STEM Workforce Development  

STEM Learning and Learning Environments  

Broadening Participation in STEM

Family Support of Math and Science: Examining an Untapped Source of Resilience for Diverse High School Students

Effective Years: 2018-2022

High school is a critical turning point in many students' STEM coursework and career trajectories. For example, students' math motivation peaks in high school yet 45% of 10th graders who express interest in pursuing a STEM career lose that interest by the end of high school. Adolescents with minimal math and science high school coursework are extremely unlikely to either try or be able to enter STEM college majors and careers. To change these trends, it is necessary to understand how best to support high school students in math and science. Moreover, to increase the diversity of the nation's STEM workforce, it is important to understand whether motivational processes work differently for youth who reside at the intersections of demographic characteristics such as gender, race and social class. The current body of research on social factors that contribute to high school students' STEM motivation is largely based on studies of Caucasian families. This project exemplifies the Education and Human Resources Core Research program's commitment to fundamental research on learning in STEM that combines theory, techniques, and perspectives from a wide range of disciplines and contexts. Drawing from expectancy-value motivational theory, social positioning theories and feminist intersectionality theory, this project has five aims that center around understanding the role that parents play in students' STEM trajectories. Family support matters because it has been recognized as an important factor in maintaining student interest. To achieve its aims, the project team will analyze four waves of data from the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS). The HSLS includes a nationally representative sample of 21,444 9th graders. It offers a large, rich sample to study intersectionality as defined by students' simultaneous status on multiple demographic indicators. The data includes longitudinal multi-reporter information on student motivation, outcomes, and parent support in math and science. Students' trajectories will be traced at 9th grade, 11th grade, the fall immediately after high school graduation, and 3 years after high school. The role of other socializing factors such as school and peer experiences are also examined. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

20 Publications Related to This Project: