In this special 'Change, Technically: Holidays On The Couch' edition of the podcast, Ashley & Cat discuss their philosophies of measurement and goal tracking, debate the value of data, and ponder the behavioral science of doing the stuff we resolve to do.

Notes:

Cat & Ashley mention this essay: https://issues.org/limits-of-data-nguyen/

Show correction: Ashley wrongly said the Nguyen essay above had reminded her about Goodhart’s Law (the idea that as soon as we measure something, it loses meaning). Rather, she re-discovered it in Calling Bullshit by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin D. West. Ashley’s error explains why Cat was so confused about her comments on the essay, oops. :)

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• analog-ashley.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

Much like open source software, open science is a path to distributed collaboration. By sharing the data from experiments and investigations open and available, scientists can multiply impact and discovery for teams they've never even met.

Our guest, Saskia de Vries, talks to us about her work at the Allen Institute, including accelerating the pace of discovery by making scientific data available to everyone who wants it.

Credits
Saskia de Vries, guest
Ashley Juavinett, host + producer
Cat Hicks, host + producer
Danilo Campos, producer + editor

You can learn more about the Allen Institute on their website: https://alleninstitute.org/

Read some of Saskia's recent thoughts on sharing data in neuroscience here: https://elifesciences.org/articles/85550

The CRCNS open data repository that Saskia mentions: https://crcns.org/

Read about the FAIR principles for scientific data management and stewardship: https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201618 

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• analog-ashley.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

Can creativity mean more for software than productivity? Do we need to let go of “hardcore developer stuff”? Will getting more people to major in computer science fix everything? Ashley and Cat chat with Change, Technically’s first guest star SUE SMITH about developer learning and the future of software teams as technology changes.

Credits
Sue Smith, guest
Ashley Juavinett, host + producer
Cat Hicks, host + producer
Danilo Campos, producer + editor

While not mentioned in the episode, we would be remiss if we did not link you to Sue's illustrated collections of HTTP status codes:

- Golden Girls variant
- Keanu Reeves variant

Cat mentioned this paper by Dr. Natasha Quadlin as an example of how the same achievement information can be interpreted very differently by biased viewers during hiring:

Quadlin, N. (2018). The mark of a woman’s record: Gender and academic performance in hiring. American sociological review, 83(2), 331-360.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0003122418762291

Dr. Quadlin has many fascinating projects on inequality and a book with Brian Powell tackling questions about inequality and college: https://www.russellsage.org/publications/who-should-pay

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• analog-ashley.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

Neuroscience is the hottest STEM field. Why? What does a neuroscientist actually do? Is the brain some mechanically deterministic box configured at birth? Cat knows Ashley has the answers, and now you will, too.

Credits
Ashley Juavinett, host + producer
Cat Hicks, host + producer
Danilo Campos, producer + editor

For an incisive breakdown of “the crimes against dopamine” please read the piece of that title by Mark Humphries.

The myth of mental illness book that Ashley mentioned was written in 1961 and we don’t really think it’s worth reading.

The longitudinal fMRI study that Ashley contributed to while in graduate school: Stewart JL, Juavinett AL, May AC, Davenport PW, Paulus MP (2015) Do you feel alright? Attenuated neural processing of aversive interoceptive stimuli in current stimulant users. Psychophysiology 52:249–262.

This is the Twitter/X account that highlights when a study happens IN MICE: https://x.com/justsaysinmice. And here’s the creator’s motivation: https://jamesheathers.medium.com/in-mice-explained-77b61b598218 

The study that recorded from someone’s brain while they died is Vicente et al. (2022) Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 14. See also this commentary about their claims.

We once again mentioned field-specific ability beliefs. Here’s Cat’s blogpost on her own research.

This study explores the basic dynamics of field-specific ability beliefs and shows their connection to gender inequities in academic disciplines: Leslie, S. J., Cimpian, A., Meyer, M., & Freeland, E. (2015). Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science, 347(6219), 262-265.

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• analog-ashley.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

What makes someone technical? What are our preconceptions about "technical" skills? How do those beliefs influence outcomes, and the success of who we include? Ashley and Cat dig in.

Credits
Ashley Juavinett, host + producer
Cat Hicks, host + producer
Danilo Campos, producer + editor

On Communities of Practice, Ashley has published a paper on the impact of the program she co-directs:

Zuckerman, A. L., Juavinett, A. L., Macagno, E. R., Bloodgood, B. L., Gaasterland, T., Artis, D., & Lo, S. M. (2022). A case study of a novel summer bridge program to prepare transfer students for research in biological sciences. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 4(1), 27. Available here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s43031-022-00067-w

On Ambient Belonging, here is a great representative article that includes the evidence Ashley was sharing about the impact that stereotypical cues can have for women in technical spaces:

Cheryan, S., Plaut, V. C., Davies, P. G., & Steele, C. M. (2009). Ambient belonging: how stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science. Journal of personality and social psychology, 97(6), 1045. PDF here:

https://sparq.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj19021/files/media/file/cheryan_et_al._2009_-_ambient_belonging.pdf

The cogsci paper Cat mentioned is this one: Fendinger, N. J., Dietze, P., & Knowles, E. D. (2023). Beyond cognitive deficits: how social class shapes social cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(6), 528-538.

Here's an article that's a good introduction to Alison Gopnik's Child as Scientist work:
Gopnik, A. (2012). Scientific thinking in young children: Theoretical advances, empirical research, and policy implications. Science, 337(6102), 1623-1627.
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1223416

Cat mentioned Contest Cultures in tech and Field-specific ability beliefs. Here’s Cat’s blogpost on her own research.

This is a study that explores how Contest Cultures lead to exclusion: Vial, A. C., Muradoglu, M., Newman, G. E., & Cimpian, A. (2022). An emphasis on brilliance fosters masculinity-contest cultures. Psychological Science, 33(4), 595-612.

And this study explores the basic dynamics of field-specific ability beliefs and shows their connection to gender inequities in academic disciplines: Leslie, S. J., Cimpian, A., Meyer, M., & Freeland, E. (2015). Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science, 347(6219), 262-265.

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• analog-ashley.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social

What does it take to make STEM work more accessible and effective? Ashley and Cat introduce their work and their values by answering this question.

Credits
Ashley Juavinett, host + producer
Cat Hicks, host + producer
Danilo Campos, producer + editor

Ashley on teaching coding to neuroscientists:

Juavinett, A. L. (2022). The next generation of neuroscientists needs to learn how to code, and we need new ways to teach them. Neuron, 110(4), 576-578.

Zuckerman, A. L., & Juavinett, A. L. (2024, March). When Coding Meets Biology: The Tension Between Access and Authenticity in a Contextualized Coding Class. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 1491-1497). PDF here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3626252.3630966

Sense of Belonging is a widely-studied concept across the psychological sciences. Cat’s work on Developer Thriving includes a measure of Belonging on software teams:

Hicks, C. M., Lee, C. S., & Ramsey, M. (2024). Developer Thriving: four sociocognitive factors that create resilient productivity on software teams. IEEE Software. PDF here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10491133

This recent article provides a helpful commentary, summarizing an impressive collaboration across 22 campuses and 26k+ students: Walton, G. M., Murphy, M. C., Logel, C., Yeager, D. S., Goyer, J. P., Brady, S. T., ... & Krol, N. (2023). Where and with whom does a brief social-belonging intervention promote progress in college?. Science, 380(6644), 499-505. PDF here: https://www.greggmuragishi.com/uploads/5/7/1/5/57150559/walton_et_al_2023.pdf

Mark Appelbaum, Cat’s first stats teacher, had a positive impact on many, many students. You can read about his life here: https://psychology.ucsd.edu/people/profiles/mappelbaum-in-memoriam.html

Schools, Technology and Who gets to Play?

Rafalow, M. H. (2014). The digital divide in classroom technology use: A comparison of three schools. International Journal of Sociology of Education, 3(1), 67-100.

Rafalow, M. H., & Puckett, C. (2022). Sorting machines: digital technology and categorical inequality in Education. Educational researcher, 51(4), 274-278.

Learn more about Ashley:

• https://ashleyjuavinett.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@analog_ashley
• analog-ashley.bsky.social

Learn more about Cat:

• https://www.drcathicks.com/
• https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina
• grimalkina.bsky.social