This Type 2 project intends to collect survey data about college student progression toward degrees in science and engineering fields. The researchers are examining differences in student to student attributes and educational practices in undergraduate courses that are related to student decisions to continue study in STEM fields. The study uses a national sample of 2004 students as a baseline and follows these students up to 6 years after college entry. This project extends a similar analysis on health issues separately supported by NIH. The associations that will emerge from this analysis of students in 680 4-year colleges are intended to advise other researchers and the STEM community about institutional, classroom, and student practices that appear to be related to improving student performance in college STEM classes. One particular question is an analysis of programs that assist students in overcoming racial isolation in the STEM fields.
This project provides new empirical and descriptive information about the conditions that are correlated with choosing careers in science and technology fields of today's undergraduate students. The researchers are situating their study within other known studies of student progression toward a degree in science and technology fields.
Our research team has accomplished a great deal with respect to constructing national datasets on STEM students and faculty, training graduate students, and disseminating findings to a broad audience to inform policy surrounding postsecondary STEM education. This report summarizes several of these products and findings. Data Collection: We administered four- and seven -year follow-up surveys (the College Senior Survey and the Post-Baccalaureate Survey respectively) to students who had entered U.S. colleges and universities as freshmen in 2004 and took the 2004 Freshman Survey. These follow-up surveys provided insight into students’ experiences in undergraduate education and their educational and career pathways since 2004. We also collected enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse to gain four-, five-, and six- year enrollment and degree information on more than 200,000 students, including 63,000 STEM aspirants, who had completed the 2004 Freshman Survey. These students originally had enrolled across more than 350 colleges and universities. The Clearinghouse information allowed us to understand students’ matriculation patterns during college. To better understand how the structures of opportunity within institutions influence students’ probabilities of completing STEM bachelor’s degrees within six years of entering college, we administered a survey of "Best Practices in Undergraduate STEM Education" in 2009 to four-year colleges and universities that participated in our student surveys from 2004-2008. Deans and department chairs in STEM-related disciplines were invited to respond to questions regarding the types of programs their department and/or campus offered to support undergraduates’ learning in STEM. We also partnered with other projects at the Higher Education Research Institute to administer the 2011 Faculty Survey to ensure we had STEM faculty data for all of the institutions represented in the student longitudinal dataset. This survey collected information on faculty experiences in the professoriate, their satisfaction in the workplace, attitudes regarding students, and their teaching practices. Additionally, we collected data through a set of focus group interviews with STEM students who have moved on to graduate school during February of 2010. These focus groups have allowed us to understand the various pathways students take following their undergraduate career in STEM. Findings and Products: The team has published six journal articles, published four monographs and other reports, produced four dissertations, and presented 26 conference papers from the data that we’ve collected since receiving NSF funding in the spring of 2008. Our findings consistently demonstrate that STEM students at more selective institutions have significantly lower STEM retention rates than their peers at less selective institutions, which suggests that these resource-rich institutions could increase their capacity in producing STEM degrees. We have also shown that faculty’s use of student-centered teaching methods (e.g., class discussions, cooperative learning) improves the likelihood that students will earn a STEM degree, especially those who enter college with higher high school GPAs. We consistently find that, although Black students tend to persist and graduate in STEM at significantly lower rates than their White counterparts, Black students at HBCUs are more likely to complete in STEM than their Black peers at predominantly White institutions. Within institutions, undergraduate research programs significantly improve students’ odds of persistence in their STEM majors. Additionally, our research indicates that the probability of intending to pursue a graduate or professional STEM degree are improved by 14 percentage points among STEM students who participate in undergraduate research experiences. Undergraduate research participants also receive an advantage of 10-14 percentage points in their probability of actually enrolling in STEM graduate and professional programs within seven years of entering college. Our findings also indicate that STEM completers who joined an academic-related club during college were significantly more likely to have enrolled in STEM graduate/professional programs compared to their peers who did not. By contrast, off-campus work corresponds to a significantly lower likelihood for STEM completers to pursue graduate or professional programs. As students transition into graduate school, they confront identity conflicts as they cope with intersecting identities of gender, race, religion, and STEM discipline. Having diversity at institutions and in STEM departments permits a certain level of identity convergence, though the impact is limited. Although racial and gender diversity are seldom discussed or even acknowledged in science contexts, these multiple identities are activated among graduate students at various points and converge or create conflict in career goals. We also have addressed the teaching and research activities of STEM faculty by analyzing data from the 2007-08 and 2010-11 HERI Faculty Surveys. In examining faculty mentorship, we found that faculty were significantly more likely to engage undergraduates on their research projects if they spent more time on research, published more journal articles, received grant funding, or worked at an HBCU or a liberal arts college. Faculty were less likely to engage undergraduates in research if they taught more graduate-level courses or published more books. Continuing research will explore faculty support and STEM student outcomes.
