Mathematics Course-Taking Pathways for Joining STEM in College

• In Event: 34.027 - Access to Accelerated Mathematics Course-Taking in Middle School and Beyond

Abstract

This study investigated the course-taking pathways for late entry into natural science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields during college, including among students who had not taken calculus in high school.

Educational trajectories in STEM have often been viewed as a “leaky pipeline” (Xie & Shauman, 2003). According to this metaphor, obtaining STEM degrees requires travelling a structured pipeline of key milestones such as taking algebra in middle school, taking calculus in high school, and declaring a STEM major early in college (Cannady, Greenwald, & Harris, 2014). Students who fail to complete one of these milestones “leak” from the STEM pipeline given the demanding mathematics prerequisites and coursework in later grades.

Despite some data that support this characterization (e.g., AIR’s presentation in this symposium), other recent research has found that the processes for obtaining STEM degrees may be more open and flexible than sometimes assumed. For instance, in one longitudinal study, many STEM bachelor’s degree earners (39%) had not intended to pursue STEM majors or careers when asked in either 8th or 12th grade (Cannady et al., 2014). Using nationally representative data, we built on this prior work to investigate these research questions:

• Does not taking calculus in high school permanently foreclose opportunities to later earn STEM degrees?
• What opportunities exist in college for initial non-STEM majors to later earn STEM degrees?

We analyzed data from the nationally representative 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) longitudinal dataset, which was a stratified national probability sample (n = 16,680) whose target population was all students who started postsecondary education for the first time during the 2003-04 academic year at any U.S. postsecondary institution (Wine, Janson, & Wheeless, 2011). Our focal outcome was earning a STEM bachelor’s degree within six years of starting college.

Contrary to the popular STEM pipeline metaphor, almost half of successful STEM graduates (49%) had not taken calculus in high school. As shown in Figure 1, this percentage varied some by field of study, but even many mathematics bachelor’s degree earners (30%) had not taken high school calculus. Hence, based on these nationally representative results, not taking high school calculus might make earning STEM degrees more challenging, but certainly not impossible.

Analyses also suggested opportunities for how postsecondary educators can leverage the diverse pathways into STEM during college. Taking STEM courses early in college (i.e., first year) strongly predicted which initial non-STEM majors later earned STEM bachelor’s degrees. This relation between early-college course-taking and late entry into STEM remained even after controlling for many theoretically relevant covariates such as high school mathematics preparation and prior interests in STEM.

We argue that educators and policymakers should think about the multiple pathways, not a single pipeline, along which students can different routes to STEM readiness. As the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology argued in 2012, “if students have exited this network of pathways, they need accessible and cost-effective ways to get back on” (PCAST, 2012, p. 31).

Authors

• David I. Miller, American Institutes for Research

• Jonathan Wai

• David Henry Uttal, Northwestern University