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Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
1Journal of STEM Outreach
Long-Term Impact of Teacher Professional Development on
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM
Cecilia Henríquez Fernández, Christopher Barr, Allen Antoine, Christina Alston, and Carolyn Nichol
Department of Engineering, Ofce of Research of Development and Infrastructure, and Ofce of STEM Engagement, Rice University, Houston, TX
Keywords: Black Female Students, Inquiry, Professional Development, Long-term Tracking, STEM, K-12
Publication Date: January 30, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15695/jstem/v6i1.01
ABSTRACT: In this paper, we argue that teacher professional development programs focused on inquiry-based learning
increase students’ likelihood of selecting STEM majors. Long-term student data was collected accessing the University of
Houston’s Educational Research Center database for each student whose teacher participated in the Applied Mathematics
Program! (AMP!) professional development between the years 2014 and 2019. Using propensity scoring to create a matched
comparison group, we conducted a logistic regression to model the likelihood of students choosing a STEM major in college
if they had a teacher who participated in AMP! versus students who did not have a teacher who participated in the AMP!. Our
analyses indicate that when teachers participate in AMP!, their students are more likely to select a STEM major in college.
Additionally, female students had much larger eect sizes, particularly Black female students, whose likelihood of selecting
a STEM major doubled when their teachers participated in AMP!.
INTRODUCTION
Black women remain underrepresented in Science, Tech-
nology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Accord-
ing to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
(2021), 11% of all science and engineering degrees earned
by women in 2019 were earned by Black women nationwide,
while 52% of all science and engineering degrees earned by
women in the same year went to White women. Within the
state of Texas, the data looks quite similar. NCES reports
that 10% of all science and engineering degrees awarded to
women in 2019 in Texas were to Black women and 41% to
White women (Table 1). The low number of Black women
awarded science and engineering degrees leads one to ask,
how can the educational community better support Black
women to matriculate and pursue STEM degrees?
In this paper, we argue that in-service teacher professional
development (PD) grounded in inquiry-based pedagogical
practices plays a vital role in supporting student matriculation
into STEM majors, especially for Black women. We rst
review eorts made to diversify STEM, focused on Black
females and classroom environments. We then review
how the educational community has examined the impact
of STEM teacher PD programs on students. Next, we
describe our conceptual framework and how it inuenced
the development of an in-service teacher PD called the
Applied Mathematics Program (AMP!). This provides the
context for understanding the science and mathematics
classroom environments that students of teacher participants
in the AMP! experience after the teachers attend the PD
program. We followed students of teachers who have
participated in AMP! since 2014 using the University of
Houston’s Educational Research Center (EdRC) database.
The database hosts data from the Texas Education Agency
(TEA), the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
(THECB), and the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).
Our analysis demonstrates that students of the teachers who
participated in our PD were more likely to pursue a STEM
major than students of teachers who did not participate in
such a program. Finally, we discuss why this nding is
important and our rationale for why we see an amplied
eect on Black females.
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 2
Increasing the Number of Black Women in STEM. Eorts
have been made on many fronts to address the low num-
ber of Black women in STEM elds. Some eorts have fo-
cused on creating interventions for Black women at various
critical focal points of their careers through informal edu-
cation. For example, some programs have focused on ex-
posure to STEM elds for Black female students (King and
Pringle, 2019), while some have focused on out-of-school
interventions grounded in cultural practices that help Black
girls thrive in STEM (Ashcraft et al., 2017; Scott, 2021).
Other programs have focused on mentoring relationships
between Black scientists and engineers with Black female
students (Allen-Handy et al., 2020). Finally, some programs
that aim to increase the representation of Black females in
STEM have focused on creating social supports that help
Black women navigate their STEM careers (Allen-Handy et
al., 2020; King and Pringle, 2019; Lane and Id-Deen, 2020;
Levine et al., 2015). These eorts successfully support wom-
en and girl participants in expressing an interest in STEM
and provide safe spaces where Black girls and women can
ourish in STEM.
Eorts have also been made to understand and intervene
in the Black female student experience in the formal STEM
classroom. For example, some research has focused on how
teachers in K-12 classrooms interact with Black female stu-
dents compared to other students and how these interactions
reproduce gendered and racial stereotypes about Black girls’
academic abilities (Morris, 2007). These examples of re-
search around the diverse nature of observations and inter-
ventions highlight the complexity of the social situation that
has led to a low number of Black women pursuing or obtain-
ing STEM degrees and the various interventions that could
help Black women make gains in science and engineering.
However, they also highlight the need to understand how
these initiatives impact Black girls’ trajectories in STEM
long-term. In this paper, we examine the relationship be-
tween sustained inquiry learning PD for teachers and Black
female students’ STEM college major choice.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review focuses on STEM teacher PD
and the impact of teacher PD on their students because re-
search has shown that there is a positive relationship be-
tween high-quality PD and teacher quality (Cochran-Smith,
2004; Guskey, 2000; Guskey, 2002; Hassel, 1999; Joyce and
Showers, 1988; Soine and Lumpe, 2014). We begin by de-
ning high-quality teacher PD. We then examine what we
know about the relationship between PD and student impact,
focusing on how previous studies have examined student
impact. We conclude by explaining why it is important to
develop measures that help us better understand the relation-
ship between teacher preparation and student trajectories.
Dening High-Quality Teacher Professional Develop-
ment. High-quality PD includes ve specic features: (1)
content focus, (2) active learning, (3) coherence, (4) dura-
tion, and (5) collective participation (Desimone, Laura M.,
2009). Of these facets, it has been found that PD needs to
be long-term and sustained to impact teaching practices.
Supovitz and Turner (2000) found that it is not until teach-
ers have received over 80 hours of PD that they fully incor-
porate inquiry and investigative practices in the classroom.
Because short-term PD produced limited impact, PD provid-
ers in the US have been moving away from one-time half-
day workshops and are increasingly providing teachers with
more sustained PD (Wei et al., 2010). Substantial research
supports Desimone’s ve featured conceptual frameworks,
including long-term support (Desimone et al., 2013; Desim-
one, 2009; Garet et al., 2010; Garet et al., 2010; Penuel et al.,
2011). However, teachers’ jobs are multifaceted, and there is
a great degree of variation in how teachers respond to PD. In
addition, there is substantial debate about how it translates
into student outcomes, and few rigorous studies explore this
translation (Garet et al., 2010; Loucks-Horsley et al., 2009;
Yoon et al., 2007).
Professional Development Impacts on Students. Stud-
ies on how in-service teacher PD impacts student outcomes
have had mixed results. When analyzing student impact of
teacher PD, confounding factors include the quality of the
PD, administrative support, school culture, implementa-
tion barriers, teacher attitudes, and other aspects of school
change (Desimone, 2009; Fischer et al., 2018; Fischer et
al., 2020; Ingvarson et al., 2005; Polly et al., 2015). Studies
on student outcomes have ranged from smaller qualitative
studies where the researchers have observed teacher imple-
mentation and student work to large meta-studies of large
databases and multiple research studies. When researching
student outcomes, one of the most challenging questions is
what measure to use to gauge student outcomes. Often, re-
searchers narrow this down to standardized tests. One ex-
ample of this is an extensive study by Fischer et al. (2009),
which investigated the relationship between teacher PD
and teacher instructional practices, and then on teacher in-
Sample
Female
Black White Hispanic Asian Native
American
Pacic
Islander Other
National
%11 52 18 10 1 0 8
n53,291 258,123 90,428 48,116 2,668 1,174 39,098
Texas
%10 41 34 10 0 0 5
n3,008 12,300 10,461 3,022 87 36 1,427
Table 1. Proportion of Female Students Obtaining Science and
Engineering Degrees by Race.
Data obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics 2021.
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 3
structional practices and student performance on Advanced
Placement © (AP) and Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test
(PSAT) exams. This large study included 33,336 students
and 7,434 teachers. While they found that high-quality PD,
as described by Desimone (2009), did translate into positive
changes in teacher practices (e.g., participation in PD was
positively associated with teachers’ increased use of labora-
tory activities), they did not nd a strong link between these
practices and improved AP© test results. In a smaller study
of a mathematics PD, which utilized a randomized control
trial, 4th-grade teachers (104 treatment and 117 control) who
participated in the 93-hour PD improved their mathematical
content knowledge and pedagogical practice (relative to the
control teacher). Still, there was no statistical dierence in
student achievement between the treatment and comparison
groups as measured by an adaptive assessment provided by
the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) (Garet et al.,
2010). However, in a similarly designed study of 125 teach-
ers and 1676 of their students in grades 4–8 in urban schools,
researchers found that students of teachers in the treatment
group did show a 4% gain in science content knowledge rel-
ative to the comparison student group using multiple choice
questions from state standardized tests (Aaron Price and
Chiu, 2018).
Professor Linda McNeil, who dedicated her life to ad-
dressing educational inequity, curriculum, and public-school
reform, was quoted by Education Week stating, “Measurable
outcomes may be the least signicant results of learning”
(Kohn, 2001). The lack of solid data showing the student im-
pact of in-service teacher PD could be because researchers
typically use limited measures such as short-term outcomes
and standardized tests to examine this relationship rather than
looking into the long-term impact of teacher PD on student
progression in their academic studies. This paper examines
long-term outcomes and, to McNeil’s point, a more signi-
cant question: Are students, especially young Black women,
more likely to pursue STEM careers when they have had
teachers that participated in high-quality STEM PD?
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Meaning-making and thinking have consistently been
reported as essential constructs that should be thoughtful-
ly incorporated into teaching practices to promote student
learning (Anderson, 2017; Peker and Dolan, 2012). Within
scholarship on Constructivist Learning Theory, these two
constructs are interconnected, with teachers facilitating so-
cial situations in which students can create their own knowl-
edge (think) by making sense of the social world around
them (meaning-making) (Bozhovich, 2009; Hsu et al., 2019;
Liu and Chen, 2010):
• Thinking is centered on the learner’s knowledge
creation (Dewey, 1966; Piaget, 1951; Wertsch, 1985).
Specically, teachers that abide by constructivist
learning theory believe it important to consider the
mental processes that children engage in during
thinking that facilitate learning rather than memorizing
and reciting subject matter. To promote thinking,
teachers must create opportunities for students to ask
questions, make observations, and generate ideas. In a
constructivist framework, thinking is not learning a core
“truth” but instead actively engaging with information
by oneself and with others to make sense of an array
of experiences, sensations, and information that have no
specic order except within the explanations that aid the
establishment of one’s knowledge.
• Meaning-making emphasizes the signicance of students
doing something with a purpose or goal. Specically,
when students engage in meaning-making, they actively
engage in cultural practices. Learning these cultural
practices is necessitated by the need to participate in
one’s world (Dewey, 1966; Liu and Chen, 2010; Wertsch,
1985). Meaning-making is an active mental process that
pushes students beyond hands-on experiences to deepen
their understanding. Learners generate new knowledge
while building on their existing knowledge through
social and linguistic reections with peers.
Our dened constructs incorporate ideas from construc-
tivist approaches in teacher PD literature (Chang and Park,
2019; Fischer et al., 2018; Soine and Lumpe, 2014). We be-
lieve that math and science teachers can replicate these prac-
tices in their classrooms, improving students’ ability to think
about and make sense of natural phenomena. As a result, a
STEM culture is promoted.
Context. We developed the Applied Mathematics Program
(AMP!) to create and sustain a diverse STEM workforce
with the robust technical and scientic skills needed to
solve real-world problems. Specically, AMP! approaches
this goal by directly having mathematics and science edu-
cators support one another and highlight overlaps in their
curricula. Highlighting the overlap between math and sci-
ence provides context for mathematics lessons. It integrates
dierent STEM subject content standards into mathematics
classroom instruction and vice versa (Antoine et al., 2021).
Teacher participants in AMP! were provided with trainings
to facilitate this type of instruction in their science or math
classrooms. Throughout a year-long PD program focused
on using inquiry-based instructional methods, instructional
coaching, standards-based lessons, and connections between
mathematics and science lessons, AMP! aimed to:
• Increase mathematics and science teacher content
knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and support
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 4
teachers’ further enrichment through intensive PD for
pairs of mathematics and science teachers from the same
school campus;
• Increase student engagement and achievement in
STEM grounded in mathematics inquiry by making
connections between inquiry science and applied
mathematics through engaging, creative, and rigorous
learning experiences for students; and
• Establish professional learning communities in a
supportive and rewarding environment that sustains
teacher participants in high-needs schools by supporting
team learning, team building, mentoring and coaching,
and teacher training for successful content standard
implementation.
A signicant focus of AMP! was to provide PD for
teacher teams. Mathematics and science teacher pairs from
the same campus were selected for this experience. Teacher
participants received over 110 hours of sustained PD via a
one-week summer institute and a series of PD weekend and
weeknight sessions throughout the school year following the
summer institute. Teacher pairs from the same campus were
intentionally selected to ensure that teachers could support
each other on their own campus outside of the program, assist
each other in building content knowledge to answer student
inquiries across subject areas and develop the foundational
partnership essential for sustaining professional learning
communities. Additionally, the teacher pair partnerships
allowed teacher pairs to integrate cross-curricular teaching
approaches more eectively.
Throughout the program, AMP! instructors presented
diverse lessons that combined grade-level appropriate
mathematics and science lessons that were interesting and
thought-provoking for students. Mathematical concepts
were delivered using science concepts in an inquiry-based
way that prompted students to ask questions and build their
own understandings. By using hands-on, technology-based
activities and group discussions, participating educators
could put themselves in their students’ shoes and brainstorm
methods for delivering this type of instruction to their
students.
In addition to the program components, each educator
who participated in the program could conduct peer-to-peer
observations at the campus of another participant in the co-
hort or have a program facilitator come to their classroom
for mentoring visits. During the program year, various men-
toring support mechanisms were also provided, such as em-
phasizing quality questioning, teaching with culture in mind,
and understanding cross-curricular teaching in practice.
METHODS
Study Design. This study utilized archival data obtained
from the Texas Education Research Center (EdRC) data-
base. The EdRC database is a product of a collaboration
between the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), and the
Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). The EdRC database
contains data on Texas K-16 students, including state stan-
dardized test results, high school graduation information,
undergraduate graduation information, college major, at-
tendance, courses taken, profession, and many others. This
database allows for comparing college majors for students
who were instructed by AMP! teachers with students who
were not instructed by AMP! teachers. We used a statistical
equating procedure, propensity score matching, to create a
matched comparison group (Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1983).
We matched students with colleges/universities on various
demographic characteristics, including gender, race, and
economic status. Because the database of students not in-
structed by AMP! teachers is substantially larger than the
database of students instructed by AMP! teachers, we were
able to leverage the non-AMP! instructed student sample to
generate a larger comparison group and thus increase our
statistical power to detect eects. In the models described
below, we used a 1-to-10 AMP! student to comparison stu-
dent ratio.
Research Questions. This study examines the long-term
outcomes of yearlong sustained inquiry-based PD on Hous-
ton’s Black female students’ STEM educational trajectories.
Specically, we ask (1) Are female students of teachers in
AMP! more likely to pursue STEM majors compared to fe-
male students of teachers who did not participate in AMP!?
and (2) Are Black female students of teachers who partic-
ipated in AMP! more likely to pursue STEM majors than
Black female students of teachers who did not participate in
AMP!?
Sample Participants and Procedures
AMP! Student Sample. Students of AMP! teachers were
identied in the year the teachers participated in AMP!
and all subsequent years, and these students served as the
basis for the undergraduate major sample. These students
were then merged into a database containing all university,
community college, and private college/university students
and their declared major. Majors were listed by name, e.g.,
mechanical engineering, and an 8-digit numerical identier
known as a Classication of Instructional Programs (CIP)
code. This college-level database contained multiple records
per student, as students often change majors. For this sample,
only the most recently declared major was retained. Finally,
this database of students of AMP! teachers was mapped to a
database from the Department of Homeland Security (2022),
which contained a list of all college major CIP codes deemed
to be STEM-related. As such, we could produce a list of all
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 5
status, gender, and the interaction between AMP! status and
gender for the four primary race categories (Black, White,
Hispanic, and Asian American). We note that some models
were at higher aggregate levels, e.g., examining AMP! status
ignores race and gender, but the model generally takes the
form below.
Logit(πSTEMmajori ) = β0 + β1Genderi + β2 AMP!i + β3Genderi AMP!i
Where Logit(πSTEMmajori ) is the log odds of person i majoring in
a STEM eld, β0 is the intercept, gender is the gender status
for person i, AMP! is the AMP! status for person i, β1 is the
parameter estimate for the eect of gender, β2 is the parame-
ter estimate for AMP! status, and β3 is the parameter estimate
for the interaction of gender and AMP! status.
RESULTS
Finding 1: Students of AMP! Teachers Were More Likely
to Select a STEM Major. We conducted a logistic regression
to predict STEM major selection by students who had and
did not have AMP! teachers during their academic trajec-
tory. We conducted these analyses for the impact of AMP!,
for the sample as a whole as well as by gender. All models
were signicant at p < .05 with students of AMP! teachers
majoring in STEM at a higher rate than students of non-
AMP! teachers. Table 2 below shows that overall, students
were 5.3% more likely to major in STEM when they went
to college than students who did not have an AMP! teacher.
We then broke the models down by gender, comparing fe-
male students of AMP! teachers with matched samples of
female students with non-AMP! teachers and male students
of AMP! teachers with matched male students of non-AMP!
teachers.
We found the eect of having an AMP! teacher on major
selection was even more pronounced for female students.
Female students of AMP! teachers were 5.5% more likely
to major in STEM when attending college than female stu-
dents of non-AMP! teachers (Table 2). Table 2 also shows
that male students were 5% more likely to select a STEM
major when matriculating into college when instructed by
an AMP! teacher than male students of non-AMP! teachers.
Thus, the models show that when a student had a teacher
who participated in the AMP! program, regardless of gen-
der, they were more likely to major in STEM in college than
students who did not have AMP! trained teachers. We also
note that the likelihood was larger for female students than
for male students.
Finding 2: Black and Asian Students of AMP! Teachers
More Likely to Major in STEM. We then conducted a lo-
gistic regression to predict STEM Major for students using
AMP! teacher status as the predictor variable for the dier-
students of AMP! teachers present in the college level data-
base, and to assign a ag variable indicating if the student
endorsed a STEM major. The nal dataset contained N =
13,786 AMP! students.
Non-AMP! Student Sample. All students who were pres-
ent in the college major database but were not instructed
by AMP! teachers were retained. These students were also
mapped to the CIP code database and agged for STEM ma-
jor/non-STEM major. These students served as the basis for
generating the comparison sample described below.
Comparison Sample. To generate the comparison sample,
we used a propensity score matching strategy. With propen-
sity score matching, the outcome is whether students were
in the treated group (instructed by AMP! teachers) or the
comparison group. This binary outcome variable is predict-
ed by a set of variables potentially related to the presence or
absence from the treated group. For the matched comparison
sample, we included campus, gender, race/ethnic status, En-
glish prociency status, and economic status. Model results
provide a probability of being in the treated group based on
these variables. We then matched students from the AMP!
groups with non-AMP! students based on these probabil-
ities. As mentioned above, we used a one to ten AMP! to
non-AMP! student match, such that the control group was
10 times the size of the AMP! student group, which served
to increase statistical power to detect eects. This matching
resulted in a comparison sample of N = 137,860 control stu-
dents.
Data Collection Procedures
EdRC Description. Students were identied as being in-
structed by or not instructed by an AMP! teacher. Student
were instructed by an AMP! teacher if they were instruct-
ed in the same year the teacher participated in the AMP!
program, or if they were instructed by the teacher in any
subsequent years by the teacher following their participa-
tion in AMP!. All other students were agged as non-AMP!
instructed students. We were able to follow these AMP! in-
structed students to colleges and universities using a data-
base-generated ID variable that was considered a social se-
curity number replacement. This variable, along with race
and gender demographic data, served as predictor variables
of interest. Regarding the outcome variable, STEM major
status, we relied on the CIP major code, as mentioned above.
Data Analyses. All data analytic modeling to test study
hypotheses utilized logistic regression. We modeled STEM
major as a binary outcome predicted by a student’s AMP!
status and gender, as well as by the AMP! status-gender
interaction. We subset the data for race-specic models
such that we separately modeled the impact of AMP!
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 6
ent race and ethnicity samples. All models were signicant
at p < 0.05, indicating that all students of AMP! teachers
were more likely to select a STEM major than matched com-
parison groups of students of non-AMP! teachers across all
races and ethnicities. Specically, Table 3 shows that Asian
students were 6% more likely to select a STEM major in
college when they were instructed by an AMP! teacher com-
pared to Asian students who were not instructed by AMP!
teachers. Additionally, Table 3 shows that Black students
were 6.6% more likely to select a STEM major in college
when instructed by an AMP! teacher compared to Black
students who were not instructed by AMP! teachers. White
students were 5.2% more likely to select a STEM major in
college when instructed by an AMP! teacher compared with
White students who had not been instructed by an AMP!
teacher. Finally, Table 3 shows that Hispanic students were
4% more likely to select a STEM major when instructed by
an AMP! teacher than Hispanic students who were not in-
structed by an AMP! teacher. Overall, we see the eect of
having an AMP! teacher was strongest amongst Black and
Asian students when they selected a major in college.
Finding 3: Black and Asian Female Students of AMP!
Teachers More Likely to Major in STEM. Our nal model
examined the interaction between race and gender. We con-
ducted a logistic regression using AMP! status to predict
STEM major selection across genders within racial/ethnic
groups. Except for the White student sample, all gender by
race interaction models were signicant at p < 0.05 with stu-
dents of AMP! teachers majoring in STEM at a higher rate
than matched students of non-AMP! teachers. Table 4 shows
that Asian female students were 7.1% more likely to select
a STEM major in college when having been instructed by
an AMP! teacher compared to Asian female students that
were not taught by AMP! teachers. In contrast, Asian male
students of AMP! teachers were 3.6% more likely to select
a STEM major in college than Asian male students of non-
AMP! teachers.
Hispanic female students of AMP! teachers were 5.1%
more likely to select a STEM major in college than Hispanic
female students of non-AMP! Teachers (Table 4). In con-
trast, Hispanic male students of AMP! teachers were 2.8%
more likely to major in STEM in college than Hispanic male
students of non-AMP! teachers. Finally, Table 4 also shows
that Black female students of AMP! teachers were 7.2%
more likely to major in STEM in college than Black female
students of non-AMP! teachers. Black male students were
5.2% more likely to major in STEM in college when having
had an AMP! teacher than Black male students of non-AMP!
teachers. These ndings indicate that AMP! is related to the
increased likelihood of female Asian and Black students se-
lecting STEM majors. Additionally, while the increase in
likelihood of selecting a STEM major was smaller for His-
panic female students (compared to Asian and Black female
students), Hispanic female students were still twice as likely
to major in STEM when having an AMP! teacher compared
to their male counterparts.
We note that the proportion changes in STEM majors de-
scribed above are on an unstandardized metric and thus not
comparable across groups. Thus, to compare the impact of
Sample Gender Sample
N
Proportion
STEM Major
Number
STEM Major
Non-AMP! instructed All 13,786 0.154 2,125
AMP! instructed 13,786 0.207 2,855
Non-AMP! instructed
F 7,848 0.116 907
M 5,938 0.205 1,218
AMP! instructed
F 7,852 0.171 1,343
M 5,934 0.255 1,512
Table 2. STEM Major Selection of Students of AMP! Teachers vs.
Matched Controls.
Sample Race/
Ethnicity
Sample
N
Proportion
STEM
major
Number
STEM
Major
Non-AMP! instructed Asian 1,418 0.258 366
AMP! instructed 1,419 0.319 453
Non-AMP! instructed Black 3,816 0.120 459
AMP! instructed 3,818 0.186 711
Non-AMP! instructed White 4,016 0.144 579
AMP! instructed 4,017 0.196 789
Non-AMP! instructed Hispanic 4,455 0.160 713
AMP! instructed 4,451 0.200 888
Table 3. Comparison of STEM College Major Selection of Students of
Program Participants vs. Comparison Students by Race/Ethnicity.
Sample Race/
Ethnicity Gender Sample
N
Proportion
STEM
Major
Number
STEM
Major
Non-AMP!
instructed
White
M 17923 0.201 3,603
F 22284 0.093 2,072
AMP! instructed M 1789 0.263 471
F 2228 0.143 319
Non-AMP!
instructed
Asian
M 6640 0.327 2,171
F 7542 0.209 1,576
AMP! instructed M 663 0.363 240
F 756 0.280 212
Non-AMP!
instructed
Hispanic
M 18727 0.213 3989
F 25790 0.118 3043
AMP!
instructed
M 1873 0.241 451
F 2578 0.169 436
Non-AMP!
Instructed
Black
M 15748 0.164 2,583
F 22390 0.093 2,082
AMP! Instructed M 1576 0.216 340
F 2242 0.165 370
Table 4. Comparison of STEM College Major Selection of Students of
Program Participants vs. Comparison Students by Race and Gender.
Note: 10:1 control sample
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 7
the program across groups, we calculated the odds ratios,
which are a standardized eect size for data with a categor-
ical outcome, for Hispanic, Black, and Asian women in the
model above. We report the odds ratios here as it is a more
useful metric for comparing the impact of having an AMP!
trained teacher on selecting a STEM major for these three
groups of women. The odds ratio for Hispanic women was
calculated as 1.52. This indicates that the odds of a Hispanic
woman who had an AMP! trained teacher selecting a STEM
major is 1.52 times higher than Hispanic women who did
not have an AMP! trained teacher. The odds ratio for Asian
women was 1.48. This indicates that the odds of an Asian
woman who had an AMP! trained teacher selecting a STEM
major is 1.48 times higher than an Asian woman who did
not have an AMP! trained teacher. Finally, the odds ratio for
Black women was 1.93. This odds ratio indicates that the
odds of a Black woman who had an AMP! trained teacher
selecting a STEM major was 1.93 times than for a Black
woman who did not have an AMP! trained teacher selecting
a STEM major. The odds ratio results clearly indicate that
for Black women, having an AMP! trained teacher is related
to increased odds of Black women selecting a STEM major
in college to a greater extent relative to Hispanic and Asian
women. In sum, across the three models, we found that all
students of teachers who participated in AMP! were more
likely to select a STEM major when they attended college
than students who did not have a teacher who participated in
AMP!. In addition, when we examined the likelihood of stu-
dents pursuing STEM degrees across gender demographics,
we found that female students had higher proportion rates
of selecting a STEM major compared to their male counter-
parts when their teachers participated in AMP!. Examining
racial groups indicated that Black and Asian students had
larger proportion rates when selecting a STEM major than
their White and Hispanic counterparts when their teachers
participated in AMP!. Finally, when examining the interac-
tion between race and gender, we found that Black female
students had the highest increase in proportion rates when
their teachers participated in AMP! compared to female stu-
dents across other racial demographics.
Power Analysis. We note that we were able to leverage
the EdRC database to increase the size of our comparison
students to a 10:1 non-AMP! to AMP! Ratio. As mentioned
above, our 10:1 model found signicant AMP! status by
gender interactions for Asian, Hispanic, and Black students.
We examined 1:1 models and found that the AMP! status
by gender interaction for Black students was still signi-
cant at p < 0.05 but only approaching signicance for Asian
and Hispanic students (p > 0.05 but p < 0.1). To investigate
why the 1:1 result did not yield the same signicant results,
we examined the eect sizes and power calculations for all
groups with 1:1 and 1:10 ratios. In all 1:10 ratios, the power
exceeded Beta=.99 for all groups. However, for the 1:1 ratio,
power was only at Beta=0.99 for the Black student sample.
The remaining samples had power ranging from Beta=0.71-
0.77. This dierential power is a function of the eect size
on which the power is based, and as seen above the odds
ratio eect size was greatest for Black women. Additionally,
when comparing proportions, both the proportions’ location
and the magnitude of the proportion dierence impact the
power to detect dierences. For example, it is more chal-
lenging to detect a dierence of 10% when the proportions
are 45% versus 55%, relative to when the proportions are
5% and 15%. To compare proportions, they must undergo a
transformation of φ=2sin-1(√(P)), where P is the proportion
of a given group. The phi values can be directly compared
and yield an eect size of h. For the four groups, the h ef-
fect sizes were 0.09 for the white sample, 0.13 for the Asian
sample, 0.12 for the Hispanic sample, and 0.16 for the black
sample. Thus, the larger eect size for Black students is like-
ly why the interaction was still detectible in the 1:1 sample
at p < 0.05, while the remaining samples’ values slightly ex-
ceeded 0.05.
DISCUSSION
The ndings of this study have many implications. First
and foremost, teachers matter. This study shows that ac-
counting for various social demographic factors that can
impact students’ educational trajectories, students who had
teachers that participated in AMP! were more likely to major
in STEM. This nding is not entirely surprising, as a long
track record of research shows teachers’ power and inuence
on their students’ lives. Most dedicate their lives to support
their students’ achievement (Ansari et al., 2020; Day et al.,
2007; Ladson-Billings, 2014).
A sociocultural perspective of learning allows us to un-
derstand why teachers can have such an impactful position
in their students’ lives. Teachers spend up to 1,000 hours
per school year (depending on grade level) teaching and
engaging with their students (OECD, 2021). In the class-
room, the teacher holds power to lead the direction of the
social environment that can either engage or disengage stu-
dents in STEM subject matter. For example, an abundance
of research in mathematics education has shown how social
normative behavior around legitimate participation in math-
ematics classrooms and social mathematical normative (so-
cio-mathematical norms) behavior contributes signicantly
to student’s understanding of what counts as mathematics,
what legitimate forms of mathematical participation look
like, who is capable of succeeding in mathematics class-
rooms, and the roles of students and teachers in mathematics
classrooms (Cobb et al., 1992; Cobb, 1994; Heller, 2015;
Kohen and Borko, 2022; Sfard, 2007; Walshaw and Antho-
ny, 2008). At the K-12 education level, these experiences
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 8
play an early and vital role in creating an anity and posi-
tive disposition towards STEM elds.
For both AMP! and non-AMP! instructors, confounding
factors such as administrative support, school culture, teach-
er attitudes, and the quality of PD outside of AMP! are un-
known. However, participating in AMP! prepares teachers to
understand the interdisciplinary nature of their content, that
is, that mathematics and science in the real-world work in
concert together, and this relationship needs to be reected
in teachers’ classroom practice. Thus, teachers are equipped
with the pedagogical skills to reshape the norms of partici-
pation in the classroom. For mathematics teachers, this in-
dicates using science as the context in which students can
practice “doing” mathematics, thus expanding the forms of
mathematical participation to include rigorous inquiry prac-
tices. For science teachers, this indicates applying mathemat-
ical concepts to the practice of “doing” science and making
visible the connections between mathematics and science in
engaging and rigorous ways. Students can develop positive
dispositions in STEM when they can purposefully engage
in science and mathematics in thought-provoking ways. As
such, we must support in-service mathematics and science
teachers to design learning environments that move beyond
speed and memory so that teachers can create learning envi-
ronments more reective of communities’ use mathematics
in their everyday contexts (Ambrose, 2018). AMP! does just
that. As a result, we see evidence of an increase in the likeli-
hood of students selecting a STEM major when their teacher
has participated in AMP! compared to students whose teach-
ers do not participate in the AMP!
The Impact on Female and Black Female Students. Our
analysis found a signicantly greater dierence in the likeli-
hood of selecting a STEM major when their teachers partici-
pated in AMP! amongst Black women and women in general.
This nding was of interest to us for several reasons. First, as
noted at the start of the paper, Black women continue to be
excluded from many STEM elds. Research has shown that
it is not because of a lack of interest or abilities but rather
many social conditions that continue to marginalize Black
females from participating in these elds (Alexander and
Hermann, 2016; Carlone, 2004; Fordman, 1993; Joseph et
al., 2017; Malcom, 1976; McGee, 2016; Ong et al., 2011).
We were excited to discover that when teachers participated
in our program, their Black female students were likelier to
major in STEM. However, we are not entirely clear what
precisely about the program is leading to such an increase
in likelihood among Black female students. We turned to the
body of literature on the inuences of STEM major selec-
tion to understand why inquiry-based PD for teachers might
impact the likelihood of Black female students and female
students choosing a STEM major more than other racial and
gender groups.
A factor critical to broadening STEM participation is
having mentors and instructors that align with students’ so-
cial and cultural groups (Espinosa, 2011; Johnson, 2011;
Rainey et al., 2018). Having mentors and instructors from
one’s social and cultural background can lead to a stronger
disposition and anity towards STEM elds because there
is a shared understanding of expected behaviors and practic-
es within and across social, cultural, and historical groups
(Bergey and Kaplan, 2010). Cultural norms and practices
within STEM disciplinary elds are “dynamically unfold-
ing, culturally variable, historically rooted, and socially
and materially constituted” (Bell et al., 2017). When there
is a shared understanding between the mentors/instructors
and youth, STEM behaviors and practices can be validated.
Youth can feel free to participate in STEM in ways that are
recognized as legitimate, stimulating a sense of belonging in
STEM elds (Strayhorn, 2015).
We examined the demographics of the teacher partici-
pants in AMP! compared to the demographic composition of
mathematics and science teachers across the state of Texas
(Table 5). We found that within AMP!, 80% (n = 393) of the
teacher participants were female compared to, on average,
64% of math and science teachers self-reporting as female
in the state of Texas (Smith, 2021). Table 5 shows that in
AMP!, 38.5% of the teachers self-identied as Black, com-
pared to only 10.2% of math and science teachers in Texas.
Could the fact that Black and female teachers have higher
rates of participation in the AMP! compared to Texas math
and science teacher demographics help explain the increase
in the likelihood of choosing a STEM major we see amongst
Black girls when their teachers participate in this program?
Race/Ethnicity AMP!
(N = 491)
Texas*
(N= 10,397)
Black 38.5% 10.2%
(n=189) (n = 1,062)
Hispanic 13.2% 24.7%
(n=65) (n = 2,571)
Asian 7.1% 7.1%
(n=35) (n = 735)
White 34% 55.2%
(n=167) (n = 5742)
American Indian/
Alaska Native
0.2% 0.4%
(n=1) (n = 38)
Pacic Islander 0.2% 0.1%
(n=1) (n = 9)
Two or More Races/
Ethnicities
3.9% 2.3%
(n=19) (n = 238)
Other/Not Specied 4.9% 0.02%
(n=24) (n = 2)
Table 5. Racial Demographics of Math and Science Teachers in AMP!
vs. Texas, from 2014-2020
*Data from (Smith, 2021)
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 9
Based on the literature, the eects of AMP! might be com-
pounded by the teachers participating in the PD program’s
racial/ethnic and gender compositions. Further research will
be needed to investigate the roles that race and gender of
the participating AMP! teachers play in impacting student
selection of STEM Majors.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, we presented the ndings of a longitudinal
study that illustrated that the students of teachers who par-
ticipated in the AMP!, a year-long PD that prepares teachers
to engage in inquiry-based practices in the classroom, were
more likely to pursue STEM majors compared to students
who did not have an AMP! prepared teacher during their
K-12 education. In addition, we found that having an AMP!
prepared teacher increased female students’ likelihood of se-
lecting STEM majors in college. Finally, we saw the most
signicant increase in the likelihood of selecting a STEM
major amongst Black female students.
We used a sociocultural framework to help us frame our
ndings and hypothesize why we see signicant increases in
the likelihood of pursuing STEM careers when female and
Black female students had a teacher who participated in the
AMP!. Specically, we argued that participating in AMP!
prepared mathematics teachers to provide context to the
mathematical concepts grounded in science. Similarly, sci-
ence teachers were prepared to extend mathematical learning
into their own classrooms. This interdisciplinary approach to
teaching mathematics and science allowed teachers to con-
textualize mathematics, prepared science and mathematics
teachers to collaborate and coordinate the delivery of their
content using inquiry-based strategies, and allowed students
to have a real-world experience of both mathematics and sci-
ence such that students were able to visualize themselves
in STEM careers. However, questions remain. For example,
we saw that Black females experienced a greater likelihood
of selecting a STEM major than students from other demo-
graphics. Based on the literature, we hypothesize that we see
this increase due to the demographics of teacher participants
in the AMP! being predominantly Black and female com-
pared to teacher demographics across Texas. We will need to
investigate and conrm this hypothesis. We also have addi-
tional questions, such as “Why does AMP! draw more Black
women teachers?” There is a great need to make more visi-
ble the science talents and prociency of Black women and
girls (King and Pringle, 2019). Does the program somehow
provide Black female teachers with a context in which their
STEM educational talents are recognized, elevated, and val-
idated by the sta that delivers AMP!? A deep dive grounded
in observational and participant-observation methods will be
needed to understand the culture of AMP!.
There is a demonstrated need to increase the participa-
tion of Black girls in STEM elds, specically in engineer-
ing, computer science, and the physical sciences (King and
Pringle, 2019, page 540). Black women often experience ra-
cial and gendered biases throughout their educational jour-
ney that push them out of careers in these elds, including
Black science and mathematics teachers (Crawford, 2020;
McGee and Bentley, 2017). Issues of educational equity are
deeply connected to the institutions and systems we inter-
act with in our everyday lives, specically in the cultural
practices that these communities engage in that support or
restrict Black women from participating in STEM education
(Bell et al., 2017). To overcome these inequities, we need to
understand how to support Black females at every stage in
their careers, including those that teach the future generation
of STEM leaders. Understanding how high-quality PD can
increase the likelihood of Black girls pursuing STEM majors
can help us determine how to adapt the program to meet the
needs of K-12 students by preparing in-classroom teachers
to successfully engage students of diverse backgrounds via a
rigorous science and math curriculum while simultaneously
creating an inclusive classroom environment.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
Carolyn Nichol, Ph.D. Rice University. 6100 Main Street,
Houston, TX 77005. cnichol@rice.edu
Author Contributions
The manuscript was written through contributions of all
authors. All authors have given approval to the nal version
of the manuscript.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-
bution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. Catherine Horn, Pro-
fessor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the
University of Houston for her management of the Education
Research Center.
FUNDING SOURCE
This work was supported by ConocoPhillips. Any nd-
ings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this ma-
terial are those of the authors and do not necessarily reect
the views of ConocoPhillips.
Black Female Students’ Engagement in STEM – Henríquez Fernández et al. Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 2023
Journal of STEM Outreach 10
ABBREVIATIONS
AMP!: Applied Mathematics Program!; AP: Advanced
Placement ©; EdRC: Educational Research Center; NCES:
National Center for Education Statistics; NWEA: North-
west Evaluation Association; PD: Professional Develop-
ment; PSAT: Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test; STEM:
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics; TEA:
Texas Education Agency; THECB: Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board; TWC: Texas Workforce Commission
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