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Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering

Published 6 issues per year

ISSN Print: 1072-8325

ISSN Online: 1940-431X

SJR: 0.514 SNIP: 0.875 CiteScore™:: 2.4 H-Index: 27

Indexed in

FEMALE UNDERGRADUATE STEM PERSISTENCE: A FOCUS ON THE ROLE OF LIVING AND LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Volume 22, Issue 4, 2016, pp. 349-374
DOI: 10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.2016016349
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ABSTRACT

Despite multiple policy changes over the last three decades, women are still underrepresented in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at the undergraduate level. This issue is a major policy concern for federal and state governments as well as higher education institutions. Colleges and universities have created a number of recruitment and retention policies to address women's underrepresentation in STEM fields. One of the longest running responses has been living-learning communities (LLCs) - programs designed to provide safe places for women to network and meet role models who can help them through their respective STEM courses and disciplinary climates. This study investigates how participation in a STEM LLC at one university relates to college and STEM-related educational outcomes by comparing participants to matched (via propensity score matching) STEM majors in the institution's general population. We found that WISE students were about 40% more likely than their non-WISE counterparts to graduate from college. WISE students were three times more likely to complete physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, and computer sciences degrees than non-WISE students. This finding is important since these majors have shown the most persistent gender disparities over time in the U.S. In conclusion, this study highlights the positive relationship between participation in a single-sex STEM LLC on women's persistence in PEMC majors. Therefore, this study suggests that women-only STEM LLC's may be a valuable piece of the answer to improving the representation of women in the PEMC majors.

CITED BY
  1. Akbulaev Nurkhodzha, Aliyeva Basti, Sapena Juan, Gender and economic growth: Is there a correlation? The example of Kyrgyzstan, Cogent Economics & Finance, 8, 1, 2020. Crossref

  2. Silva Uyara Ferreira, Ferreira Deller James, Ambrósio Ana Paula Laboissière, Oliveira João Lucas dos Santos, Problemas enfrentados por alunas de graduação em ciência da computação: uma revisão sistemática, Educação e Pesquisa, 48, 2022. Crossref

  3. Silva Uyara Ferreira, Ferreira Deller James, Ambrósio Ana Paula Laboissière, Oliveira João Lucas dos Santos, Problems faced by female computer science undergraduates: a systematic review, Educação e Pesquisa, 48, 2022. Crossref

Forthcoming Articles

Mitigating Barriers, Scaffolding Success: Institutional Supports for Black Undergraduate Women in Engineering Programs Meseret Hailu, Neelakshi Rajeev Tewari, Brooke Coley Underrepresented Students Pursuing Mathematics-Intensive Degrees: Changes after Transitioning to College Alison Marzocchi What do STEM Clubs do? The Effect of College Club Participation on Career Confidence and Gender Inclusion Guillermo Dominguez Garcia, Jennifer Glass Validating Practices and Messages that Promote Women’s Engineering Classroom Belongingness: An Intersectional Approach Dina Verdin, A Lili Castillo Examining the Role of Institutional Support on International Doctoral Women’s STEM Persistence and Mental Health Aisha Farra, Aashika Anantharaman, Sarah Swanson, Kerrie Wilkins-Yel, Jennifer Bekki, Nedim Yel, Ashley Randall, Bianca Bernstein Searching for safe space: Student veterans’ uneven pathways to STEM careers by race Brittany Hunt, Jae Hoon Lim Does Race, Ethnicity or Gender of the Mentor Affect Whether They Will be a “Good Mentor”? A Qualitative Analysis of Students’ Perceptions Reuben May, Christine Stanley, America Soto-Arzat, Jennifer Ackerman PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY AND TEAM MEMBER EFFECTIVENESS OF MINORITIZED STUDENTS IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION Behzad Beigpourian, Matthew Ohland Perceptions of Department Chair Roles and Responsibilities in Career Progression and Success of Women STEM Faculty Stephanie Jones, Patricia Ryan Pal “Barbed-Wire Boundaries”: Hidden Curriculum, First-Generation and Low-Income Engineering Students, and Internship Acquisition Jerry Yang, Joseph Towles, Sheri Sheppard, Sara Atwood “I Want to Make an Impact”: The Science Identity and Career Goals of Black and Latinx Science and Engineering Postdoctoral Scholars Sylvia Mendez, Kathryn Watson, Kathryn Starkey, Valerie Conley Care Work, Science Brokering, and Career Motivations: How Hispanic/Latinx Young Adults in STEM Express Social Agency during the COVID-19 Pandemic Angela Frederick, Angelica Monarrez, Danielle Morales Bridging the gap: A sequential mixed methods study of trust networks in graduate application, admissions, and enrollment Cynthia Villarreal, Julie Posselt, Theresa Hernandez, Alexander Rudolph
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