2015 - Pathway to a Baccalaureate in STEM Fields: Are Community Colleges a Viable Route and Does Early STEM Momentum Matter?

Attribution: Wang, Xueli
Researchers: Xueli Wang
University Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Email: Xwang273@wisc.edu
Research Question:
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?
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Journal Entry: Vol. 37, No. 3, Pp. 376-393
Year: 2015
Findings:
  1. Students beginning at community colleges were less likely to achieve STEM baccalaureate success. However, this negative effect was reduced to some extent by the positive influence of community colleges on a key STEM momentum indicator, quality points students achieved in STEM courses during the first term, which in turn positively impacted STEM baccalaureate success.
  2. Beginning at a community college significantly boosts first-term STEM quality points (QP), which is one of this study’s most intriguing findings. The stronger the STEM momentum accumulated by students at community colleges in the form of completing a sufficient number of STEM courses with quality, the more likely the potentially negative effect of beginning at a community college can be reduced.
  3. This finding highlights the importance of achieving early momentum in STEM, by both completing a substantial number of STEM courses and performing well in them, to chart a promising baccalaureate trajectory in STEM.
  4. The highly positive impact of STEM QP, along with the positive indirect impact of attempted STEM credits, shows that, analogous to how momentum in classical mechanics results from both mass and velocity, real STEM momentum does not come from merely attempting STEM courses; what results from the intended effort is critical.
  5. Contrary to what one might have expected, when self-selection is accounted for, beginning at a community college does not negatively influence STEM momentum.
  6. This study suggests that community colleges have not yet evolved into a pathway to a baccalaureate in STEM that is comparable with public 4-year institutions.
  7. Community colleges have great potential for helping disadvantaged STEM-aspiring students catch up on their early STEM momentum, thus providing quality academic preparation for students to ensure their STEM success at 4-year institutions.
Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: Academic AchievementAcademic AttainmentCommunity CollegeMomentumSTEMSTEM EducationTransferRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsPath AnalysisPropensity Score Matching Sampling Frame:Postsecondary Students
Sampling Types: Nationally RepresentativeAnalysis Units: StudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • The authors utilizes the concepts of academic momentum and STEM momentum. Academic momentum represents the types of choices and behaviors in a student’s academic history. These decisions, such as entering college directly from high school, credit load, summer enrollment in coursework, and so on, require students’ commitment of time and effort, which, if sufficiently expended by the students, set them on a promising academic trajectory toward completion. STEM momentum. STEM momentum is more domain specific, pertaining to the forward thrust in the early stages of students’ academic trajectory explicitly in STEM areas of study.
  • BPS (Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study) :04/09 and its supplementary Postsecondary Education Transcript Study (PETS:09). Together, BPS:04/09 and PETS:09 provide a comprehensive trajectory of post-secondary students’ enrollment, major fields of study, persistence, and degree attainment in recent years.
  • The author restricted the sample to beginning post-secondary students at public 2-year and public 4-year institutions, aged 23 or younger, who majored in a STEM field of study when first enrolled in 2003-2004 and who expected to earn a bachelor’s degree or above. Students must have also taken at least one STEM course, excluding remedial math, during their first post-secondary year to demonstrate their intent in STEM fields of study. Of the BPS panel respondents who started post-secondary education at a community college during 2003-2004, nearly 230 fit the sample criteria. Of those who started at a public 4-year institution, 680 BPS participants fit the sample criteria.
  • The dependent variable was having attained a baccalaureate in a STEM discipline or still being enrolled in a STEM field at a 4-year institution as of 2009.
  • The key independent variable is whether students began at a community college or 4-year institution. To construct this “treatment” variable, the author matched students on a rich set of pre-college covariates to account for selection bias associated with post-secondary STEM entrance through a community college versus a public 4-year institution. These covariates include age, gender, race, first-generation college student, sibling in college, family income, respondent’s single parent status, respondent’s primary language, distance from first institution, academic preparation, Pell grant among, delayed entry, and educational expectations.
  • The author also included measures for STEM momentum to see if it mediated the effect of the IV. STEM momentum was measured as: (a) total attempted credit hours in STEM courses during the first term, which indicates the “quantity” of early efforts in STEM studies; (b) the quality points (QP) students received for their STEM courses during the first term, which represents the “velocity” aspect of STEM momentum- the speed at which students are successfully progressing in STEM coursework; and (c) whether students were enrolled in STEM courses during the first summer term following their post-secondary enrollment.
  • Of the matched sample, approximately 210 of the community college beginners in the treatment group were matched with 320 of the public 4-year students in the control group, for a total of 530 unique records.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Community College and STEM
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts