Undergraduate research participation and STEM graduate degree aspirations among students of color

✍ Scribed by Terrell L. Strayhorn

• Book ID: 102286680
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Weight: 57 KB
• Volume: 2010
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0271-0579
• DOI: 10.1002/ir.364

✦ Synopsis

Increasing the number of students who complete advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is a compelling national interest. Although college science and engineering degree completion rates have improved considerably over the past few decades, significant gaps persist among women and students of color. In 2002, women earned more than 50 percent of all bachelor' s degrees in science and engineering, although major variations emerge when we disaggregate these data by field of study. For instance, women represented 75 percent of degrees in psychology, 59 percent in biological and agricultural sciences, and 55 percent in social sciences; but only 21 percent in engineering and computer science (National Science Board, 2006). Similarly, only 24 percent of underrepresented racial minorities (URMs: African Americans, Latinos, and American Indians/Alaskan Natives) complete a bachelor' s degree in science and engineering-related fields within six years of initial enrollment, compared to 40 percent of White students (Center for Institutional Data Exchange and Analysis, 2000), representing a large and persistent racialized attainment gap.

Other national statistics show a precipitous drop in the number of students who express initial plans to major in a STEM fi eld and those who

The importance of undergraduate research experiences and the extent to which engagement in such activities influences underrepresented minority students' graduate degree aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields is the focus of this chapter.