Posted on 09/28/2022 5:33:33 AM PDT by devane617
A new paper in PNAS Nexus, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that minority students who earn low grades in introductory science, technology, engineering, and math classes are less likely to earn degrees in these subjects than similar white students.
There is a persistent disparity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education outcomes in the United States. In 2018, women earned 58% of bachelor's degrees, but only 36% of STEM bachelor's degrees. In 2017, Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous people comprised 30% of the U.S. population, and 34% of STEM-intending incoming college students, yet they earned only 18% of actual undergraduate STEM degrees. This has implications for the diversity of STEM professions as well as for the range of research and innovation in such fields.
Students interested in such subjects typically take introductory courses like calculus or general chemistry during their first semester. Colleges may offer such courses in part with the goal of sending a message to students who receive low grades that they should pursue other fields of study. Previous research has established an association between low performance in these courses and a decreased probability of obtaining a STEM degree. However, this association may not be neutral regarding gender and race. Being assigned a low grade in introductory STEM courses might have a greater negative impact on women and racial/ethnic minorities.
Researchers examined records from 109,070 students from six large, public, research-intensive universities between 2005 and 2012, to assess whether low grades in these introductory courses disproportionately impact underrepresented minority students. The investigators studied the records of student performance in introductory courses in physical sciences, life sciences, mathematical and computational sciences, and engineering to discern the likelihood of students earning degrees in these subjects.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Yes. Which is better: finding out in the first semester that you don’t have what it takes to make it in the field, or finding out in your second or third year?
exactly
I have heard from psychology types that very few people can do that, and most of us end up in engineering or applied science.
Odd I have always been able to see 3 D and always stand outside a building to size up where the rooms go after I have been in it.
“...students who earn low grades in introductory science, technology, engineering, and math classes are less likely to earn degrees in these subjects...”
Take out the racist bias in the original sentence, and that applies to EVERYONE, not just minorities. And then you read it and say, “Duh. No s—t, Sherlock.”
There is another solution, for those students that are weak in the introductory courses, for whatever reason. The academic advisors tell these students that it may take them five years to earn their degree if they are motivated to earn a STEM degree and the first year includes say calculus and three English/Humanities courses and the second year includes two introduction STEM courses and two General Education Electives.
My engineering career has been mostly solving thermal, fluid, or structural dynamics problems. While the software does the solving of the differential equations, an engineer still needs to know what the software is doing.
Also, I found that doing some simplified differential equations hand calculations is a good sanity check on the computer results.
The solution is for them to go to HBCUs. They hand out engineering degrees like Halloween candy.
In school we called Differential Equations “Difficult Equations”.
I barely cracked a book in HS, ended up with a 3.6 in 1972.
College was different, lol. It was par for the course that we had two hours of homework for every hour in class. Some were a bit easier, while my senior philosophy course was 3-4 hours for every hour in class.
Accounting was usually the standard two hours for every hour in class. All tests were essay, no multiple choice.
“In an equitable education system, students with comparable high school preparation and intent to study STEM would have similar likelihoods of attaining a STEM degree when accounting for introductory STEM course performance, regardless of their sex and/or race/ethnicity. “
Comparable high school preparation. That is quite an assumption to base systemic racism on. I have worked in education for over 30 years. There are lots of variance in what actually gets covered in a HS Chemistry, Physics and Biology class depending on the school and the level of academic achievement the students have prior to entering the class. The average student walking into one of my high schools is at the 4.5 grade level in math and the 5th grade level in reading. While they make take physics or chemistry and maybe even get an “A” in the class, the classes do not cover the chemistry or physics material to the same level, depth or degree that they would in a school where the students had better pre-preparation.
One could try to argue that they are less prepared because of systemic racism but the ugly reality is they have a parent (always mom) who lives in chaos, moves in and out of school districts, has poorly socialized children who do not value academic achievement. Succeeding in school is too white.
But rather than deal with any of that, we can just claim systemic racism. Or maybe physics and chemistry are just too white.
If you can’t pass the introductory classes you sure as heck ain’t going to have the gumption to pass the advanced classes. They are foundational. Do em or switch majors
Grades are not ASSIGNED. They are the consequence of academic performance in a class. Introductory classes are a good place to "try before you buy". If the subject is not your forte, you should pursue something else that you like better and is within your ability to master.
The author just couldn't let go of comparing the academic performance of white students vs others. Get over it. That pattern has been present for decades. No amount of money thrown at "fixing" it has been successful. It's just an excuse to demand more money to fix a problem that has never been solved in spite of more money.
Those girls would have made for terrible civil engineers. LOL.
Well, if you can’t hack it you should find out soonest.
As to minority attendance, listen to TSowell. He has long held that corrupt/racist policies like affirmative action and racist practices like “preference” set up minorities. A tough school is not gonna go easy on you ‘cause you are a token. Tough schools, ones that truly graduate STEM students, need to maintain their standards as a bad STEM grad can kill people.
Putting minorities into these schools purely to create a rainbow is likely to put someone there who was either not really interested or prepared. What was their high school really like? So, they drop out.
‘Not force, but lower standards until “equitable” outcomes are achieved.’
But that doesn’t matter.
The program has to have enough ENTRANTS to even possibly GET to that “equitable” point.
So again, they have to be forced to even TRY the program.
IOW, standard commie procedure - “assign” (LOL) everyone what job they will do. Kind of like classes - you’re stuck in what they assign to you.
My students at Southwestern College ranged in age from 16 to 65. All races and ethnicities. I structured the class with 18 standard assignments == C, add 3 extra credit == B, finish all 5 extra credit == A. Every programming assignment had to be completed 100% correct to move forward. I provided the necessary instruction to complete all the way to an A or better. The course was sponsored by the Regional Occupational Program and Southwestern College. Electronics 51/91. ROP tracked my students results. Over 3 1/2 years, my students managed a 91% hire by DEC or IBM. I stopped teaching the course when my employer moved me to the Trade Street computer center. It was simply impossible to navigate 45 miles of freeway travel at rush hour to start class on time after my workday at PacBell.
My top performers did projects beyond all the assignments. An interrupt driven clock using a 60 Hz interrupt rate. A voice synthesizer interfaced via RS232. Not bad considering the "trainer" was a 6800 CPU with 128 bytes of program RAM.
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