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1. Student-faculty interaction and discrimination from faculty in STEM: The link to retention

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-019-09564-w  

   Park, J. J. (January 2020, Research in higher education)

   Previous studies have documented student–faculty interaction in STEM, but fewer studies have specifically studied negative forms of interaction such as discrimination from faculty. Using a sample of 562 STEM undergraduates from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, we use hierarchical generalized linear modeling to investigate various types of student–faculty interaction in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and in particular, the link between discrimination from faculty and retention in STEM. While Black students interacted more frequently with faculty, they were also most likely to report experiencing racial/ethnic discrimination. Overall, female, Black, and Latinx students were more likely to leave STEM by the fourth year of college than male, White, and Asian American peers. Feeling that professors made a student feel uncomfortable due to race/ethnicity was negatively linked with STEM retention. None of the traditional forms of student–faculty interaction (i.e., non-discriminatory) predicted retention. Variation in patterns by race, gender, and income are discussed, as well as implications for research, policy, and practice. 

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2. Discrimination and Student-Faculty Interaction in STEM: Exploring the Impact for Students of Different Races

   Park, J. J.; Kim, Y. K.; Salazar, C.; Eagan, M. K. (November 2018, Association for the Study of Higher Education)

   While student-faculty interaction is linked to numerous benefits for students, a central puzzle is why not all groups appear to benefit equally from such interaction. Using a sample of 778 STEM undergraduates from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen, we use structural equation modeling to investigate the direct and indirect relationships between key student background characteristics and college experience variables, student-faculty interaction, discrimination from faculty, and college GPA among STEM undergraduate students. Results suggest that students who interacted more frequently with faculty also were more frequently exposed to experiencing discrimination from faculty because of race/ethnicity, which hence negatively affected college GPA. In particular, Black STEM students with higher interaction with faculty were more likely to experience discrimination from professors because of race/ethnicity, and student-faculty interaction only had a significant positive effect on college GPA for White students. 

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3. Students' Experiences of Unfairness in Graduate Engineering Education

   Bahnson, M.; Satterfield, D.; Wyer, M.; Kirn, A. (January 2021, The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity)

   null (Ed.)

   A pilot inventory to develop measures of bias and discrimination experienced by engineering doctoral students asked if they have been treated unfairly by their primary advisor, secondary advisor, and other faculty. Analyses of pilot data (n = 250) revealed Women, Students of Color, and sexual minorities perceived experiences of unfair treatment in intricate patterns. Post hoc analyses show that Women experience more incidences of unfair treatment than men. Race/ethnicity identity groups report a different number of unfair treatment incidences, with Students of Color generally reporting more experiences than white students. Being a sexual minority contributed to reporting more incidences of unfair treatment. Unfair treatment from faculty significantly predicted students changing and considering changing research labs when controlling for gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality. Unfair treatment from faculty significantly impacted engineering identity when controlling for gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, lab changers, and change considerers. Analyses of pilot data demonstrated the negative impact of unfair treatment on students and their development as engineers. 

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4. Toward an Understanding of the Relationship Between Race/Ethnicity, Gender, First-generation Student Status, and Engineering Identity at Hispanic-serving Institutions

   Arnett, Stephanie M.; Way, Sandra M.; Ortiz, David G.; Humble, Lorissa B.B.; Martinez, Analyssa D. (July 2021, ASEE annual conference proceedings)

   This research paper investigates the relationship between race/ ethnicity, gender, first-generation college student status, and engineering identity using cross-sectional data from early-career engineering majors. Measures of engineering identity are increasingly used in models of engineering education to evaluate how identity contributes to success and persistence of engineering students. Engineering identity is generally assumed to contribute to educational success, with stronger engineering identity leading to persistence. At the same time, data clearly shows that persistence of engineering students varies by race/ethnicity and gender. Given these previous findings, we would expect to find that engineering identity will vary by race/ ethnicity, gender, and first generation status. Yet, relatively little work has quantitatively compared how engineering identity differs across racial/ ethnic groups and gender. While researchers are increasingly trying to gain a better understanding of engineering identity among Latina students, for example, the literature has not yet adequately accounted for how Latina students differ from their non-Hispanic white peers. This works seeks to address that gap in the literature with an exploration of the ways that race/ethnicity, gender, and first generation status work together to impact engineering identity among early-career engineering students at four public Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the Southwestern United States. We conducted surveys as part of a longitudinal study on STEM education. Data discussed here comes from baseline surveys of three cohorts of engineering students (N=475). Approximately two-thirds of the respondents were attending a traditional 4-year university while the remainder (N=159) were attending community college at the time of the survey. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents identified as Latinx, 27% identified as female, and 26.5% reported that they were first-generation college students. While expectations were that engineering identity would vary by race/ethnicity and gender, preliminary analyses of our data unexpectedly reveal no significant differences between Latinx and White students in terms of their engineering identity and no significant differences in engineering identity between male and female students. Interactions between race/ethnicity and gender were also tested and yielded no significant differences between early-career Latinx and White students in terms of their engineering identity. Finally, students who reported that they will be the first in their family to get a college degree had significantly lower engineering identity scores (=-.422; p=.001). These results lead us to conclude that first generation status at HSIs may be more important than gender and race/ ethnicity in the development of engineering identity for early career students. 

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5. Difficulty Orientations, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity: An Intersectional Analysis of Pathways to STEM Degrees

   https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8020043  

   Nix, Samantha; Perez-Felkner, Lara (February 2019, Social Sciences)

   Is there a relationship between mathematics ability beliefs and STEM degrees? Fields such as physics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science (PEMC) are thought to require talent or brilliance. However, the potential effects of difficulty perceptions on students’ participation in STEM have yet to be examined using a gender and race/ethnicity intersectional lens. Using nationally representative U.S. longitudinal data, we measure gender and racial/ethnic variation in secondary students’ orientation towards mathematics difficulty. We observed nuanced relationships between mathematics difficulty orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, and PEMC major and degree outcomes. In secondary school, the gap between boys’ and girls’ mathematics difficulty orientations were wider than gaps between White and non-White students. Mathematics difficulty orientation was positively associated with both declaring majors and earning degrees in PEMC. This relationship varied more strongly based on gender than race/ethnicity. Notably, Black women show higher gains in predicted probability to declare a mathematics-intensive major as compared to all other women, given their mathematics difficulty orientations. This study’s findings show that both gender and racial/ethnic identities may influence the relationship between mathematics difficulty orientation and postsecondary STEM outcomes. 

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