop will have participants return to their small groups and address a situation one or more of the members may be facing in their own research, and the presenters will circulate the room to engage with each table [or visit Zoom breakout rooms for online workshops], answering questions about the toolkit or the situations participants describe. The remainder of the workshop will allow for general audience questions.

Community Agreements for Workshop Participants include: 

• We are here to learn from each other through discussions about ethical research considerations involving LGBTQIA+ communities.
• We are not here to debate the legitimacy of LGBTQIA+ individuals and their identities, nor the need for vigilance and intentionality for the ethical inclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals in STEM education research.
• Verbal or written harassment or aggressions will lead to individuals being removed from this workshop.

Workshop Options: 

It takes time to learn new information, so we recommend longer workshops to provide more time for participant engagement and interaction. However, through our piloting, we have tested three different lengths (3 hours, 1.5 hours, 1 hour) and can tailor the workshop to fit the time available. We piloted the workshop in online, hybrid, and in-person settings, and can offer the workshop in any of these formats.

Workshop Fees

Please contact us [scimath@unl.edu] to discuss specific fees for your situation. The workshop fees depend on the duration and format of the requested workshop, as well as your anticipated attendance. Our typical fee structure is to have one presenter per 15-20 attendees, $250 per presenter per hour (which includes both the workshop time plus a 30-60 minute meeting with you to discuss particulars and your context/audience and 1-2 hours to tailor the workshop to your context/audience). In-person and hybrid workshop fees will additionally include presenter travel costs.