On the Persistence and Attrition of Women in Mathematics

The purpose of this study was to investigate what motivates women to choose mathematics as an undergraduate major and to further explore what shapes their future career goals, paying particular attention to their undergraduate experiences and their perceptions of the role of gender in these decisions. A series of semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with twelve undergraduate women mathematics majors who were attending either a large public university or a small liberal arts college. This study found that strong mathematical identities and enjoyment of mathematics heavily influenced their decisions to major in mathematics. At the career selection stage, these women desired careers that are service-oriented, social in nature, and involved mathematical applications. For those planning to become teachers, the desire to help others predominantly influenced their career decision. Many of the non-teaching majors were unaware of mathematical careers other than teaching that satisfied these career qualities. Implications of these results with respect to women’s participation in mathematics are discussed

Exploring How Gender, Self-Identified Personality Attributes, Mathematics Identity, and Gender Identification Contribute to College Students’ STEM Career Goals

In this study we surveyed 958 college students enrolled in Pre-calculus, Calculus I, and Calculus II courses at two different public universities in the United States to explore STEM career goals with self-identified personality attributes, mathematics identity, and strength of gender identification. We analyzed the results of our data by gender, using a series of Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests, and correlation. We found that, for both genders, certain self-identified personality attributes were more common amongst college students who selected a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) career goal as compared to college students who did not select a STEM career goal. We also found a weak correlation between the strength of one’s gender identification and mathematics identity. In this paper we report our findings and reflect on our results with regards to the shortage of women entering STEM careers

College Students’ Images of Mathematicians and Mathematical Careers

In this paper we report our findings of college students’ images of mathematicians and we reflect on different methodologies used to assess this information. The study reported in this paper was conducted in two stages. During the first stage, we asked 179 college students to “draw a mathematician” and also asked them to list five characteristics and five careers for a mathematician. In the second stage of the study, we conducted four focus group interviews with a total of twelve college students. During the focus group interviews, we showed the students 16 photos of real people and asked them to determine which they think are mathematicians and which are not. We found that college students do hold certain stereotypic images of mathematicians and that different perspectives arose based on the different research methodologies. In this paper, we argue for the need to go beyond relying solely on the “draw a mathematician” test and we conclude with a discussion on the implications that stereotypic images of mathematicians have on the mathematical workforce

Undergraduate mathematics students' understanding of mathematical statements and proofs

This dissertation takes a qualitative look at the understanding of mathematical statements and proofs held by college students enrolled in a transitional course, a course designed to teach students how to write proofs in mathematics. I address the following three research questions: (1) What are students' understandings of the structure of mathematical statements? (2) What are students' understandings of the structure of mathematical proofs? (3) What concerns with the nature of proof do students express when writing proofs? Three individual interviews were held with each of the six participants of the study during the final month of the semester. The first interview was used to gain information about the students' mathematical backgrounds and their thoughts and beliefs about mathematics and proofs. The second and third interviews were task-based, in which the students were asked to write and evaluate proofs. In this dissertation, I document the students' attempts and verbal thoughts while proving mathematical statements and evaluating proofs. The results of this study show that the students often had difficulties interpreting conditional statements and quantified statements of the form, "There exists...for all..." These students also struggled with understanding the structure of proofs by contradiction and induction proofs. Symbolic logic, however, appeared to be a useful tool for interpreting statements and proof structures for those students who chose to use it. When writing proofs, the students tended to emphasize the need for symbolic manipulation. Furthermore, these students expressed concerns with what needs to be justified within a proof, what amount of justification is needed, and the role personal conviction plays within formal mathematical proof. I conclude with a discussion connecting these students' difficulties and concerns with the social nature of mathematical proof by extending the theoretical framework of the Emergent Perspective (Cobb & Yackel, 1996) to also include social norms, sociomathematical norms, and the mathematical practices of the mathematics community