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1.
ABSTRACT

There are a limited number of individuals who possess the skills to fulfill the workforce demand in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) in the United States. Therefore, community colleges and 4-year institutions must be able to identify academic and social factors that impact students’ participation in the areas of STEM. These institutions must also explore the possibility that these factors contribute to the high rate of students switching out of STEM fields. This study’s purpose was to develop a better understanding of the perceptions of community college transfer students who continue at a 4-year institution to determine academic and social factors that influenced their academic success in STEM. To collect the quantitative data, the Laanan-Transfer Students’ Questionnaire was utilized. The results of this study reveal that Academic Adjustment was predicted by father’s highest level of education, interaction with faculty at the community college and university, and perception as a transfer student at the university. The cumulative grade point average (GPA), was predicted by the highest level of education of the father, associate degree obtained at the community college, community college transfer GPA, general courses from the community college, transfer credit hours, and university course learning. Overall, the findings indicate that community colleges and 4-year institutions should encourage students to be connecting more in class and after class—not only with their peers, but also with faculty. Findings also suggest that students should become more involved academically and socially to enhance their academic and social adjustment at a 4-year institution.  相似文献   

2.
In this study, a theoretical model is tested to examine factors shaping the decision to pursue STEM fields of study among students entering community colleges and four-year institutions, based on a nationally representative sample of high school graduates from 2004. Applying the social cognitive career theory and multi-group structural equation modeling analysis, this research highlights a number of findings that may point to specific points of intervention along students’ educational pathway into STEM. This study also reveals important heterogeneity in the effects of high school and postsecondary variables based on where students start their postsecondary education: community colleges or four-year institutions. For example, while high school exposure to math and science courses appears to be a strong influence on four-year beginners’ STEM interest, its impact on community college beginners’ STEM interest, albeit being positive, is much smaller. In addition, college academic integration and financial aid receipt exhibit differential effects on STEM entrance, accruing more to four-year college students and less to those starting at community colleges.  相似文献   

3.
In rural settings, leaving for college can mean a young person's first step in leaving home forever (Sherman & Sage, 2011). That presents a serious challenge for college recruiters as they ask parents from Indian reservations or close-knit Hispanic or rural farming communities to allow their children to consider postsecondary opportunities. In this article, the authors discuss impediments to college-going that rural students face and shine a light on several efforts in central Washington State that help students connect to job opportunities in fast-growing, lucrative STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers in the region. Beyond inviting STEM professionals to job fairs, these efforts can expand opportunities for collaboration between STEM professionals and rural schools and teachers. Such opportunities might include enriching the K–12 curriculum with locally relevant problems of science, using local STEM professionals to collaborate on learning projects, and possibly engaging students to contribute to national databases and studies. These programs represent one way to highlight the real-world application of postsecondary education, encouraging students to pursue STEM college programs and careers.  相似文献   

4.
The objective of this study is to determine if minority and female students are more likely to persist in a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) major when they enroll in classes taught by instructors of their own race or gender. Using data from public 4-year universities in the state of Ohio, I analyze first semester STEM courses to see if the race or gender of the instructor effects persistence of initial STEM majors in a STEM field after the first semester and first year. Results indicate that black students are more likely to persist in a STEM major if they have a STEM course taught by a black instructor. Similar to previous findings, female students are less likely to persist when more of their STEM courses are taught by female instructors.  相似文献   

5.
The underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is problematic given the economic and social inequities it fosters and the rising global importance of STEM occupations. This paper examines the role of the demographic composition of high school faculty—specifically the proportion of female high school math and science teachers—on college students’ decisions to declare and/or major in STEM fields. We analyze longitudinal data from students who spent their academic careers in North Carolina public secondary schools and attended North Carolina public universities. Our results suggest that although the proportion of female math and science teachers at a school has no impact on male students, it has a powerful effect on female students’ likelihood of declaring and graduating with a STEM degree, and effects are largest for female students with the highest math skills. The estimates are robust to the inclusion of controls for students’ initial ability.  相似文献   

6.
Previous research suggests that racial and ethnic disparities in postsecondary STEM outcomes are rooted much earlier in the educational pipeline. One possible remedy to these disparities is participation in early STEM enrichment programs. We examine the impact of MESA, which is an early program that targets socioeconomically disadvantaged students, on outcomes that may lead students down the path to STEM. We analyze three waves of restricted nationally-representative data from the High School Longitudinal Study that trace the STEM progress of more than 25,000 students throughout high school and into their postsecondary careers. Propensity score matching models reveal that MESA participation increases students’ odds of taking AP STEM courses in high school and their aspirations for declaring a STEM major in college. However, these effects are driven primarily by black and white students, respectively. Latino and Asian students remain largely unaffected. A formal sensitivity analysis concludes that these findings are moderately robust to unobserved confounding. The results are also robust to alternative matching schemes. Collectively, the findings suggest that MESA may improve black students’ high school STEM engagement but may have little impact on black and Latino students’ STEM outcomes in college.  相似文献   

7.
Previous research suggests that in classes that take an integrated approach to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, students tend to engage in fulfilling goals of their engineering design challenges, but only inconsistently engage with the related math and science content. The present research examines these inconsistences by focusing on student engagement, or effort, towards math and science concepts while working on an engineering challenge, through the lens of expectancy-value theory. Specifically, we examine how students’ perceptions of the value of math and science and expectancy for success with the math and science relate to the efforts they put towards using math and science while working on engineering challenges. Our results suggest that subjective task value significantly predicts efforts towards both math and science, whereas neither expectancy, nor the interaction between expectancy and value predicted effort. We argue that integrated learning environments need to help students understand how the domains of math, science, and engineering support their work in fulfilling the engineering project design goals. In other words, we argue that we, as educators, must help students to recognise the value of each of the domains addressed within STEM integrated learning environments. This paper discusses strategies for accomplishing this goal.  相似文献   

8.
As careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) continue to grow, so has attention to Algebra 1 enrollment timing that serves as a critical predictor of STEM success. The present study adds to the literature by examining if Algebra 1 enrollment timing from 8th to 9th grade is related to sense of belonging in math, and whether this association changes as a function of the students’ perceived school and math race/ethnic context. To capture the dynamic nature of these contexts, we examined racial/ethnic incongruence, or the difference in the perceived number of same-race/ethnic peers in math class and the school of Black, White, Latino, and Asian students. Mixed effects linear modeling analyses were conducted on a sample of 2,938 participants (46% males; 54% females) who attended 26 racially/ethnically diverse middle schools and who transitioned to 142 public high schools in California. The results showed that enrolling and successfully passing 8th Algebra was protective for sense of belonging but this association depended on students’ race/ethnicity and the racial/ethnic incongruence between the math class and school context. Findings have important implications for math education, teaching, and policy.  相似文献   

9.
Despite the importance of preparing socially responsible graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to address the current state of poverty and inequality, very few studies in higher education have examined the development of STEM students’ outcomes critical to promoting a more equitable society, typically focusing on the impact of one program or course. To address this gap in the literature, this study used frameworks of undergraduate socialization as well as social justice perspectives in STEM education to examine the undergraduate experiences and institutional contexts that predict STEM bachelor’s degree recipients’ development of two democratic educational outcomes seven years after college entry: social agency and values toward conducting research that will have a meaningful impact on underserved communities. The study utilized multilevel modeling on a national longitudinal sample of 6341 STEM bachelor’s degree recipients across 271 institutions. Longitudinal student data from the 2004 Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s (CIRP) Freshman Survey and 2011 Post-Baccalaureate Survey were merged with institutional data from the Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System and CIRP Faculty Surveys. Various undergraduate socialization experiences and institutional contexts were found to predict STEM bachelor’s degree recipients’ democratic educational outcomes, including academic majors, participation in student organizations and research, experiences with faculty, and peer and STEM faculty normative contexts. Implications of the findings for research, policy, and practice are discussed.  相似文献   

10.
Children using robotics for engineering, science, technology, and mathematics (CREST-M) is an ongoing curriculum creation and evaluation project developing math-focused science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum units that incorporate storytelling with math and are designed to be engaging for students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields and to be appropriate for all ability levels including the gifted. This mixed-methods study evaluated one CREST-M unit, The Tale of the Monarchs, aligned to the Common Core State Standards: Mathematics (CCSS-M) for fourth- and fifth-grade fractions while incorporating all aspects of STEM. The unit includes an engineering design loop to help students create and program robots using LEGO WeDo 2.0. Students also use the scientific method in a problem-based learning (PBL) investigation in which they design and conduct experiments. The unit features a comprehensive storyline in which diverse characters solve real-world problems using STEM skills. The curriculum was evaluated through a CCSS-M aligned pre- and post-assessment of students’ understanding of fractions, the Cognitive Abilities Test Screening Form 7 (CogAT 7), and the Draw-a-Scientist pre- and post-assessment. The curriculum led to significant and meaningful gains in math achievement (Cohen’s d = 0.72) consistent for students at multiple ability levels (including high ability) and children from groups traditionally represented in STEM fields as well as those traditionally underrepresented (across gender, race, and socioeconomic status). In addition, the mental models of the career of a scientist that students articulated before the program were markedly more complex and less stereotypical following the program, indicating increased understanding of the career of a scientist.  相似文献   

11.
This exploratory study examines the impact of a collaborative inquiry- and design-based afterschool program on urban high school students’ IT/STEM learning—using information technology (IT) within the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The study used a mixed methods design, involving 77 participants within two cohort groups, each participating in an eighteen-month intervention period. Data were collected from the pre- and post-surveys, analysis of the participants’ IT/STEM projects, external evaluation reports, and follow-up interviews. Findings indicate that the program had a significant impact on students’ technology and IT/STEM skills, frequency of technology use, and understanding of IT use in STEM-oriented fields. Some degree of impact on attitude changes toward IT/STEM and career aspirations in these fields was also in evidence. The study demonstrates that IT/STEM experiences supported through technology-enhanced, inquiry- and design-based collaborative learning strategies have significant impact on urban high school students’ IT/STEM learning. Effect of afterschool programs on attitude changes and IT/STEM-related career aspirations of urban high school students are recommended areas of further investigation.  相似文献   

12.
I study the impacts of a freshman learning community at MIT called the Experimental Study Group (ESG) which has features aligning with the National Academies’ recommendations for expanding the representation and success of women and minorities in STEM fields. I exploit the lottery-based admission system to estimate causal treatment effects. I find no statistically significant effects on academic outcomes for ESG enrollees generally, but women who participate in the program have higher GPAs and complete more credits of coursework. Minority students are more likely to major in math, computer science, or electrical engineering after participating in the program. Though quite noisy, the results are suggestive that women and minorities in STEM may benefit from learning communities.  相似文献   

13.
ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to answer the following two questions: (1) Do significant differences exist in high-school learning experience, interests, self-efficacy, and career aspirations between male and female science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students? (2) Can high-school learning experiences, interests, and self-efficacy significantly predict career aspirations, and do differences exist between male and female STEM students? This study highlighted the gender gap between male and female university students who had already chosen STEM majors with similar academic ability. A total of 407 first-year students were surveyed at a 4-year research university in Taiwan. For the data analysis, a t-test and multiple regression analysis were used, and the findings indicated that male STEM students had greater family support than their female counterparts. The variable of task value could significantly predict STEM career aspirations for both male and female students, whereas the variable of STEM course self-efficacy could only significantly predict that of male students. In conclusion, the findings highlighted that the motivation of task value was a vital factor for predicting STEM career aspirations, whereas the factor of family support was the main gap between male and female STEM students in terms of their high-school learning experiences.  相似文献   

14.
Employing students to market higher education (HE) and widen access is established practice in the United Kingdom and other developed countries. In the United Kingdom, student ambassadors are held to be effective in aspiration and attainment-raising work and cited as ‘role-models’ for pupils. The focus of this paper is student ambassador outreach work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics including medicine) at two contrasting universities. The study deployed ethnography and approaches from across the social sciences to trace and analyse discourses surrounding ambassadors, and to explore their positioning within learning contexts, relationships with pupils and the learning that takes place. Findings indicate that where ambassadors work collaboratively with pupils in contexts with ‘informal attributes’, pupils can identify closely with them. However, in contexts with more ‘formal attributes’, differences, not similarities, are highlighted. Stakeholder interests are found to significantly impact on learning contexts and on ambassadors’ efficacy as HE ‘role-models’.  相似文献   

15.
The United States government recently enacted a number of policies designed to increase the number of American born students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), especially among women and racial and ethnic minorities. This study examines how the earnings benefits of choosing a STEM major vary both by gender and across the distribution of academic achievement. I account for the selection into college major using propensity score matching. Measures of individual educational preferences based on Holland’s theory of career and educational choice provide a unique way to control for college major selection. Findings indicate that the earnings benefit to STEM major choice ranges from 5 to 28 % depending both on academic achievement and on gender and that high-achieving students benefit more from STEM major choice. Further, high achieving men benefit more from STEM majors than high-achieving women. Earnings differences in major choice may play an important role in explaining the underrepresentation of women in STEM major fields, especially among high achieving students.  相似文献   

16.
Expanding and diversifying the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workforce is a national priority. The National Science Foundation is investing efforts at post secondary education institutions to engage individuals who have been historically underrepresented in STEM. This paper investigated the use of strategies to broaden participation in STEM by grantees of NSF’s Advanced Technological Education (ATE), who are primarily located at 2-year colleges. The ATE program focuses on developing and improving technician training programs to prepare students for employment in fields that rely on advanced technologiessuch as nanotechnology, photonics, and mechatronics. A survey, conducted annually by the authors of this study, was used to collect data from ATE grantees on their use and perceptions of strategies to broaden participation in STEM. The findings showed that strategies related to motivation and access to enhance recruitment are more widely used then strategies that improve retention. Respondents identified strategies related to providing financial assistance, mentoring, and conducting outreach activities as the most effective for reaching and engaging underrepresented minority students in academic programs. Despite these perceptions, these strategies seem to be underutilized among this group.  相似文献   

17.
The Peer Enabled Restructured Classroom (PERC) is an instructional innovation developed to address gaps in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in urban high schools. The PERC model changes instruction from teacher led to peer led by bringing peer students into the classroom to lead small-group work. Our study sought to provide empirical evidence in support of the peer-led model as a means of improving STEM learning for tutored students in urban schools. We used propensity score matching to evaluate the innovation's impact on students’ achievement on standardized end-of-course tests in two 9th-grade courses – Integrated Algebra and Biology. Results suggest that by the 2nd year of implementation, enrolment in PERC Biology increased the likelihood of passing. Similar effects were not observed for PERC Integrated Algebra, but when comparing cohorts, we found that the 2nd year was twice as likely to pass as the 1st year. We discuss implications for programme improvement.  相似文献   

18.
We analyze longitudinal data from students who spent their academic careers in North Carolina (NC) public secondary schools and attended NC public universities to investigate the importance of high school racial composition and opportunities to learn in secondary school for choosing a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major. We consider school racial composition and opportunities to learn as contexts that shape students' decisions regarding college majors. Results of cross‐classified hierarchical logistic models indicate that attending schools with predominantly White students is negatively associated with declaring a STEM major and with graduating with a STEM major irrespective of students' own race. The finding suggests that for students in North Carolina, attending racially isolated White high schools is related to a decrease in adolescents' participation in STEM during college.  相似文献   

19.
Internationally there is a need for research that focuses on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education to equip students with the skills needed for a rapidly changing future. One way to do this is through designing engineering activities that reflect real-world problems and contextualise students’ learning of STEM concepts. As such, this study examined the learning that occurred when fifth-grade students completed an optical engineering activity using an iterative engineering design model. Through a qualitative methodology using a case study design, we analysed multiple data sources including students’ design sketches from eight focus groups. Three key findings emerged: first, the collaborative process of the first design sketch enabled students to apply core STEM concepts to model construction; second, during the construction stage students used experimentation for the positioning of lenses, mirrors and tubes resulting in a simpler ‘working’ model; and third, the redesign process enabled students to apply structural changes to their design. The engineering design model was useful for structuring stages of design, construction and redesign; however, we suggest a more flexible approach for advanced applications of STEM concepts in the future.  相似文献   

20.
There is a growing demand for degreed science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals, but the production of degreed STEM students is not keeping pace. Problems exist at every juncture along the pipeline. Too few students choose to major in STEM disciplines. Many of those who do major in STEM drop out or change majors. Females and minorities remain underrepresented in STEM. The success rate of college students who are from low-income background or first-generation students is much lower than that of students who do not face such challenges. Some of those who successfully complete their degree need help in making the transition to the workforce after graduation. A program at Lamar University takes a multidisciplinary approach to addressing these problems. It is designed to recruit, retain and transition undergraduates to careers in STEM, focusing its efforts on five science disciplines and on these “at-risk” students. The program was supported by a 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation and is supported through August 31, 2016 by Lamar University and a grant from ExxonMobil. A formal assessment plan documents the program’s success. The program received an award from the Texas Higher Education Board for its contributions towards Closing the Gaps in Higher Education in Texas. This paper describes the program’s theoretical framework, research questions, methods, evaluation plan, and instruments. It presents an analysis of the results achieved using these methods and implications for improvements to the program resulting from lessons learned.  相似文献   

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