Exploring the STEM Capability Profiles of Special Populations to Predict STEM Identity

• In Event: 42.031 - STEM Identity Development: The Contribution of Educational and Schooling Experiences

Abstract

Two populations with less representation is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are women, especially in engineering and computer science, and people with disabilities. Ten percent of the United States workforce consists of people with disabilities, yet they only make up 2% of the STEM workforce and currently 6.4 million students in public schools receive special education services (Moon, Utschig, Todd, & Bozzorg, 2011; NCES, 2016). Women and students with disabilities are an underutilized source of STEM professionals and part of encouraging those populations to pursue STEM is to ensure they see themselves as scientists. When students see themselves as scientists and develop their STEM identity they have a desire to engage in STEM learning (Leggett-Robinson et al., 2015; Riccitelli, 2015).

Purpose. The current study aimed to understand how various levels of STEM and career and technical education (CTE) capability can predict a student’s STEM identity. I hypothesized that students who demonstrate greater STEM achievement would also possess a greater STEM identity.

Data. Data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS: 2009) was used in this study and contained a sample of 21,419 students in ninth-grade (49.3% female and 50.7% male) with 8.9 percent possessing a learning disability (n = 1,380).

Method. Students’ GPA in mathematics, physical science, engineering, CTE, agriculture, health science, and computer science were utilized in a latent profile analysis, which is a person centered statistical approach, to categorize the ninth-grade students into STEM capable profiles based on their ability (i.e., GPA). The covariates used in the analysis were gender, desire to pursue a STEM major in college, and possession of a learning disability. The outcome variable was the extent students saw themselves as a scientist (i.e., STEM identity).

Results. The results from this study indicate ninth-grade students can be classified into five STEM capable profiles that were labeled as: High-STEM Capability, High-CTE Capability, Mid-STEM Capability, Tech and Agricultural Capability, and Low-STEM Capability. It was found that females and those who wanted to pursue a STEM major in college were significantly more likely to be classified in the High-STEM Capability, Mid-STEM Capability, and High-CTE Capability profiles than in the Low-STEM Capability or Tech and Agricultural Capability profiles. However, students with a learning disability were significantly more likely to be classified in the Low-STEM Capability or Tech and Agricultural Capability profiles than the other three profiles. As hypothesized, it was determined that the profile with students who possessed the highest STEM identity was the High-STEM Capability profile and the profile with the lowest STEM identity was the Low-STEM Capability profile.

Significance. The results from this study show that STEM identity does have a relationship to STEM achievement. If students’ STEM identities are developed at a young age they may be more engaged in STEM learning and, therefore, display greater STEM achievement and/or desire to pursue a STEM career. Further research must be conducted in this area, but preliminary results indicate that STEM identity plays a role in STEM achievement.

Author

• Micaela Victoria Cesario Morgan, University of California - Santa Barbara