Apparently English and history majors aren’t the only students quizzed by relatives and friends about what type of work they expect to find after graduation. Undergraduate females majoring in mathematics report in a recent study that they are frequently questioned about career options in mathematics, and even worse, they aren’t sure what the options are…. Read more »
Have you ever thought about living in a STEM dorm, or offering an embedded librarian service in one? A 2012 study published in The Journal of Higher Education (DOI: 10.1353/jhe.2012.0017) suggests that librarians could contribute to STEM retention through participation in field-specific residential programs, also known as living-learning (LL) programs. Soldner et al. surveyed 5240… Read more »
A Danish research group has applied the psychology theory, identity work, to understand why many high school students avoid entering STEM disciplines in college, despite enjoying and excelling in those subjects. In the 2014 International Journal of Science Education article, “To Choose or Not to Choose Science: Constructions of Desirable Identities among Young People Considering… Read more »
A helpful way to understand why women and minorities struggle to persist in STEM majors in college is provided by the goal congruency theory from psychology. Jessi L. Smith, Erin Cech, Anneke Metz, Meghan Huntoon, and Christina Moyer used the theory to frame their research published in the 2014 article, “Giving Back or Giving Up:… Read more »
I started this blog in September 2013 with the metaphor and an image of the “STEM pipeline.” The metaphor assumes that all potential STEM professionals follow a similar career path, and those who don’t accomplish certain milestones or lack key attributes “leak out” of the pipeline. Cannady, Greenwald, and Harris make a convincing argument that… Read more »
Precious Hardy and Mara Aruguete at Lincoln University of Missouri have presented a promising assessment tool in “Needs Assessment in STEM Disciplines: Reliability, Validity and Factor Structure of the Student Support Needs Scale (SSNS),” published in a 2014 issue of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. The scale assesses six areas of support from the… Read more »
I encourage librarians who are researching undergraduate STEM retention or developing retention strategies to reach out and share your findings and experiences beyond the library profession. An obvious audience for the library science perspective is the education profession, which can be reached through a number of publications. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Journal of… Read more »
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published a lengthy article entitled, “The STEM Crisis: Reality or Myth?” Various experts in science policy and labor trends contributed their views, and in the end, I was left wondering whether I should even continue this blog. But then I started reading a major study of STEM majors… Read more »
I owe my understanding of chemistry to dedicated teaching assistants (TAs), who patiently worked with me when I was confused. Sometimes they seemed more accessible than faculty, and that may be a common perception among undergraduates. A 2012 study by Kendall and Schussler found that undergraduates taking biology courses perceived TAs as being “approachable, understanding,… Read more »
It’s unlikely that we can directly, and certainly not singlehandedly, impact retention in the STEM disciplines. Emmons and Wilkinson are right on the money in the conclusions of their 2011 study, “The Academic Library Impact on Student Persistence.” They find a positive correlation between the ratio of professional library staff to students and retention when… Read more »
