2011 - Academic Achievement Among STEM Aspirants: Why Do Black and Latino Students Earn Lower Grades Than Their White and Asian Counterparts?

Attribution: Sharkness, Jessica, Eagan Jr., Kevin, Hurtado, Sylvia, Figueroa, Tanya, & Chang, Mitchell J.
Researchers: Jessica SharknessKevin Eagan Jr.Mitchell J. ChangSylvia HurtadoTanya Figueroa
University Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles; Tufts University
Email: jessica.sharkness@gmail.com
Research Question:
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.
Published: No
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: N/A
Journal Entry: N/A
Year: 2011
Findings:
  1. For all students, entering college with stronger high school preparation in both academic achievement and study skills/time management arena appears to set the stage for future academic success.
  2. Interacting with faculty in a mentorship way positively impacts cumulative college grades.
  3. There is a persistent significant difference in cumulative college GPAs between White students and their Black and Latino counterparts. Accounting for students’ pre-college academic preparation, college experiences, and institutional contexts reduced the predicted GPA difference between these groups by 60% but there were still differences in earned grades between these groups net of students’ self-efficacy, prior preparation, research experiences, and curricular and extracurricular college experiences.
  4. Percent URM undergraduates at college does not have a significant effect in explaining cumulative college GPA.
Scholarship Types: Unpublished Institutional Report (e.g.Keywords: Academic AchievementAfrican AmericanGPALatinosSTEMUnderrepresented MinoritiesRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsHierarchical Models Sampling Frame:Undergraduate Students with interest in STEM
Sampling Types: NationalAnalysis Units: CollegeStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • Data from this study came from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP)’s 2004 Freshman Survey (TFS) and 2007-09 College Senior Survey (CSS). The TFS and CSS are administered annually by CIRP to college students across the U.S., and each survey collects a wide variety of information about students. For this study, the sample contained 4,122 students that attended 224 institutions who upon matriculation indicated an interest in majoring in a STEM field.
  • The sample for this study was drawn intentionally with the goal of obtaining a large and diverse sample of students from three groups: (1) URM groups who were interested in STEM, (2) a set of their White and Asian American STEM counterparts, and (3) a set of URM students not interested in STEM. Also, the sample includes only students who were still enrolled or were graduating at the original institution they enrolled in, after four years of college. In other words, students who withdrew, stopped out, or transferred are not included in the sample, and thus the results apply only to those students who were successful in persisting for four years.
  • The dependent variable was a self-reported measure of students’ cumulative GPA as of the time that the CSS was given. Students could classify their GPA in one of 8 categories, from 1 = D to 8 = A or A+.
  • Utilized the conceptual models described by Pascarella (1985), Berger and Milem (2000), and Weidman (1999).
  • The independent variables are student demographics and background characteristics; high school achievement; push/pull factors such as time spent working, financial concerns, and family support; different types of faculty-student interactions; formal and informal academic activities; social integration; racial climate and cross-racial interactions; and students’ sense of belonging on campus. The authors controlled for students’ majors, grouping majors into five groups: non-STEM, Biological sciences, Engineering, Health and Health Technology, and Physical sciences and Math.
  • In addition to the student-level the author also modeled institution-level variables. These included institutional type and control (4-year/university, public/private), institutional selectivity (measured by the average SAT score of entering freshmen), percent of students majoring in STEM fields, structural diversity (percent of student body that is Black, Native American or Latino/a), whether an institution is a historically Black college or university (HBCU), and institutional size (as measured by undergraduate FTE).
  • Because of the relatively low longitudinal response rate for the TFS-CSS (23%), weights have been calculated to adjust for any non-response bias that might be present.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Factors Related to STEM Readiness
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts