2010 - Examining the STEM Educational Pipeline: The Influence of Pre-College Factors on the Educational Trajectory of African American students

Attribution: Tyler, Andrea L.
Researchers: Andrea L. Tyler
University Affiliation: Miami University; Tennessee State University
Email: atyler2@tnstate.edu
Research Question:
1) What pre-college factors predict African-American students' decision to engage in post-secondary education? 2) What pre-college factors predict African-American students' decision to major in a STEM field? 3) What pre-college factors predict STEM degree attainment among African American students?
Published: No
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: N/A
Journal Entry: N/A
Year: 2010
Findings:
  1. The findings identified academic rigor, specifically advance placement (AP) classes, pursuing an academic high school diploma, gender (female), being from a single parent home, family SES, and self expectancy as predictors of attending post-secondary education, while gender (male) and first generation status (not being first generation) predicted STEM degree attainment.
  2. The study also found that the overall models for predicting post-secondary enrollment and predicting STEM degree attainment were significant, while the model predicting majoring in a STEM field was not significant.
Scholarship Types: DissertationKeywords: African AmericanCollegeDegree AttainmentPostsecondary EducationPrecollege FactorsRaceSTEM PipelineStudent/Institution EngagementRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsLogistic Regression Sampling Frame:Black males and females
Sampling Types: Nationally RepresentativeAnalysis Units: StudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • The author used the Student/Institution Engagement Model. The Student/Institution Engagement Model relates students’ demographics, pre-college, environmental pull, and college factors to students’ decisions to attend college, their experiences, and degree attainment.
  • This study utilized the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, which is a nationally representative data set. The study includes information on 24,599 eighth-graders from 1,052 high schools across the United States. This study did follow-ups on tracking this cohort in 1990, 1992, 1994, and 2000. Following all these follow-ups, the total final sample of participants included 12,144 individuals. The research in this study focused on African-American. This study’s sample consists of 1176 African American students.
  • The three dependent variables in the study were: 1. Entered post-secondary education (PSE) after high school; this analysis compared students who entered PSE with students who did not enter PSE. 2. Majored in STEM fields; this analysis included only those students who had entered PSE, and compared those who majored in STEM with those who had a non-STEM major. 3. Post-secondary degree attainment in STEM, this analysis included only those students who had attained an associates degree or higher, and compared those who had attained a PSE STEM degree with those who had attained a PSE non-STEM degree.
  • The independent variables included parent expectation, self-expectation, teacher relations, high school program type, academic rigor, gender, family SES, mother and father degree attainment, school urbanity, first generation students, school district type, and family composition. The composite variables in this study included academic self-concept, peer relations, and parent involvement.
  • Academic rigor was measured by whether the student had ever been in an Advanced Placement (AP), gifted, or Honors program.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Factors Related to STEM Readiness
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts