How introductory courses deter minority students from STEM degrees

phys.org ^ | 09/28/2022

[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.

[Paladin2]

“Being assigned a low grade in introductory STEM course...”

Those grades weren’t earned?

[GnuThere]

“Weeding Out courses are doing their job of weeding out, therefore they are racist!!”

[JCL3]

In civil engineering, the two “weeder” courses were taken in sequence in the second year: Engineering Mechanics and Structural Design I.
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In electrical engineering where I went they were 2 semesters of physics, 4 semesters of Calculus(aka Engineering math). There were about 120 in the freshman EE class but the “Senior Room” only had 22 desks so yeah, weed on. I was going “back to school” at 28 years old and competing with whiz-kids selected for being top of the HS class and/or SAT/ACT scores near or at the top. Spent every waking hour for the first year, outside of class, studying and sharpening time management methods. Ended up #7 in my class.

Stories such as the OP posted remind me of whiners in the liberal arts electives we had to take. They all got mad b/c engineering folks pulled A’s in their classes EXCEPT for 1 class. Had a philosophy class where you had to be an attractive female and make after-hours appointments with the “prof” to be GIVEN an “A”, all males and engineering folks got C’s. My worst encounter with that sort of cow manure but it taught me how to spot such slimeballs.

[reg45]

I took a computer programming class. I developed my own logic instead of using the cookbook approach the professor taught. The project took more time so I lost credit. No credit was given for original thought, so I wound up with a B+ instead of an A.