Comparing success of female students to their male counterparts in the STEM fields: an empirical analysis from enrollment until graduation using longitudinal register data

Background In this paper, we investigate the predictors for enrollment and success in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs in higher education. We develop a sequential logit model in which students enroll in STEM education, may drop out from STEM higher education, or continue studying until they graduate in an STEM field. We use rich Dutch register data on student characteristics and high school exam grades to explain the differences in enrollment, success, and dropout rates. Results We find that females are less likely to enroll in STEM-related fields, while students with higher high school mathematics grades are more likely to enroll in STEM. Female students have lower first-year dropout rates at university of applied sciences STEM programs. With respect to study success, we find that conditional on enrollment in STEM, women are less likely to graduate than men within the nominal duration or the nominal duration plus one additional year. However, female students do perform equally well as male students in terms of graduation within 10 years. Conclusions We conclude that STEM programs are less popular among female students and that female students are less likely to graduate on time. However, females perform equally well in STEM higher education in the long run. For this reason, policy should be geared at increasing study success in terms of nominal graduation rates among female STEM students.

Recognizing and Developing STEM Talent Among Diverse Populations

STEM talent is often overlooked in underrepresented students resulting in limited opportunities to increase STEM interest and talent inside or outside of school settings. Academically qualified underrepresented students are less likely to be recommended for advanced placement STEM courses causing a racial divide and contributing to a lack of belonging in these courses. Methods to encourage STEM talent development and persistence in students from underrepresented populations include frontloading talent development interventions, creating afterschool or informal STEM programs, providing enrichment opportunities for highly capable students, and creating equitable access to advanced courses. This chapter presents the characteristics of STEM talent in underrepresented populations and strategies to identify high potential students, provides frontloading examples to develop STEM talent, offers examples of effective programming, and suggests instructional strategies to encourage STEM talent development in diverse populations.

Exploring Structural Relationships in Attracting and Retaining International Students in STEM for the Sustainable Development of Higher Education

Attracting and retaining international students has been widely discussed in higher education settings. Increasing the number of international students has become an indispensable strategy for national and global competition. This study focuses on effective strategies and international students' issues regarding satisfaction in the most popular STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs. We designed a structural equation modeling (SEM) method to determine the effect of institutional mediation between push factors and satisfaction factors for the development of better strategies by which to attract and retain international students. Taking Taiwan as an example, this study employed a self-designed questionnaire to collect data: 485 degree-seeking international students in STEM programs were invited and successfully participated in this study during spring 2021. IBM SPSS 26 and AMOS 26 (Analysis of Moment Structure) were used to carry out the data analysis. We employed reliability, factor, and SEM analyses. This study assumed that the impact of push factors can be modified by institutional situations and result in international students’ satisfaction with their learning and environment and regarding migration policy. The results revealed that the predictors, mediation, and criteria were significant at the 0.05 or 0.01 levels. The findings suggest that push factors impact international students’ satisfaction when using institutional leadership and international strategy. The results of the bootstrap with a generalized least square method showed that the SEM model fit in 2000 bootstrap samples. The effect of institutional mediation can provide useful information for STEM programs to boost their future recruitment and retention strategies. This study provides an innovative approach to the detection of issues among international students in specific programs. These findings can enrich our knowledge regarding attracting and retaining global students in higher education settings.

Using Third-Party Evaluations to Assess Socioemotional Skills in Graduate School Admissions

Consideration of socioemotional skills in admissions potentially can increase representation of racial and ethnic minorities and women in graduate education as well as identify candidates more likely to succeed in graduate school. Research on one such assessment, the ETS Personal Potential Index (PPI), showed that the PPI produced much smaller racial/ethnic-gender group mean score differences than undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) did. Across levels of institutional selectivity, the PPI can promote racial/ethnic and gender diversity in graduate and professional school in ways that UGPA and GRE scores do not. Predictive validity analyses showed that for doctoral STEM programs the PPI dimensions of (i) Planning and Organization and (ii) Communication Skills positively predict graduate school grade point average as well as a lower risk of academic probation, a determinant of degree progress, both alone and incrementally over UGPA and GRE scores.

A Distinctive Method of Online Interactive Learning in STEM Education

A breakthrough that has occurred in recent years is the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has affected various sectors of society, including the educational sector. It has prevented students from performing group-oriented hands-on activities and has eventually transformed their active learning environment in schools into virtual passive lectures at home. Therefore, to solve this impedance, we exercised several online STEM programs (five online STEM programs with repetitive cycles) for school students, including 140 students (middle and high school), 16 undergraduate (UG) secondary mentors, and 8 primary STEM professionals. Thus, the study revealed the results of a distinctive interactive online STEM teaching model that has been designed to overcome the virtual classroom’s impediments. The employed teaching model demonstrates an interactive learning environment that ensures students’ engagement, retention, and participation, driving them to STEM innovations. Various digital tools, including PowerPoint presentations, videos, online simulations, interactive quizzes, and innovative games were used as teaching aids. Both the synchronous and asynchronous means in a student-centered approach, along with the feedback mechanism, were implemented. Finally, the employed method’s effectiveness was revealed by the maximum student retention and STEM innovation rates, along with the model’s potentiality towards its replicability and sustainability. Thus, the outlook of such initiatives could further be broadened by its sustainability and replicability aspect towards vulnerable student communities such as academically introverted and specially challenged students.

An effective workshop on How to be an Effective Mentor for Underrepresented STEM Trainees

Despite an increase in programming to promote persons excluded by their ethnicity or race (PEER) scholars, minorities remain underrepresented in many STEM programs. The academic pipeline is largely leaky for underrepresented minority (URM) scholars due to a lack of effective mentorship. Many URM students experience microaggressions and discrimination from their mentors due to a lack of quality mentorship training. In this workshop, we provide a framework for how to be an effective mentor to URM trainees. Mentees, especially URM trainees, can flourish in effective mentoring environments where they feel welcomed and can comfortably develop new ideas without feeling threatened by external factors. Effective mentoring environments provide motivational support, empathy, cultural competency, and successful training.

E-Learning of STEM in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions: Status and challenges

The 4th Industrial Revolution and COVID-19 pandemic have globally impacted the economy, livelihood and organizations. With digitalization, many programs including STEM-based courses that require hands-on approach have gone online. This research was carried out to analyze the status of STEM Education in Malaysian higher education institutions and to explore challenges of e-learning integration with STEM subjects. A concurrent triangulation mixed-methods design was employed whereby quantitative and qualitative approaches took place simultaneously. The qualitative data were gathered via questionnaire while qualitative approach used semi-structured interviews. Respondents were STEM educators who teach and/or manage STEM programs in HEIs within the Klang Valley. Junior lecturers are found comparatively better using different software programs, exploring websites and handling multimedia tools for e-learning purposes. 83% survey respondents claimed their institution has no STEM e-learning policy, contributing to further challenge in STEM Education development. Respondents agreed sound e-learning implementation of STEM requires lecturers with subject specialization, able to approach application of knowledge, skills and values to problem solving, can collaborate with others and adept at integrating technology. Meanwhile, the HEIs must engage stakeholders to counter resistance plan to change, and to measure the effectiveness of integrating e-learning in meeting the strategic goals in STEM education. Keywords: E-learning, Higher education, STEM Education

Program evaluation practices and the training of PhD students in STEM

Purpose Program evaluation stands as an evidence-based process that would allow institutions to document and improve the quality of graduate programs and determine how to respond to growing calls for aligning training models to economic realities. This paper aims to present the current state of evaluation in research-based doctoral programs in STEM fields. Design/methodology/approach To highlight the recent evaluative processes, the authors restricted the initial literature search to papers published in English between 2008 and 2019. As the authors were motivated by the shift at NIH, this review focuses on STEM programs, though papers on broader evaluation efforts were included as long as STEM-specific results could be identified. In total, 137 papers were included in the final review. Findings Only nine papers presented an evaluation of a full program. Instead, papers focused on evaluating individual components of a graduate program, testing small interventions or examining existing national data sets. The review did not find any documents that focused on the continual monitoring of training quality. Originality/value This review can serve as a resource, encourage transparency and provide motivation for faculty and administrators to gather and use assessment data to improve training models. By understanding how existing evaluations are conducted and implemented, administrators can apply evidence-based methodologies to ensure the highest quality training to best prepare students.

Synergistic Interaction of LSAMP Alliances to Improve the Graduation and Transfer of Community College Students in New Jersey United States

The Garden State-LSAMP (GSLSAMP) alliance works collaboratively with the Northern New Jersey-Bridges to the Baccalaureate (NNJB2B) to greatly improve the graduation of community college students from underrepresented minority (URM) groups in STEM and their transfer rate to 4-years STEM programs. This is accomplished through several areas of enrichment. The two alliances sponsor joint activities to encourage a supportive community of 2-years and 4-years students. Community college students conduct research in the labs of mentoring faculty at 4-years programs where they interact with 4-years college students. A cross-campus near-peer mentoring program pairs recently transferred GSLSAMP mentors with mentees from the mentor’s community college of origin that eases and facilitates the graduation and transfer of mentees. In addition, the NNJB2B has adopted five proven high impact practices from GSLSAMP for their students. The results are that the graduation rate of the NNJB2B increased an average of 24.0% annually over the first 5 years of the program and the transfer rate improved 151.0% over the 2012 baseline. Four GSLSAMP 4-years institutions were especially active in the program and experienced an average increase of 62.9% over the 2012 baseline transfers from NNJB2B community colleges.

Implementation of the New Sub-Program for Mathematics Teachers at the University of Latvia

A qualified and knowledgeable teacher is a foundation of a good education, responsible for motivating a pupil to acquire new knowledge and apply it in different ways. By 2020, in Latvia, a teacher’s qualification could be obtained in various higher education institutions, which had dozens of study programs in different faculties, so it was difficult for school graduates to orientate in a large number of programs and requirements. Between 2018 and 2020, within the European Social Fund project “Education and Pedagogy” of the University of Latvia, a joint professional bachelor’s study program “Teacher” for several universities was developed. This program has several sub-programs – one of which is the sub-program “Mathematics Teacher” where in September 2020, the first students started their studies. In the new program significant changes were made compared to the previous programs. In this article we analyze the changes made to the study courses while comparing them with a professional bachelor’s program “Secondary School Mathematics Teacher” in the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Latvia. The COVID-19 pandemic brought changes to the planned study process, which also affected the implementation of the new program. Thus, in September and early October 2020 students at the University of Latvia attended lectures in person, but in mid-October the remote study process began. Since studying and lecturing online is a new experience not only for students, but also for the majority of lecturers and professors, it was a great challenge to reorganize the study process from studying in person to remote learning without losing quality and feedback acquisition. Given the fact that pupils and students in Latvia studied remotely also in Spring 2020, several surveys were conducted, focusing on remote learning process in schools. In order to see how remote studies affect students of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs, a survey about difficulties of remote learning process for 1st year students in the sub-program “Mathematics Teacher” was conducted.