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Full-Text Articles in Education

What Matters In College For Retaining Aspiring Scientists And Engineers From Underrepresented Racial Groups, Mitchell J. Chang, Jessica Sharkness, Sylvia Hurtado, Christopher B. Newman Jan 2014

What Matters In College For Retaining Aspiring Scientists And Engineers From Underrepresented Racial Groups, Mitchell J. Chang, Jessica Sharkness, Sylvia Hurtado, Christopher B. Newman

Christopher B. Newman

This longitudinal study examined factors that contribute to the persistence of underrepresented racial minority (URM) undergraduates in STEM fields. The primary source of data came from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s 2004 The Freshman Survey (TFS) and 2008 College Senior Survey (CSS). The sample included 3,670 students at 217 institutions who indicated on the TFS that they intended to major in a STEM field, 1,634 of whom were underrepresented minority (URM) students. Findings indicate that Black and Latino undergraduates were significantly less likely to persist in STEM majors than were their White and Asian American counterparts. Background characteristics and college …


"We Do Science Here": Underrepresented Students' Interactions With Faculty In Different College Contexts, Sylvia Hurtado, M. Kevin Eagan, Minh C. Tran, Christopher B. Newman, Mitchell J. Chang, Paolo Velasco Jan 2011

"We Do Science Here": Underrepresented Students' Interactions With Faculty In Different College Contexts, Sylvia Hurtado, M. Kevin Eagan, Minh C. Tran, Christopher B. Newman, Mitchell J. Chang, Paolo Velasco

Christopher B. Newman

Faculty members play a key role in the identification and training of the next generation of scientific talent. In the face of the need to advance and diversify the scientific workforce, we examine whether and how specific institutional contexts shape student interactions with faculty. We conducted a mixed methods study to understand institutional contextual differences in the experiences of aspiring scientists. Data from a qualitative five-campus case study and a quantitative longitudinal study of students from over 117 higher education institutions were analyzed to determine how aspiring scientists interact with faculty and gain access to resources that will help them …


Engineering Success: The Role Of Faculty Relationships With African American Undergraduates, Christopher B. Newman Jan 2011

Engineering Success: The Role Of Faculty Relationships With African American Undergraduates, Christopher B. Newman

Christopher B. Newman

Previous research has found that faculty–student relationships are a contributing factor to the retention of students at four-year institutions. In this study, the experiences of twelve African American engineers are explored through the lens of Fiske’s (Structures of Social Life: The Four Elementary Forms of Human Relations, Free Press, New York, 1991) social-relational models theory. The overall findings of this study suggest that faculty play an important role in encouraging or dissuading the African American engineers in this study to persist in their respective majors. Additionally, the involvement in faculty research laboratories and the referral by faculty to other opportunities …