Profiles of STEM Students’ Interest Development During University Time

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 3:35 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Transitions and Trajectories Within and Upon Graduating From College (Table 7)

Abstract

This paper focuses the development of STEM students’ interests during university time. Building on Holland’s model of vocational interests, it aims at revealing profiles of developing interests by a latent profile analysis. It specifically aims at distinguishing the profiles for male and female students in different STEM areas, at similarities of the profiles across the subpopulations and their relation to study outcomes. Results show primarily one large profile for female and two large, ‘competing’, profiles for male students. In detail, analyses show different pattern of interest development for male and female students that might give indications for the reported phenomena of belonging uncertainty and the lower persistence rates of female students in STEM.

Authors

• Bernhard M. Ertl, Universität der Bundeswehr München

• Florian G. Hartmann, Pädagogische Hochschule Salzburg