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ERIC Number: EJ1163562
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Jan
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0036-8326
EISSN: N/A
Boosting the Numbers of STEM Majors? the Role of High Schools with a STEM Program
Bottia, Martha Cecilia; Stearns, Elizabeth; Mickelson, Roslyn Arlin; Moller, Stephanie
Science Education, v102 n1 p85-107 Jan 2018
This article investigates whether attending a high school that offers a specialized science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics program (high school with a STEM program) boosts the number of students majoring in STEM when they are in college. We use a longitudinal sample of students in North Carolina, whom we follow from middle school through college graduation, to estimate the effect of attending a high school with a STEM program on students' interest in STEM, odds of declaring, and chances of persisting in their intention to major in STEM. Although our multilevel models indicate that attending a high school with a STEM program has a positive association with students' STEM-related outcomes, once we control for sample self-selection through propensity score matching, we do not find evidence that attending high schools with a math and science-focused program significantly influences trajectories of STEM educational advantage for public school students in North Carolina. Our study concludes that perhaps even more important for college STEM success than what happens "in high school" is what STEM-related academic, familial, and formal/informal learning experiences the student had "prior to entering high school".
Wiley-Blackwell. 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148. Tel: 800-835-6770; Tel: 781-388-8598; Fax: 781-388-8232; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE); National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: North Carolina
Grant or Contract Numbers: 0969286; 1420363