Factors Associated With College STEM Participation of Racially Minoritized Students: A Synthesis of Research

Bottía, Martha Cecilia; Mickelson, Roslyn Arlin; Jamil, Cayce; Moniz, Kyleigh; Barry, Leanne

doi:10.3102/00346543211012751

Cited by 32 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 86 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…We also acknowledge that grade weighting is only one contributor to inequity between sexes and modifying it will not wholly resolve these complex issues . The larger issue of persistence in STEM majors cannot be simplified down to just grades and that other factors affecting persistence, both prior to entering the university and while in school, , should be addressed if real progress toward equity is to be made.…”

Section: Limitations and Disclosuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Correlation or dependency is also found with variables associated with privileged academic experiences or lack thereof such as precollege preparation, exposure to high-level curricula and responsive teaching practices, and access to resources and supplemental learning opportunities. 36,37 Several studies indicate that when incoming preparation and other variables are controlled for differences attributed to race/ethnicity are smaller or insigificant. 29,30,38,39 However, other studies in physics 32 and chemistry courses 40 have shown significant racial and ethnic differences in outcomes even when controlling for incoming preparation.…”

Section: ■ Literature Review Of Inequitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Exploring Inequities in a Traditional and a Reformed General Chemistry Course

Tashiro

Talanquer

2021

J. Chem. Educ.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Improvement in student performance from educational reforms has driven current calls for changes in curricular, instructional, and assessment practices in higher education. Less research has addressed the possibility of such reforms aiding in resolving the well-documented inequities in educational outcomes between sexes and races/ethnicities in STEM courses. In this study, we compared a traditional and a reformed general chemistry course offered at a large public research-intensive university. Using hierarchical linear and logistical modeling, we assessed and investigated the inequities between sexes and races/ethnicities in the outcomes for these courses. Initial analysis looking at aggregated data (not by sex or ethnicity) showed the benefit of reforms specifically for students that had not been as academically well prepared as others. Novel findings for off-sequence (first semester taken in Spring) classes for both the traditional and reformed courses found a female-lead in course grades and benefits for Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, Latinx or Hispanic, and African American or Black (NALA) students. The on-sequence traditional course was found to have a malelead in achievement in line with previous research. The on-sequence reformed course was found to have more equity in achievement between sexes. Possible sources of that improvement from the traditional course were investigated, and the weighting of different course components in the overall course grades was found to be a critical piece in the reformed course's more equitable outcomes. Though our results are promising in terms of offering a recommendation that may aid in advancing equity between sexes, our results indicate that the educational reforms made fell short in mitigating the pervasive racial/ethnic inequities found in achievement and performance measures.

show abstract

Section: Limitations and Disclosuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ■ Literature Review Of Inequitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Inequities in a Traditional and a Reformed General Chemistry Course

Tashiro

Talanquer

2021

J. Chem. Educ.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Numerous studies have found that the climate of STEM higher education programs is often unwelcoming for certain minoritized populations. The "chilly climate" theory (Hall & Sandler, 1982) was coined almost 40 years ago and continues to be discussed in contemporary literature on higher education (Bottia et al, 2021;Giles, 2015;Lee & McCabe, 2020;Morris, 2003;Rincón & George-Jackson, 2016a;Rolin, 2008). According to this theory, minoritized students in STEM may experience discrimination in almost every aspect of college life, from interactions with peers to faculty to administrators, due to a "chilly" culture which tacitly allows discrimination and hostility towards these students (Bottia et al, 2021;Giles, 2015;Kanny, et al, 2014;McGee, 2020;Ong, 2005;Rolin, 2008).…”

Section: Institutional Failures To Support Diversity In Stemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The "chilly climate" theory (Hall & Sandler, 1982) was coined almost 40 years ago and continues to be discussed in contemporary literature on higher education (Bottia et al, 2021;Giles, 2015;Lee & McCabe, 2020;Morris, 2003;Rincón & George-Jackson, 2016a;Rolin, 2008). According to this theory, minoritized students in STEM may experience discrimination in almost every aspect of college life, from interactions with peers to faculty to administrators, due to a "chilly" culture which tacitly allows discrimination and hostility towards these students (Bottia et al, 2021;Giles, 2015;Kanny, et al, 2014;McGee, 2020;Ong, 2005;Rolin, 2008). For example, Lee and McCabe (2020) found that "gendered expectations", including those perpetuated by professors, may lead to an environment where female students speak less and/or more hesitantly during STEM classes (p. 50).…”

Section: Institutional Failures To Support Diversity In Stemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusion in practice: a systematic review of diversity-focused STEM programming in the United States

Palid

Cashdollar

Deangelo³

et al. 2023

IJ STEM Ed

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Colleges across the United States have shown a commitment to advancing diversity in the STEM fields by creating programs aimed at improving outcomes of women and/or racially and ethnically minoritized students. However, most existing literature focuses on the successes of singular college programs rather than comparing these STEM interventions across the higher education landscape. This systematic review investigates the literature on diversity-focused “STEM intervention programs” (SIPs) at the postsecondary level. We categorize key features of these programs and their outcomes, and we look at which program components have the most empirical support. We examine 82 articles that reported on SIPs with disaggregated outcomes, coding each initiative’s features and outcomes. Across these articles, we found six common program components, with most programs including more than one component, and five common program outcomes. Just 53 articles tested differences in outcomes of participants relative to a comparison group. This subset of research found support for the effectiveness of all coded components for improving student outcomes, though studies of multi-component programs did not parse the relative contributions of each component. Based on these findings, we conclude multi-component interventions that create a welcoming environment and focus on the successes of minoritized students help redress existing institutional shortcomings and are a promising step towards diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM. However, more rigorous quantitative studies are needed to empirically assess the effectiveness of individual SIP program components.

show abstract

“…This article contributes to the corpus of research aimed at understanding students’ pathways into STEM, particularly differences between LSES youth and those from more prosperous backgrounds. Although much of the focus on underrepresented students in STEM has been placed on women and students of color (Bottia et al, 2021; Camera, 2017), there is a paucity of research on students from lower socioeconomic groups, who are also an underrepresented sector of the population. Using a statewide database of college graduates and interviews with a sample of LSES STEM majors, this study seeks to identify the pathways these students took into STEM.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic Differences in North Carolina College Students’ Pathways Into STEM

Bottía

Jamil

Stearns

et al. 2022

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background/Context: The underrepresentation of students from lower socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds among college graduates with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees, and consequently in STEM occupations, is a concern with respect to reducing, perpetuating, or increasing social inequality. The loss of their talent and creativity also poses a threat to the future of the U.S. economy, scientific knowledge generation, and national security. This study uses two theoretical frameworks—bounded rationality and effectively maintained inequality (EMI)—to identify the pathways toward STEM for students from lower and higher SES backgrounds, given the well-documented differences in their family resources and opportunities to learn, amount of cultural capital, and risk aversions. Purpose: The study identifies factors related to LSES students’ odds of declaring and graduating with a STEM degree and tests whether those factors work in similar ways for students from higher socioeconomic groups. The study contributes to understanding the roots of the underrepresentation of LSES students in STEM majors and occupations. Research Design: We use a mixed-method sequential explanatory design that draws from two complementary sources of data, one quantitative and one qualitative. Using multilevel logit models, the quantitative data set explores how SES influences students’ choices regarding whether to pursue a STEM degree. The qualitative data set further explores the relationships found in the quantitative data specifically for the case of LSES students through analysis of in-depth interviews. Findings: Quantitative analysis finds that LSES students’ socioeconomic background is related to their reduced opportunities to learn and reduced information resources, lessening their adequate academic preparation for success in STEM majors. Qualitative data indicate that risk avoidance—specifically, perceptions of risk and ideas of future income stability—play an important role in LSES students’ decisions to major in STEM. In addition, LSES students possess insufficient data to make informed decisions while in high school regarding course selection that would better enable their pathways into STEM, and to navigate into college success. Conclusions: To foster equity in access to postsecondary educational resources, it is crucial to offer all students access to high-quality academic opportunities before enrolling in college. Furthermore, high schools must ensure that students have access to explicit information about college and what various majors entail. We advocate that all students should have information on all options available so they can make well-informed decisions that match their abilities and preferences. Students’ access to and preferences for certain majors should not be conditioned on their socioeconomic background.

show abstract

Factors Associated With College STEM Participation of Racially Minoritized Students: A Synthesis of Research

Cited by 32 publications

References 86 publications

Exploring Inequities in a Traditional and a Reformed General Chemistry Course

Exploring Inequities in a Traditional and a Reformed General Chemistry Course

Inclusion in practice: a systematic review of diversity-focused STEM programming in the United States

Socioeconomic Differences in North Carolina College Students’ Pathways Into STEM

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About