– Ability was found to moderate the effects of interest fit on the behavioral outcomes, thus expanding the P-E fit framework.
– Gender moderates the effects of these individual difference predictors, such that the effects are weaker for females than for males in predicting STEM choice.
– For STEM persistence, the opposite effect was found: The relationship between ability and persistence is stronger for females than it is for males.
– Results supported the hypothesized moderating effect of ability on the relationship between interest fit and STEM choice for both STEM Science (vs. non-STEM) and STEM Quantitative (vs. non-STEM) when ACT was used to represent the construct of academic ability but not when HSGPA was used for the purpose.
– Statistically significant findings were obtained for the interaction effects between gender and ability (with both ACT and HSGPA)
– There was a statistically significant effect between interest fit and gender for STEM Quantitative (vs. non-STEM) but not for STEM Science (vs. non-STEM).
– The moderating effect of selectivity was found to be moderately strong.
2014 - Predicting Student Enrollment and Persistence in College STEM Fields Using an Expanded P-E Fit Framework: A Large-scale Multilevel Study
The Person-Environment (P-E) fit model postulates that people seek out environments that match their personal characteristics. When the environmental patterns resemble personal patterns of abilities and interests, people tend to find the environment satisfying, which reinforces their choice behavior, promoting their continuing stay in the environment.
The authors used a longitudinal data set provided by ACT. It includes 253,399 ACT-tested students who enrolled in a 4-year institution as first-time students entering in the fall term from 2000 to 2006, a total of up to seven cohorts of students per institution. The final analysis sample includes 207,093 students from 51 institutions.
DV: Stem choice (using major codes, categorized into STEM Science, STEM Quantitative, and non-STEM);
IV: ability fit (ACT scores and high school GPA (HSGPA) as markers of academic ability); interest fit (ACT’s UNIACT interest inventory); Gender (male=0, female=1); Interactions among ability fit, interest fit, and gender; Institutional selectivity (means of ACT and HSGPA)