2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The focus of the NSF IUSE HSI STEM project was to identify motivations for pursuing STEM at distinct stages of the academic career and the perception of families/caregivers, secondary school teachers, and community members toward STEM education and careers among Latinx and historically underrepresented groups. The data presented in this abstract will highlight the preliminary results from the college sample who were surveyed to better understand how these students interact with and utilize resources from their faculty and university. Participants completed the Laanan-Student Transfer Questionnaire (LSTQ), a 50-item scale developed to assess students' experiences with faculty, course learnings, experiences with academic counseling, satisfaction about university, perceptions of faculty, competition and survival culture, psychological adjustment, academic adjustment, and social adjustment (Moser, 2012).

There were no significant correlations between variables of interest (White, STEM major, and Female) and mean LTSQ score with faculty relationships (r’s range –0.007-0.091); however, evaluating correlations with the individual items for this subscale revealed females were less likely to seek advice on assignments from faculty as compared to males (r=-0.19, p=0.02) and STEM majors were more likely to ask their faculty for feedback on their work than non-stem majors (r=0.19, p=0.015). Similarly, no significant correlations between variables of interest and mean LTSQ scores with course engagement (r’s range -0.10-0.09); however, evaluation of the individual items for this subscale indicated several interesting correlations regarding sex and minority status. Females reported taking more detailed notes in class than males (r=0.25, p=0.002), were less likely than males to try to see how different facts and ideas fit together (r=-0.22, p=0.01), were less likely to report thinking about practical applications of course materials than were males (r=-0.18, p=0.03), and females were more likely to report that they made outlines from their notes than were males (r=0.28, p=0.00). Additionally, White individuals were more likely to report thinking about practical applications of course materials than non-White minority students (r=0.16, p=0.05), and White individuals were more likely to report that the participate in class discussion than were non-White minorities (r=0.16, p=0.05). When evaluating the LTSQ mean score for feelings of competition within STEM courses, a significant positive correlation found that females were more likely to believe their classes were competitive as compared to male peers (r=0.20, p=0.02). Lastly, when evaluating correlations between mean scores for each of the LTSQ adjustment scales and variables of interest, there were no significant findings between variables of interest and mean psychological adjustment, mean social adjustment, or mean overall adjustment (r’s range from –0.15-0.11). Results did indicate that there was a significant negative correlation between mean academic adjustment and White where Whites reported lower academic adjustment scores than non-White minorities (r=-0.22, p=0.01) indicating that White individuals were having an easier time adjusting to college than non-white minorities. These findings suggest that women and ethnic minorities are utilizing academic resources differently than men and non-ethnic minorities. Further exploration of these findings is warranted to better understand the specific barriers that women and underrepresented minorities are facing within the STEM fields.