Switching Lanes or Exiting? STEM Experiences, Perceptions, & Identity Construction PDF

Chapter 13 Switching Lanes or Exiting? STEM Experiences, Perceptions, and Identity Construction Among College STEM Switchers Youngjin Song, Ann Y. Kim, Lisa M. Martin-Hansen, and Elaine Villanueva Bernal 13.1 Introduction A larger proportion of students leave their initial STEM majors than that...

Chapter 13 Switching Lanes or Exiting? STEM Experiences, Perceptions, and Identity Construction Among College STEM Switchers Youngjin Song, Ann Y. Kim, Lisa M. Martin-Hansen, and Elaine Villanueva Bernal 13.1 Introduction A larger proportion of students leave their initial STEM majors than that of other disciplines, although nearly 40% freshmen plan to major in STEM and the number of undergraduate students enrolled in STEM disciplines has increased in the last 10 years in the United States (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). This is concerning for many reasons, including the facts that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there is above-average growth of STEM occupations compared to other sectors (Fayer, Lacey, & Watson, 2017), and there are labor shortages in some STEM industries (Xue & Larson, 2015). Scholars have investigated various factors to explain why students switch out of their initial STEM majors, often called STEM switchers (e.g., Chen, 2013; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). However, a question unanswered in many of these STEM switching studies is where STEM switchers go and why or how they choose their new majors. Understanding why STEM students switch as well as an examination of where students go—and for what reasons—can shed light on the phenomenon of STEM switching. For example, one student may switch from a STEM field to a non-STEM field because of issues with instructional delivery. In contrast, another student may switch from a STEM field to another STEM field because s/he develops a specific interest while taking elective courses. These students have different needs. It is Y. Song (*) · L. M. Martin-Hansen Department of Science Education, California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Y. Kim Department of Human Development, California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA E. V. Bernal Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 227 V. L. Akerson, G. A. Buck (eds.), Critical Questions in STEM Education, Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education 51, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57646-2_13 228 Y. Song et al. necessary to comprehend the whole process of students’ STEM switching so higher education institutions can learn how to improve student learning experiences or to effectively advise on the choice of a career. To gain a better understanding of the process of STEM switchers’ final destina- tion choice—whether it is STEM or non-STEM—out of their initial STEM majors, our work is grounded in the theoretical framework of students’ identity. Several researchers have studied how students’ identity and their entry choice of studying STEM in higher education are interrelated (e.g., Aschbacher, Li, & Roth, 2010; Holmegaard, Madsen, & Ulriksen, 2014). Research has yet to capture the under- standing of students’ second choice of study after they switch out of STEM majors with the lens of identity at the college level. Thus, this chapter contributes to the study of why STEM switchers choose other majors by analyzing their experiences in and out of STEM fields and their choice as a process of identity construction. Moreover, previous STEM switching research has not been able to capture how STEM switchers characterize their understanding of STEM in terms of how the disciplines (S/T/E/M) are interrelated within a major or career. This is important as students switching from their initial STEM majors are referred to as ‘STEM switch- ers’ as opposed to ‘chemistry switchers’ or ‘engineering switchers.’ Holmegaard et al. (2014) pointed out high school students’ perceptions of STEM together with their identity affected their inclination to study STEM fields in higher education institutions. Thus, this chapter seeks out plausible explanations of how STEM switchers’ perceptions of STEM related to their choices of switching. The following research questions guided our work: With the college students who switched out of their initial STEM majors, 1. How do students’ STEM learning experiences relate to their STEM identity nar- rative and choices of major switching? 2. How do students’ perceptions of STEM disciplines relate to their choices of major switching? 13.2 Literature Review 13.2.1 What Is STEM? The Interdependent Nature of STEM Currently, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are referred to together as STEM but there is little agreement among groups and scholars about the definition of STEM and little acknowledgement of why those disciplines should be grouped together (Breiner, Johnson, Harkness, & Koehler, 2012; Chesky & Wolfmeyer, 2015; Williams, 2011). On one hand, there is a common idea of STEM that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are distinct fields that have yet to be integrated. This is particularly apparent when examining documents from different government entities in the United States. The National Science Foundation has a four-page list of STEM fields. The National Academies simply provide a 13 Switching Lanes or Exiting? STEM Experiences, Perceptions, and Identity… 229 bulleted-­ description for each of the letters S/T/E/M (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). On the other hand, STEM is treated as one discipline in and of itself so that there is a nature of STEM (e.g., “NOSTEM”; Peter-Burton, 2014), especially in the discourse of research regarding STEM switching. Our team posits that fields of basic sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics, and earth sciences), applied sciences (e.g., agriculture, environmental sciences, and forensic sciences), technology (e.g., computer, internet, and satellites), and engi- neering (e.g., chemical, civil, and mechanical) are distinct but meaningfully interde- pendent as they build on one another. For instance, basic sciences borrow from each other and the disciplines do not function independently. pH is used to describe bio- logical systems and logarithmic scales are used to describe pH (Tro, 2011). Molecular dynamics goes hand in hand with quantum physics and mathematics (Atkins, 2018). Materials science and engineering, which involves the discovery, design, and development of new or existing materials, uses principles of biology, chemistry, and physics to study the nature of materials (Callister & Rethwisch, 2014), and all of these developments are with the help of technology (Dogan & Robin, 2015). Computational biology and chemistry use computers and mathemati- cal modeling to characterize ecological systems and molecular structures, and quan- tum computing has enabled rapid design and development of solid-state batteries. Computer Aided Design (CAD) is ubiquitous across engineering disciplines. In these ways we recognize that STEM disciplines inform and rely upon one another (Akerson et al., 2018). In college, students are more likely to experience STEM as compartmentalized disciplines. Higher education institutions typically make distinctions regarding what is considered STEM and non-STEM; there are STEM and non-STEM colleges and majors. As a starting point of our investigation on STEM switching patterns, our research team stayed close to the way that our institution considered STEM vs. non-­ STEM. We categorized STEM majors as those housed in two colleges—the College of Engineering (COE) and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (CNSM). This made it possible to track within the university system where students switched to. In the process of our investigation we saw other fields of study that may be considered STEM at other institutions, such as health science and industrial design, which were termed by our research team as STEM-adjacent. Students in STEM-adjacent majors such as kinesiology, industrial design, or economics often learn STEM content to apply it to their majors (all STEM-adjacent majors had three or more required STEM courses). The category non-STEM designates majors requiring less than three science, technology, engineering or mathematics courses and outside of the COE and CNSM. 230 Y. Song et al. 13.2.2 Students’ STEM Experiences Concerns about college students switching out of STEM fields is not new. Seymour and Hewitt (1997) comprehensively explored the wide range of reasons for stu- dents’ decision of switching out of the Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (SME; the acronym used in the book) majors. Based on a three-year ethnographic study, the authors categorized and ranked 23 factors contributing to SME switching decisions. Among those, the top four factors were: “lack or loss of interest in sci- ence; belief that a non-SME major holds more interest, or offers a better education; poor teaching by SME faculty; and feeling overwhelmed by the pace and load of curriculum demands” (p. 32). Seymour and Hewitt found institutional structure and culture played a key role in SME switching, which challenged the common belief that most switching was caused only by individual student deficiencies. They also presented a set of concerns all SME students commonly experienced, indicating there were more similarities between switchers and non-switchers with regards to “abilities, motivations, and study-related behaviors” (p. 30). Researchers have continued to investigate the various factors that cause students to switch out of their initial STEM majors (e.g., Chen, 2013; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Some important factors are directly related to college STEM courses including faculty pedagogy (e.g., Xu, 2018), nega- tive experiences in introductory classes that functioned as a gatekeeper or gateway (e.g., Crisp, Nora, & Taggart, 2009; Gasiewski, Eagan, Garcia, Hurtado, & Chang, 2012; Mervis, 2010), and academic performance. In addition, researchers have paid attention to contextual factors such as academic support programs (e.g., advising/ counseling), interaction with (including support from) faculty and peers, and uni- versity structural features (e.g., class size). Several attempts have been made to improve academic support programs that resulted in greater retention in STEM majors (e.g., Polnariev et al., 2017; Wilson et al., 2012). Commonly these programs built students’ connections to communities in their early STEM careers so they would receive needed support from faculty and peers. Other explanations related to students’ individual attributes such as gender, eth- nicity, and family backgrounds have been examined, with particular concerns about the persistent underrepresentation of women and racial/ethnic minority students (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Some find they leave STEM fields at higher rates than their male counterparts (Astorne-Figari & Speer, 2018; Green & Sanderson, 2018; Maltese & Cooper, 2017). However, recent research studies on racial/ethnic minority students’ major switching found that students’ ethnicity was not a significant predictor of their intention to drop out of or change STEM majors (Shedlosky-Shoemaker & Fautch, 2015; Thompson & Bolin, 2011; Xu, 2018). Additionally, STEM entrants’ parental education, income levels, and demographic characteristics were not significantly associated with the outcome of leaving STEM fields by switching majors (Chen, 2013). Despite identifying factors that contribute to student switching, the phenomenon still exists. Therefore, in the current study, we propose investigating the experiences 13 Switching Lanes or Exiting? STEM Experiences, Perceptions, and Identity… 231 of STEM entrants, the meaning put on those experiences, and other college experi- ences informing where they go as important sources of information to gain insight into the phenomenon. Particularly, we apply an identity lens to understand STEM students’ decision of switching out of initial STEM majors. 13.2.3 STEM Identity Identity has been identified as a valuable way to examine student retention, persis- tence, achievement, graduation from STEM fields (e.g., Aschbacher et al., 2010; Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Nadelson et al., 2017; Shanahan, 2009). Scholars have been interested in which identity facets keep students in STEM as well as which push them out. We expand and build on the science identity theoretical frameworks by Carlone and Johnson (2007) and by Kim and Sinatra (2018; interactionist frame- work) and apply them to student experiences in various STEM fields. Carlone and Johnson (2007) identified competence, performance, and recognition as the three key areas making up one’s science identity. In other words, a student’s science iden- tity is informed by her knowledge of science and competence in science spaces, how she demonstrates or performs this competence, and herself recognition and recognition of others as a “science person.” In their interactionist framework, Kim and Sinatra (2018) argued that science identity development is informed by experi- ences that either encourage individuals to approach or avoid science. Both frame- works focus on general, universal experiences, feelings, and thoughts. Therefore, the frameworks were considered appropriate for understanding student experiences in STEM that included specific academic disciplines and beyond. Since the initial publication of Carlone and Johnson’s (2007) framework, other scholars have contributed to its development, modification, and expansion. Hazari et al. (2010) limited the focus of recognition to that from others and emphasized the importance of a student’s interest in physics when understanding a student’s physics identity. In a case study, Mark (2017) presented an African American, male high school student Randy who wanted to pursue a degree in engineering at MIT. Randy presented a STEM identity that included his interest in STEM-related topics (e.g., problem-solving, etc.), his newly acquired STEM content knowledge, and also his interest in making a lot of money (Randy refers to himself as “the investor” p. 995). Mark referred to this as the student’s “economic lens.” Additional research supports broadening what STEM identity encompasses beyond the domains of competence, performance, recognition, and interest to con- sider how it is informed. In a recent literature review of middle and high school female students’ STEM experiences, Kim, Sinatra, and Seyranian (2018) empha- sized the role of the environment. In their review, the environment included friends/ peers, family, teachers, as well as curriculum and classroom environment. Students experienced messages from their environment whether or not they should be pursu- ing STEM majors and careers. Attention to the environment and background of students at the postsecondary level is emphasized by work from McGee (2016). In 232 Y. Song et al. her interview study of Black and Latinx STEM students she identified how chal- lenging these racialized STEM spaces can be. Students were putting in additional psychological work to combat race-ethnicity stereotypes and deal with psychologi- cal exhaustion. In addition to such focused STEM identities scholars have investigated the role of career-related motivations to be persistent in STEM or using STEM interest to inform career decisions. Some scholars have focused on the exploration of future careers and its relation to STEM persistence (Perez, Cromley, & Kaplan, 2014) and applied social cognitive career theory in understanding STEM learning (Nugent et al., 2015) and career pursuits (Byars-Winston, 2014). Others have focused on recruiting STEM-talented students (Lee & Nason, 2013) or STEM professionals to become teachers (Grier & Johnston, 2009; Snyder, Oliveira, & Paska, 2013) and developing a teacher identity. Given this research is on STEM students’ and profes- sionals’ career choices and career identities, we consider STEM identity to include not only competence, performance, recognition, and interest in one STEM domain, but also one’s experiences in other STEM domains as well as future career goals. Considering the interdependent nature of STEM fields, we question whether stu- dents leaving one STEM field consider other STEM fields of study as it keeps their STEM identity intact. 13.3 Method 13.3.1 Research Setting The study took place at the 4-year public university located in the west coast region of the US during the 2018–2019 academic year. Thus, we acknowledge that our study represented only a U.S. perspective in a particular context. The university has eight colleges with a student body of about 37,000. As a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI), the university is one of the west coast’s top universities in terms of students’ ethnic diversity. The demographics of the campus are approxi- mately 40% Hispanic/Latinx, 20% Asian, 20% White,