Evolution And Persistence Of Students' Astronomy Career Interests: A Gender Study

This article uses U.S. survey data (N=15,847) to characterize the evolution of student interest in an astronomy career in the period between middle school and the beginning of college. We find that middle school students have a relatively high interest in astronomy, which sharply declines with every phase of their education. However, many of the students who leave astronomy - particularly male students - feed heavily into other STEM disciplines. Through statistical modeling, we find that students who spend extracurricular time observing stars, tinkering with mechanical or electrical devices, or reading/watching science or science fiction are significantly more likely than students who do not engage in these activities to hold an interest in pursuing an astronomy career at the end of high school. We also find that females who observe stars during extracurricular time show a greater improvement in their odds of pursuing astronomy than males do. Furthermore, we find that these outside-of-school time activities are better predictors of astronomy interest than commonly studied academic predictors. We discuss the implications of these findings on future extracurricular programming for students

Disciplinary Differences in Out-of-School High School Science Experiences and Influence on Students’ Engineering Choices

Participation from a variety of students is important to the long-term growth of the engineering field. Much of the research on engineering recruitment or career choice has focused on engineering as a whole, even though engineering disciplines are varied in student participation and focus. This work examines how students’ out-of-school interests and experiences in high school predict the likelihood of choosing a career in a particular engineering discipline. Out-of-school experiences offer more unstructured ways for students to meaningfully engage with science and engineering outside of the confines of the classroom. These experiences offer opportunities to spark particular science interests not included in traditional high school science curriculum. Additionally, participation in engineering for women has been historically low. For this reason, we also examined reported differences in out-of-school experiences by gender. Our findings indicate that reported out-of-school experiences increased the odds of students choosing particular engineering disciplines. Experiences traditionally stereotyped as masculine and more often reported by men, such as tinkering, increased the odds of choosing engineering disciplines with higher representation of men. However, some experiences equally reported by men and women, such as mixing chemicals or engaging with chemistry in the kitchen or talking with friends or family about science, predicted higher odds of choosing engineering disciplines with higher representation of women (chemical, biomedical, environmental). These quantitative results are a first step in understanding how out-of-school experiences are connected to the nuanced decisions of disciplinary engineering career decisions and have implications for the way engineering faculty draw on prior experience in the classrooms and for researchers on how out-of-school activities may predict students’ long-term career decisions

What a Difference a Decade Makes. The Evolving Gender Gap in Students’ Goal Endorsement and STEM Career Choice

Two national datasets of first-year college students, collected a decade apart, asking the same questions about career interests and life goal endorsement, allowed us to investigate the extent to which the life goals and career interests had converged among young men and women. We compared the gender differences in four types of goal endorsement (communal, material, intellectual, and free-time goals) by career interest groups (science, engineering, medicine, health, and other professions) between the two cohorts (2007 vs. 2017). Conversely, we compared the gender differences in career interests by goal endorsement between the two cohorts. Our specific focus was on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career interests. We found that significant differences have stubbornly persisted between male and female students preparing for STEM careers, particularly in the area of communal goals, whereas gender differences in communal, material, and intellectual goals have narrowed or disappeared for those interested in many non-STEM careers

The Influence of Student Enrollment in Pre-College Engineering Courses on Their Interest in Engineering Careers

Pre-college student enrollment in engineering courses increases every year in the United States, yet little is known about the relationship between taking these courses and subsequent science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career interest. Through multinomial logistic regressions, and while controlling for student background variables and prior STEM career interest, this study addresses two research questions: (1) Does completing a pre-college engineering course increase the likelihood of an engineering career interest at the end of high school? (2) Does completing a pre-college engineering course have a different influence on career interest in engineering than on career interest in other STEM fields (namely science, technology, and mathematics)? The study uses data from the Outreach Programs and Science Career Intentions survey (N 5 15,847), a large U.S. sample of college students enrolled in mandatory English courses. Our analysis reveals that the relationship between completing a pre-college engineering course and interest in a STEM career appears to be field-specific. Students completing a pre-college engineering course were two times more likely to want to pursue an engineering career than those without such a course, after controlling for a host of other relevant variables. By contrast, taking a pre-college engineering course was not associated with heightened interest in other science, technology, or mathematics careers. These findings suggest that high schools should offer engineering courses as an effective way to foster students’ career interest in engineering. This effect appears to apply similarly to all students, independent of gender, race/ethnicity, and other background variables

Understanding how First-Generation College Students’ Out-of-School Experiences, Physics and STEM Identities Relate to Engineering Possible Selves and Certainty of Career Path

This full, research category study examines how out-of-school experiences in Grades 9-12 predict first-generation college students’ engineering possible selves and certainty of career path. The data for this study came from a large-scale survey on outreach programs which was distributed in first- semester English courses to capture an array of responses from students interested in STEM and non-STEM careers. We used structural equation modeling to examine a set of hypotheses: 1) out-of-school experiences would be mediated by interest and recognition in physics and STEM and no direct effect will be found for out-of-school experiences on physics and STEM identities, 2) these identities subsequently predict engineering possible selves, and 3) engineering possible selves will predict certainty of career path. The results of our structural equation modeling analysis supported our hypotheses, out-of-school experiences alone are not enough to develop an identity as a physics person or STEM person, rather they need to be mediated through recognition by others and an underlying interest. A physics identity and a broad STEM identity were found to significantly predict students engineering possible selves. Engineering possible selves were a significant predictor of first-generation college students’ certainty of career path. Future possible selves for first-generation college students have important implications for academic development, integration into their community of practice, retention, and the formation of a future professional identity

Instructional Experiences that Align with Conceptual Understanding in the Transition from High School Mathematics to College Calculus

Using data from the first National study on high school preparation for college calculus success, the Factors Influencing College Success in Mathematics (FICSMath) project, this article connects student high school instructional experiences to college calculus performance. The findings reported here reveal that students were better prepared for college calculus success by high school instructional experiences that emphasized mathematical definitions, vocabulary, reasoning, functions, and hands-on activities. These findings serve to inform high school mathematics teachers about promising instructional practices. They can also inform teacher education programs about how to better prepare secondary mathematics educators to discuss conceptual understanding on the widely used Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA)

High School Prpearation for College Calculus: Is the Story the Same for Males and Females?

Usingdatafromthefirst national study on high schoolpreparationfor college calculus, the Factors Including College Success in Mathematics (FICSMath) project, this paper connects males’ (n53,648) and females’ (n52,033) instructional experiences from their high school precalculus or calculus course to their college calculus performance. A hierarchical linear model identifies several significant instructional experiences that predict college calculus performance. Our findings show that high school instructional practices affect college calculus performance similarly for males and females

Are Homeschoolers Prepared for College Calculus?

Homeschooling in the United States has grown considerably over the past several decades. This article presents findings from the Factors Influencing College Success in Mathematics (FICSMath) survey, a national study of 10,492 students enrolled in tertiary calculus, including 190 students who reported homeschooling for a majority of their high school years. The authors found that, compared with students who received other types of secondary schooling, students who homeschooled: (a) were demographically similar to their peers, (b) earned similar SAT Math scores, and (c) earned higher tertiary calculus grades

E-Readers Are More Effective than Paper for Some with Dyslexia

E-readers are fast rivaling print as a dominant method for reading. Because they offer accessibility options that are impossible in print, they are potentially beneficial for those with impairments, such as dyslexia. Yet, little is known about how the use of these devices influences reading in those who struggle. Here, we observe reading comprehension and speed in 103 high school students with dyslexia. Reading on paper was compared with reading on a small handheld e-reader device, formatted to display few words per line. We found that use of the device significantly improved speed and comprehension, when compared with traditional presentations on paper for specific subsets of these individuals: Those who struggled most with phoneme decoding or efficient sight word reading read more rapidly using the device, and those with limited VA Spans gained in comprehension. Prior eye tracking studies demonstrated that short lines facilitate reading in dyslexia, suggesting that it is the use of short lines (and not the device per se) that leads to the observed benefits. We propose that these findings may be understood as a consequence of visual attention deficits, in some with dyslexia, that make it difficult to allocate attention to uncrowded text near fixation, as the gaze advances during reading. Short lines ameliorate this by guiding attention to the uncrowded span

The Secondary-Tertiary Transition in Mathematics: What High School Teachers Do to PrepareStudents for Future Success in College-Level Calculus

Quantitative analysis of the Factors Influencing College Success in Mathematics (FICSMath) Survey data indicates that high school mathematics teachers’ abilities to teach for conceptual understanding is a significant and positive predictor of student performance in singlevariable college calculus. To explore these findings further, we gathered and analyzed interview data gained from a representative sample of high school precalculus teachers from across the U.S., identified by their students as requiring high levels of conceptual understanding (n=13). Seventeen themes were identified and then combined into five overarching phenomenological themes. These overarching themes suggest that teachers who teach for high conceptual understanding (a) support relational understanding during problem solving, (b) require students to learn how to study to build on prior knowledge and learn from mistakes, (c) use mathematical language and ask critical questions to support learning, (d) focus on content knowledge necessary to make connections, and (e) use technology to support learning concepts but limit calculator use. Comparison of these results to quantitative findings further illuminate that intentional development of disciplinary knowledge, cognition, and language are noteworthy points of intersection for teachers and researchers alike