2015 - The Relationships Among High School STEM Learning Experiences and Students’ Intent to Declare and Declaration of a STEM Major in College

Attribution: Bottia, Martha C., Stearns, Elizabeth, Mickelson, Roslyn A., Moller, Stephanie, & Parker, Ashley D.
Researchers: Ashley D. ParkerElizabeth StearnsMartha C. BottiaRoslyn A. MickelsonStephanie Moller
University Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Email: mbottia@uncc.edu
Research Question:
Investigates how learning experiences of inspiration/reinforcement/preparation toward STEM that students have during high school can help explain the stark differences in STEM involvement by gender and ethnicity.
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Teacher College Record
Journal Entry: Vol. 17, No. 3, Pp. 1-46
Year: 2015
Findings:
  1. African American students took a much smaller percent of honors STEM-related classes during high school. They took algebra 1, algebra 2, physical sciences, and biology later. They also took physics less frequently than White students.
  2. 34.9% of male students took physics in high school while only 20.4% of females took this subject.
  3. Taking physics in high school and having coursework and/or experience in other STEM-related activities had a positive significant relationship with students’ intent to major in STEM.
  4. The number of years biology was taken in high school is the only high school experience of inspiration/ reinforcement/ preparation to help explain the gap in intent to major in STEM between White and African American students.
  5. The proportion of honors STEM-related classes taken, attending a school that offered a math and science focus, and number of years of biology taken during high school have significant associations with White students’ intent to major in STEM, whereas they do not have a meaningful relationship with African American students’ intentions to major in STEM.
  6. The proportion of STEM-related honors courses taken during high school is only directly related to African American students’ odds of declaring a major in biology.
  7. The greater a students’ intent to major in STEM, the greater the odds that they will declare a STEM major in college.
  8. Findings suggest that STEM experiences of inspiration/ reinforcement/ preparation during high school interact with demographic variables to moderate students’ interest in STEM.
  9. Taking physics and intending to major in STEM during high school are the variables most closely associated with students’ choice of STEM as a major. In addition, taking physics is especially important for young women’s odds of declaration of STEM.
  10. Findings suggest several policy recommendations: Provide a variety of high school learning STEM experiences that will link and augment students’ interest in STEM; change the way physics is presented to female students; utilizing curricula and pedagogy that focus on ways that physics is personally relevant may increase the number of young women who take the course in high school; increase the quality of the STEM-related academic preparation of students; particular attention should be given to underrepresented subgroups of students; increase the offering of math and science-focused program at schools; and increase the availability of more STEM-related co- and extracurricular experiences available to youth.
  11. Taking particular courses in high school and intending to major in STEM increase the likelihood of enrolling in STEM.
Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: Exposure to STEMHigh School Learning ExperiencesPrecollege SettingsSTEM MajorSTEM PreparationRegions: SouthMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: SurveyAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsMultinomial Multilevel Models Sampling Frame:North Carolina College Going Students
Sampling Types: PopulationAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • The authors utilized Social Cognitive Career Theory. This model proposes that students’ intent to major in STEM is affected by a set of high school learning experiences that may be inspirational, reinforcing, or preparatory. All the preceding factors are subject to the influence of prior achievement in math. Students’ STEM intentions then affect their actual choice of STEM as a college major.
  • The NC Roots of STEM data set was used. This is a longitudinal data set that contains information on all North Carolina public high school graduates from seventh grade through college graduation. This study only looked at students that attended high schools in North Carolina and then went to one of the sixteen University of North Carolina campuses. The sample used contained 12,000 students.
  • The first dependent variable was whether a student had intent to declare a STEM major in his or her high school senior year. The intent of STEM major is a dichotomous variable that comes from a question asked in the SAT questionnaire in 2003-2004. The second dependent variable was whether the student actually declared a STEM major in college. The declaration STEM variable is a multinomial dependent variables, where 0 indicates no declaration of a STEM major, 1 stands for non-declaration of major (undeclared), 2 stands for declaration of a major in biology,3 and 3 indicates declaration of a major in any other STEM field other than biology (physical sciences, engineering, and mathematics).
  • The key independent variables include a set of exogenous indicators at the student level that are related to inspirational/reinforcing/preparing experiences that students have had during their K-12 schooling that prior research suggests help awaken and/or reinforce their interest in STEM majors. The four sets of experiences follow: 1. Attending a school that offers a STEM-related program: To create this variable, the authors contacted each of the high schools in the database. 2. Having taken algebra 1, algebra 2, physical sciences, and biology earlier than the mean of the sample. 3. Measures of academic preparation during high school: This variable consisted of number of years students took biology and math, if they took physics, and the quality of the STEM-related courses they took. Quality was operationalized as the proportion of honors STEM-related classes the students took given the availability of honors STEM-related classes at their high school. 4. Other STEM-related activities: Whether a student took coursework or had experience in any of several STEM-related activities, including spreadsheets, databases or statistical programs, Internet activity, computer graphics, and computer programming.
  • The influence of the set of four inspirational/reinforcing/preparatory experiences may potentially be reflected in previous achievement scores. Thus, the authors also included previous mathematics achievement scores in their models to account for this fact. For the models that predict intent to major in STEM in 12th grade, they controlled for students’ mathematics end of grade (EOG) scores in eighth grade. For the models predicting odds of declaration of STEM as a major, they included the mathematics SAT scores. In addition, the authors also included a measure for students’ estimate of high school class rank (academic self-efficacy), a factor that has been shown to predict STEM interest and intent to graduate with a STEM degree.
  • The authors included control variables that reflected students’ school and family background. These variables were: (a) if the student transferred middle schools between seventh and eighth grade; (b) being a first-generation college student; and (c) receiving free/reduced lunch in eighth grade. They also incorporated into the model characteristics of students’ schools that could facilitate or limit their opportunities to pursue a STEM major. These characteristics were: (d) whether the school was in a rural, suburban, or urban area; (e) percent of students in an advanced college track in 10th grade; and (f) percent female math and science teachers in 10th grade. Last, the authors also included in the analysis (g) demographic variables such as race and gender of the student. For the models that predict odds of declaration of STEM as a major, they included measures indicating (h) which of the UNC college campuses the student attended (North Carolina State University is the excluded category) and (i) if the student received a Pell grant in his or her first year of college.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:STEM Entrance and Majoring in STEM
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts