Do introductory courses disproportionately drive minoritized students out of STEM pathways?

Area of Science:

• Education
• Higher Education
• Science Education

Background:

• Diversifying Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields requires examining educational structures.
• Performance in introductory STEM courses is critical for STEM degree completion.
• Underrepresented minority (URM) students may be disproportionately affected by introductory course performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess if introductory STEM courses disproportionately impede underrepresented minority (URM) students' degree attainment.
• To analyze the impact of introductory STEM course performance on STEM degree completion across different demographics.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a multi-institutional database with nearly 110,000 student records from six large, public, research-intensive universities.
• Employed multivariate logistic regression to analyze the association between introductory STEM course performance and STEM degree completion.
• Calculated predicted probabilities of STEM degree attainment for various student demographics.

Main Results:

• The link between poor performance in introductory STEM courses and failure to obtain a STEM degree is stronger for URM students.
• Even after controlling for high school preparation and STEM degree intent, this disparity persists.
• STEM-intending white male students with average preparation and good grades have a 48% chance of degree completion, versus 35% for URM female students.

Conclusions:

• Introductory STEM courses present a significant barrier for URM students, impacting their degree attainment more severely than their peers.
• A grade below C in just one introductory STEM course drastically reduces degree attainment probabilities for all students, especially URM females (21%).
• Addressing systemic issues within introductory STEM courses is crucial for improving diversity and equity in STEM fields.