  Instructional labs are being transformed to better reflect authentic
scientific practice, often by removing aspects of pedagogical structure to
support student agency and decision-making. We explored how these changes
impact men's and women's participation in group work associated with labs
through clustering methods on the quantified behavior of students. We compared
the group roles students take on in two different types of instructional
settings; (1) highly structured traditional labs, and (2) less structured
inquiry-based labs. Students working in groups in the inquiry-based (less
structured) labs assumed different roles within their groups, however men and
women systematically took on different roles and men behaved differently when
in single- versus mixed-gender groups. We found no such systematic differences
in role division among male and female students in the traditional
(highly-structured) labs. Students in the inquiry-based labs were not overtly
assigned these roles, indicating that the inequitable division of roles was not
a result of explicit assignment. Our results highlight the importance of
structuring equitable group dynamics in educational settings, as a gendered
division of roles can emerge without active intervention. As the culture in
physics evolves to remove systematic gender biases in the field, instructors in
educational settings must not only remove explicitly biased aspects of
curricula but also take active steps to ensure that potentially discriminatory
aspects are not inadvertently reinforced.
