Sticking with STEM: Gender, Grades and the STEM Persistence Gap

• In Event: 2351 - Section on the Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 4. Gendered Differences Arose Institutions

Abstract

This project focuses specifically on how persistence in STEM courses and majors may interact with gender through the grading process. Grades are particularly relevant because they are some of the earliest academic feedback that students receive in college, and students use this feedback when considering potential fields of study (Ost, 2010; Sabot & Wakeman-Linn, 1991). While prior literature has investigated the effect that grades have on students’ choices and persistence, the effect of grading practices and earned grades on the gender gap in STEM fields is not yet well understood or documented. Data for this study comes from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research Pathways through College Research Network (PCRN) study, where five waves of surveys were collected in combination with transcript data from students at three large moderately-selective universities. In this paper, we establish the importance of early earned grades in widening gender gaps in STEM major declaration. We find evidence that not only do large introductory STEM courses disproportionately have grading practices that benefit men, but also that earned first year STEM grades account for about 17% of the gender gap in STEM major declaration. This appears to be due primarily to women in our sample earning lower grades, on average, in introductory STEM courses rather than to gendered response patterns to these grades. Furthermore, we improve upon previous methodology on grading penalties to establish more robustly which courses and subjects exhibit patterns that favor men over women (and vice versa).

Authors

• Monique Harrison, Stanford University

• Marissa Elena Thompson, Stanford University

• Sorathan Chaturapruek, Stanford University