This study examines engineering students’ self-reported learning outcomes by their gender, race/ethnicity, and the intersections of gender and race/ethnicity. This study focuses on the relationship between students’ pre-college characteristics and their learning outcomes.
Current Selections
ClearPathway to a Baccalaureate in STEM Fields: Are Community Colleges a Viable Route and Does Early STEM Momentum Matter?
1) Does beginning at a community college affect students’ baccalaureate completion and persistence in STEM fields of study at 4-year institutions? 2) To what extent is STEM momentum related to baccalaureate completion and persistence in STEM fields of study at 4-year institutions? 3) To what extent does beginning at a community college influence STEM momentum?
Course-Taking Patterns of Community College Students Beginning in STEM: Using Data Mining Techniques to Reveal Viable STEM Transfer Pathways
This study examines the course-taking trajectories of beginning community college students, and the resulting transfer outcomes as related to STEM. The following question guides this research: What course-taking patterns are most contributive to upward transfer in STEM fields?
The downside of good peers: How classroom composition differentially affects men's and women's STEM persistence
The aim of this study is to understand the differential impact of the number of on-track students in a general chemistry lecture relative to late-track students on STEM completion for men and women.
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Readiness: Ethno-Linguistic and Gender Differences in High-School Course Selection Patterns
1) What are the ethno-linguistic profiles of high school graduates that entered the ESL program in schools in British Columbia at different ages? 2) What are the determinants and correlates of Grade 12 course selecting patterns (CSP) with respect to student gender, ethno-linguistic group, academic history, grade level at entry and achievement history? 3) What student demographics increase the probability that students will choose classes that prepare them for a STEM major? 4) What are the probabilities of CSP by gender and ethnic group status?
Expectancy-Value Models of the STEM Persistence Plans of Ninth-Grade, High-Ability Students: A Comparison Between Black, Hispanic, and White Students
Examine the relationships of demographic and expectancy-value variables with STEM persistence status.
Does it Matter Who Your Schoolmates Are? An Investigation of the Association between School Composition, School Processes and Mathematics Achievement in the Early Years of Primary Education
(1) What are the effects of school composition with regard to prior math achievement, SES, ethnicity and sex on mathematics achievement at the end of the second grade? (2) Are there differential school composition effects? In other words: are all students affected equally by their school composition or are some specific subgroups more sensitive to their school composition than others? (3) Do certain school processes mediate the association between school composition and mathematics achievement at the end of the second grade?
What Matters in College for Retaining Aspiring Scientists and Engineers from Underrepresented Racial Groups
Among students who started college with an interest in majoring in a STEM field, does a student’s race contribute significantly to the chances that he or she will follow through on these intentions? If so, are the effects of race moderated by high school academic preparation and/or key college experiences? If there are racial disparities in persistence rates after controlling for pre-college student characteristics, what are the college factors that contribute to the persistence of under represented racial minority (URM) students? What college experiences and institutional characteristics significantly predict the likelihood that a URM student will follow through on his or her intentions to pursue a degree in STEM?
Student perceptions of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) content and careers
1) Are STEM dispositions of high school science and mathematics students more similar to those of their generational peers or those of STEM professionals? 2) Are STEM dispositions or career interests different for disaggregation attributes such as gender, year in the academy, size of school, or ethnicity? 3) What are the primary influences reported by academy students for their interest in STEM careers?
Peer Effects in Urban Schools: Assessing the Impact of Classroom Composition on Student Achievement
This study evaluates the effects of classroom peers on standardized testing achievement for all third- and fourth-grade students in the Philadelphia School District over 6 school years.
The High School Environment and the Gender Gap in Science and Engineering
Extend existing explanations for gender differences in plans of pursuing STEM degrees and examine the role of the high school context.
Pathways to Science and Engineering Bachelor’s Degrees for Men and Women
How would the gender gap in S/E degrees
change if women had the same orientation
toward and preparation for S/E in middle school
and at the end of high school?
Breaking it Down: Engineering Student STEM Confidence at the Intersection of Race/Ethnicity and Gender
This study examines social cognitive influences on engineering student STEM confidence, with a particular focus on women and underrepresented minorities.
Compositional Effects, Segregation and Test Scores: Evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
How is the expected test score of an average student predicted by the economic and/or ethnic composition of her or his school?
How Do Academic Achievement and Gender Affect the Earnings of STEM Majors? A Propensity Score Matching Approach
This study examines how the earnings benefits of choosing a STEM major vary both by gender and across the distribution of academic achievement, accounting for the selection into college major using propensity score matching. The purpose of this study is to estimate the earnings gap between STEM and non-STEM majors both across gender and across the distribution of achievement test scores. These estimates improve our understanding of the relationship between STEM major choice and early labor-market earnings, and how this relationship varies across gender.
Persistence and Performance for Latino Community College Students in STEM Majors
1) Do coaching intervention models in STEM courses contribute to student semester-to-semester persistence for Latino community college students who participate in these courses, when compared to students who don’t participate? 2) Do Latino community college students who participate in college STEM courses with coaching intervention models perform better, as measured by final course GPA, when compared to students who do not participate?
Cohort changes in the relationship between adolescents' family attitudes, STEM intentions and attainment
1) Are family attitudes less likely to constrain young women’s STEM intentions and attainment in the 1990s, as compared to the 1970s? 2) Alternatively, did the effect of family attitudes become less gendered during this period, such that family attitudes constrained both women’s and men’s STEM intentions and attainment among the 1992 cohort?
Racial Segregation and the Black/White Achievement Gap, 1992 to 2009
H1:As black/white school dissimilarity increase, the black/white achievement gap increases H2:As exposure of black students to white students increases, the black/white achievement gap decreases H3: As exposure of black students to other minority students increases, the black/white achievement gap increases or remains stable H4: As black students become increasingly isolated by themselves, the black/white achievement gap increases.
Comparing Composition Effects in Two Education Systems: The Case of the Belgian Communities
What factors explain the achievement gap between Belgiums two major linguistic communities : French and Dutch ?
College Student Pathways to the STEM Disciplines
1) What individual and school-level factors influence students pathways to STEM fields during college? 2) What institutional factors affect students’ likelihood of majoring in a STEM field in college, controlling for differences in student characteristics?
Supporting Future Scientists: Predicting Minority Student Participation in the STEM Opportunity Structure in Higher Education
Researches STEM persistence by identifying the educational experiences and institutional contexts that contribute to student access and involvement in the opportunity structure. The STEM opportunity structure are extracurricular and co-curricular activities that boost performance within STEM majors.
STEM Club Participation and STEM Schooling Outcomes
This study evaluates how math club participation influences math GPA and how science club participation influences science GPA. Additionally, this study evaluates how math or science club participation associates with the probability of selecting a STEM major in college.
Examining the Tracks that Cause Derailment: Institutional Contexts and Engineering Degree Attainments
1) What factors contribute to completing an engineering degree within five years? 2) What factors contribute to students switching out of the engineering program?
Predicting High School Students' Interest in Majoring in a STEM Field: Insight into High School Students' Postsecondary Plans
This study examined how various individual, family, and school level contextual factors impact the likelihood of planning to major in one of the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields for high school students.
Choosing an Undergraduate STEM Major: Family Socioeconomic Status, Individual, and Institutional Factors
The purpose of this study wasto examine college students’ enrollment decision in STEM majors with a focus on students’ family SES. This study examinedwhether there is systematic association between students’ family SES and their enrollment in STEM majorsand if so, what the direction and magnitude of the association is. The overarching research question that guided this study was: Do the enrollment in STEM majors vary for students with different family SES background? Specifically, this study addressedthe following research questions: (1) Is students’ family SES related to their decision of whether to enroll in a STEM major in college? (2) Does the enrollment decision in STEM fields vary for students with different college investment levels? and (3) Does the enrollment decision in STEM fields vary at institutions with different scales and levels of STEM major offerings?
High School Economic Composition and College Persistence
The authors examine variation in college persistence according to the economic composition of high schools, which serves as a proxy for unmeasured high school attributes that are conductive to postsecondary success.
Does Immigration Affect whether U.S. Natives Major in Science and Engineering?
Does the amount of immigrants have an impact on the amount of U.S. natives that major in STEM?
Gender and ethnic differences in precollege mathematics course work related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pathways
How do students of different ethnicity and gender groups differ in advanced mathematics course-taking and in STEM major choice? What student and school factors can explain these differences? How does high school advanced mathematics course-taking account for disparities in STEM major choice?
Pathways to a STEMM Profession
This analysis focuses on differences in pathways to a science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine
(STEMM) professions.
Pathways to STEMM Professions for Students From Noncollege Homes
This analysis focuses on differences in pathways to a science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine
(STEMM) profession between households in which no parent has a baccalaureate and households in which at least one parent has a baccalaureate.
Trajectories of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering Students by Race and Gender
This paper describes the outcomes for students matriculating in and migrating into electrical engineering (EE) and computer engineering (CpE).
Are Math Readiness and Personality Predictive of First-Year Retention in Engineering?
The current study foci are on both entering scholastic aptitude and affective factors of personality in aiding in the prediction of retention in engineering at the end of the freshman year.
Race, Gender, and Measures of Success in Engineering Education
To examine Engineering majors by race and gender and examine multiple metrics for “success.”
Who Wants to Have a Career in Science or Math? Exploring Adolescents' Future Aspirations by Gender and Race/Ethnicity
The authors investigate how different racial/ethnic and gender subgroups compare to White males in terms of adolescent career aspirations in science and math, further considering the role that achievement and attitudes may play in shaping disparities at this early point in occupational trajectories.
Academic Achievement Among STEM Aspirants: Why Do Black and Latino Students Earn Lower Grades Than Their White and Asian Counterparts?
Identify the institutional and student-level characteristics that significantly impact the cumulative GPA of graduating seniors, in particular those graduating seniors who entered college with an interest in majoring in STEM.
School Desegregation and White Flight Revisited: A Spatial Analysis from a Metropolitan Perspective
Do whites still flee from central city to urban schools? If cross district white flight exists is it related to school desegregation or simply the result of migration to the suburbs? Do whites flee to private schools in the wake of school desegregation policies?