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Failing the Future: Problems of persistence and retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at Arizona State University
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... Thus STEM culture may be especially troublesome for women and URMs who struggle with its norms, finding the STEM climate to be unwelcoming and challenging to navigate (Carlone & Johnson, 2007;NASEM, 2016). The issue with STEM academic environments is evident in previous research, which points to insufficient numbers of mentors and role models in STEM for women and minorities, a disinclination for the competitive environments prevalent in STEM academic experiences, and the perception of discrimination in STEM fields (Blickenstaff, 2005;Carrell, Page, & West, 2010;Chang, Eagan, Lin, & Hurtado, 2011;Chen, 2013;Daempfle, 2003;Eagan, Herrera, Garibay, Hurtado, & Chang, 2011;Espinosa, 2011;Fouad et al., 2010;Ost, 2010;Price, 2010;Seymour, 2001;Thompson et al., 2007). ...
... Additionally, there exists perceived discrimination on the basis of sex and race/ethnicity, as well as feelings of isolation in STEM fields because not many peers pursue STEM degrees (Blickenstaff, 2005;Carrell et al., 2010;Chang et al., 2011;Chen, 2013;Chinn, 1999;Daempfle, 2003;Eagan et al., 2011;Espinosa, 2011;Fouad et al., 2010;Ost, 2010;Price, 2010;Seymour, 2001;Thompson et al., 2007). Cultural and environmental factors thus play a significant role in the discomfort of URMs and women with the STEM academic environment, thereby affecting their satisfaction with their STEM-related education. ...
This study investigated the persistence of undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors through two-factor theory. Proxies for STEM persistence factors were used as hygiene and motivator factors, which were categories of two-factor theory originally conceptualized to understand workplace determinants that extrinsically and intrinsically motivate employees. A two-block entry model was used to test multinomial regression analysis with outcomes for persisting in STEM, degree incompletion, and changing to a non-STEM major. This study also examined differential relationships of motivator factors across sex, race, and ethnicity due to underrepresentation in STEM fields. Data for this study were extracted from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), a nationally represented survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Among hygiene factors, the findings demonstrated that students with at least one parent with a bachelor’s degree, attending a highly selective institution, and being able to pay for at least half of tuition and fees in the first term of study predicted whether STEM students remained in college. An additional hygiene factor of faculty interaction outside the classroom was also significantly associated with remaining in a STEM major rather than switching majors. This study also found that significance of undergraduate research, first-year GPA, and total GPA predicted STEM persistence as motivator factors. An additional motivator factor, receiving mentorship, was also associated with staying in a STEM major. A test of interaction terms also demonstrated that the effect of motivator factors does not vary by sex or race/ethnicity. Recommendations are discussed in support of the consideration of fostering intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in STEM persistence policy and interventions, as well as recommendations for future research.
... Specific to engineering, Wilson-Lopez and colleagues [32], [34] have called for the study and development of pedagogical approaches that provide students with situated opportunities to explicitly learn their discipline's reading, writing, and language practices while engaged in critical and transformative inquiry. Those calls relate to aspirations in engineering education for transformative instructional practices that change harmful patterns of gatekeeping disengaged instruction-such as those addressed in the studies of persistence from [35], [36]. We claim that a critical approach to the engineering literacies associated with HCD would expand incipient efforts to include a social justice lens in engineering curricula (e.g., [37], [38]) while supporting equitable and transformative disciplinary literacy learning. ...
... We know this through studies such as the seminal "Talking about Leaving" 9 , which documented attrition rates for science, math, and engineering majors across seven four-year institutions of higher education and reported its findings in chapters with names including "The Weed-Out Process" and "The Unsupportive Culture." Since that time, various other studies have documented similar struggles of students who choose to leave STEM majors 3,14,15 . Whether we work to correct this through improved pedagogy or shifts in cultural climate, or both, raising retention rates within our programs would obviously create more engineering graduates. ...
Transformative experiences (TE) are specific moments when students 1) apply practices and/or knowledge from their coursework to everyday experiences without prompting (also called motivated use); 2) view everyday objects or situations through the lens of course content (expanded perception); and 3) express value course content in new ways because it enriches everyday experience (experiential value, which we also term affective value). This construct draws heavily on John Dewey's seminal work in education and experiential learning. Transformative experience has been measured in science courses at both the K-12 and undergraduate levels; work is very preliminary in engineering. Here, we explain the import of fostering transformative experiences, particularly in the context of engineering design. We describe differences between transformative experiences of scientific topics and those of engineering principles. We also draw connections between transformative experience and belonging and engineering identity, which are being measured more frequently in the process of recruitment and retention of students.
... This is especially problematic in the USA, where the number of STEM graduates must increase by an additional one million over current projections in the next decade to match expected workforce demands (PCAST 2012). Many of the students leaving STEM majors cite ineffective teaching methods and uninspiring atmospheres in introductory-level STEM courses-with introductory mathematics courses often singled out-as the primary reason for attrition (Niemi 2002;Seymour 2006;Thompson et al. 2007;PCAST 2012;Rasmussen and Ellis 2013). In the USA, Calculus I, a course typically including limits, the definition of the derivative, and differentiation rules and applications (see Johnson 2016 for more detail about Calculus I content), is the first mathematics course many students take when entering college. ...
Background
Calculus is a foundational course for STEM-intending students yet has been shown to dissuade students from pursuing STEM degrees. In this report, we examine factors related to students and instructors reporting a lack of time in class for students to understand difficult ideas and relate this to students’ and instructors’ perceptions of opportunities to learn using a hierarchical linear model. This work is part of the US national study on college calculus, which provides an ideal landscape to examine these questions on a large scale.
Results
We find a number of student factors associated with students experiencing negative opportunities to learn, such as student gender, lacking previous calculus experience, and reports of poor and non-student-centered teaching. Factors weakly associated with instructor reports of lack of time were a common final and reporting that approximately half of the students lacked the ability to succeed in the course.
Conclusions
This analysis offers insight into how we might create more positive opportunities to learn in our own classrooms. This includes preparing students before they enter calculus, so they feel confident in their abilities, as well as weakening the internal framing of the course by engaging in teaching practices that provide students opportunities to communicate and influence their learning (e.g., discussion and group work). We argue that this is especially important in introductory college calculus courses that are packed with material, taught to a diverse population of students in terms of demographics, mathematical preparation, and career goals.
... If exams are predominantly based on measures of low level cognitive behaviors such as Bremember,^or Brecall and apply procedure,^students are likely to develop perceptions about mathematics as not being about understanding and applying ideas to solve novel problems. This focus on procedures has been reported to be uninteresting to some more capable students who enjoy understanding and reasoning through nonroutine problems (Thompson et al. 2007). ...
... If exams are predominantly based on measures of low level cognitive behaviors such as Bremember,^or Brecall and apply procedure,^students are likely to develop perceptions about mathematics as not being about understanding and applying ideas to solve novel problems. This focus on procedures has been reported to be uninteresting to some more capable students who enjoy understanding and reasoning through nonroutine problems (Thompson et al. 2007). ...
In this study, we developed a three-dimensional framework to characterize post-secondary Calculus I final exams. Our Exam Characterization Framework (ECF) classifies individual exam items according to the cognitive demand required to answer the item, the representation of both the task statement and the solution, and the item’s format. Our results from using the ECF to code 150 post-secondary Calculus I final exams from across the United States revealed that the exams generally require low levels of cognitive demand, seldom contain problems stated in a real-world context, rarely elicit explanation, and do not require students to demonstrate or apply their understanding of the course’s central ideas. We compared the results from analyzing individual instructor’s exams with survey data of their beliefs about the conceptual orientation of their exams. Our analysis revealed inconsistencies between our characterization of Calculus I final exams and instructors’ perceptions of their final exams relative to their conceptual focus and the extent to which the exam items ask students to explain their thinking. We also compared the characteristics of our sample of final exams with post-secondary Calculus I final exams administered in 1986/87. We found that Calculus I final exams in U.S. colleges and universities have changed very little in the past 25 years with respect to the percentage of exam items that require students to apply their understanding of foundational concepts, which suggest that the calculus reform movement of the late 1980s has had little effect on what is being assessed in current Calculus I courses in U.S. postsecondary institutions.
... If exams are predominantly based on measures of low level cognitive behaviors such as "remember", or "recall and apply procedure", students are likely to engender perceptions about enjoy understanding and reasoning through novel problems (Thompson et al., 2007). ...
In this study, we developed a three-dimensional framework to classify post-secondary Calculus I final exams. Our Exam Characterization Framework (ECF) classifies individual exam items according to the cognitive demand required to answer the item, the representational context in which the item is asked, and the format of the item. Our results from using the ECF to code 150 post-secondary Calculus I final exams from across the United States revealed that the exams generally require low levels of cognitive demand, seldom contain problems stated in a real-world context, rarely elicit explanation, and do not require students to demonstrate or apply their understanding of the course’s central ideas. We compared the results from analyzing individual instructor’s exams with survey data of instructor’s beliefs about the conceptual orientation of their exams. Additionally, we compared the characteristics of our sample of Calculus I final exams with post-secondary Calculus I final exams administered in 1986/87.
Background:
Student retention is the most critical challenge facing most traditional 4- and 2-year institutions. Challenges related to student belonging and retention are among many that colleges must contend with daily. Once students arrive, they are met with an academic environment that may greatly differ from their high school and home experiences.
Discussion:
There is evidence that classroom success is influenced by faculty tone setting and the overall campus climate. Other studies have shown that creating a sense of belonging on college campuses is essential. Classroom success can be moderated by relationships with faculty, especially with faculty of color and other minoritized groups.
Aims:
Given the predicted shortages of minority dental healthcare providers in the United States and the expanding diversity of the general population, it is important to recruit and retain an ethnically and culturally diverse allied dental workforce.
Conclusions:
The objectives of this research were to identify strategies to recruit underrepresented (underrepresented minority [URM]) students into health professions, understand the significance of underrepresented (URM) faculty's influence on the number of URM student recruitment, retention, and graduation rates, and how to implement best practices for overall minority student success.
University education in Nigeria has often been provided with high expectations in the area of capacity building for
human capital development. Unfortunately there is inadequate supply of highly qualified and experienced personnel
in many universities in Nigeria. This study therefore examines succession planning and talent management in the
Nigerian university system. The study is based on a survey conducted in three universities in Lagos state, Nigeria.
Specifically, the results showed a significant association between succession planning and talent management
alongside a correlation between plan for succession and quality of academic staff in the Nigerian university system.
However, the university system in Nigeria faces some challenges in the process of recruiting and retaining high
calibre academic staff as a result of intellectual capital flight. Inter-university transfer of faculty should be
encouraged in the Nigerian university system to improve the quality of learning and address the obvious imbalance
experienced by some universities in Nigeria. Also, less experienced faculty should be mentored and prepared
through experiential exposure to face the rigors and demands of the academic profession.
Keywords: Knowledge management, higher education, succession planning, talent management.
The well-being of future generations will depend to a large extent on how we educate our future engineers. These engineers will be a new breed-developing and using sustainable technology, benign manufacturing processes and an expanded array of environmental assessment tools that will simultaneously support and maintain healthy economies and a healthy environment. The importance of environment and sustainable development considerations, the need for their widespread inclusion in engineering education, the impediments to change, and the important role being played by ABET, and several other signs of progress are presented-including the Twelve Principles of Green Engineering.
Educators, researchers, and policy makers have advocated student involvement for some time as an essential aspect of meaningful learning. In the past twenty years engineering educators have implemented several means of better engaging their undergraduate students, including active and cooperative learning, learning communities, service learning, cooperative education, inquiry and problem-based learning, and team projects. This paper focuses on classroom-based pedagogies of engagement, particularly cooperative and problem-based learning. It includes a brief history, theoretical roots, research support, summary of practices, and suggestions for redesigning engineering classes and programs to include more student engagement. The paper also lays out the research ahead for advancing pedagogies aimed at more fully enhancing students' involvement in their learning.
This paper describes some features in the changing landscape of activities intended to improve both quality and access in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) undergraduate education. Observations are offered from the viewpoint afforded by my work—broadly over the last 10 years—both as a researcher, and as an evaluator for projects related to the improvement of undergraduate SMET education. Over that period, I have watched the landscape change—some issues, at first prominent, have diminished in importance; some are emergent; and yet others lie on the horizon. I have also observed that actions in pursuit of various reform goals reflect a variety of theories about how change can be accomplished that are not necessarily complementary. This short history of shifts in the focus of our efforts, and in our beliefs about how they may be achieved, is offered as a framework for discussion of these nationwide endeavors and as an aid in considering next steps. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed86:79–105, 2001.
Recent calls for instructional innovation in undergraduate science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) courses and programs highlight the need for a solid foundation of education research at the undergraduate level on which to base policy and practice. We report herein the results of a meta-cnalysis that integrates research on undergraduate SMET education since 1980. The meta-analysis demonstrates that various forms of small-group learning are effective in promoting greater academic achievement, more favorable attitudes toward learning, and increased persistence through SMET courses and programs. The magnitude of the effects reported in this study exceeds most findings in comparable reviews of research on educational innovations and supports more widespread implementation of small-group learning in undergraduate SMET.
With institutional programs in engineering education in their infancy, there is as yet little scientific proof that teaching prospective engineering faculty how to teach impacts their careers positively, but there is abundant anecdotal evidence. A survey of graduates of a Purdue course 'Educational Methods in Engineering' was conducted. Graduates who chose academic careers reported a very significant impact on their careers, while graduates who chose industrial careers reported a positive but less significant impact. A survey of 17 courses at other institutions showed that the educational topics in how-to-teach courses are similar to the topics in the Purdue course; thus, the results should generalize to other institutions for graduates who choose academic careers.
First-year and fourth-year engineering students at the University of Western Ontario were surveyed for their attitudes towards engineering: pre-university, at university and afterwards. The responses were analysed by gender and by year for significant differences. The men decided on an engineering career earlier in their lives than the women, who often did not decide until they were at university. More of the men were encouraged in their choice of engineering by their fathers than the women were but, conversely, a higher percentage of the women had fathers who were engineers. At university, the women tend to attribute academic difficulties to their own shortcomings whereas the men tend to blame external factors. More men than women found the faculty unapproachable, perhaps because of their own inferior communication skills. First-year students were interested in having senior students as mentors but, unexpectedly, the women students did not express a greater interest than the men. The only difference in career plans was that more women expressed an interest in working on environmental issues.
This paper describes a learning architecture for developing a series of case-based studies that are linked by a common thematic basis. The proposed architecture takes into accounfour forces' that influence the development of the thematic cases: namely, Bloom's learning levels, industry cases to add realism to the engineering curriculum, the plug and learn approach, and incorporation of business and management issues in the context of engineering problem-solving. We developed a set of three industry case studies using the lean manufacturing/continuous improvement theme and cover various topics such as total productive maintenance (TPM), reduction of energy waste, process mapping, quality improvement, and various business and managerial issues. This series of cases is intended to immerse students in situations that they could expect to encounter while working in an industrial setting by emphasizing the usage of engineering and business tools and methodologies in the context of a real-life project. We believe that our approach, of developing theme-oriented case studies as opposed to isolated case studies, will help the students to internalize learning. Students are often taught various tools and techniques, but they may not necessarily see if and how these complement each other. We believe that presenting the tools and techniques around a thematic basis will help the students to understanhow, when, and which' tools and techniques need to be applied in a given context. We also conducted preliminary experiments to ascertain the value of the case studies to the students.