Metrics Matter: Race, Gender, and Measures of Success in Engineering

EducationRUSSELL A. LONG Purdue University

MATTHEW W. OHLAND Purdue University

CATHERINE E. BRAWNER Research Triangle Educational Consultants

MICHELLE M. CAMACHO University of San Diego

RICHARD A. LAYTON Rose Hulman Institute of Technology

SUSAN M. LORD University of San Diego

MARA H. WASBURN Purdue University

Background

• Women and men who matriculate in engineering are more likely to persist in engineering than students in other majors (Ohland et al., 2008);

• For all races except Native American, women who matriculate in engineering persist to the eighth semester at rates comparable to those of men (Lord et al., 2009);

• The metric used to measure success matters. While eight-semester persistence in engineering is a reasonable predictor of six-year graduation in engineering in the aggregate, institutional differences are noticeable and much greater than variation by gender (Ohland, Camacho, Layton, Lord, & Wasburn, 2009);

• Institutional variation in persistence, as measured by either eight-semester persistence or six-year graduation, is much greater than the variation by gender (Ohland et al., 2009).

Measuring “Success” in STEM

Six-year graduation rate– Xie & Schauman. Women in science (2003)

Persistence to the eighth semester– Astin & Astin. Undergraduate science education: The

impact of different college environments on the educational pipeline in the sciences (1992).

– Seymour & Hewitt. Talking about leaving: Why undergraduates leave the sciences (1997).

Data from Multi-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD).

The Multi-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) • 9 public research institutions in the southeastern United States.• 73,154 first-time-in-college students matriculating in engineering

from 1988 through 1998.– 15,424 women (21%)– 12,928 under-represented minorities (18%)

Southeastern MIDFIELD Institutions

• Clemson University• Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University• Florida State University• Georgia Institute of Technology• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University• North Carolina State University• University of Florida• University of North Carolina Charlotte• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Nine Southeastern MIDFIELD Institutions

6 of the 50 largest U.S. undergraduate engineering programs.1/12 of all U.S. engineering undergraduate degrees.1/5 of all U.S. African-American engineering B.S. degree recipients

each year.Graduation percentage of Hispanics (regardless of gender) is

representative of other U.S. programs. All other ethnic populations are representative of a national sample.

Limiting Principles

• Institutional data are provided on the condition that researchers using the data protect the identity of the partner institutions and each institution’s students.

• While this study includes data for very large numbers of students, only nine institutions are represented, so institutional variation is treated using a case study approach.

Methods

• Race is not examined dichotomously• Persistence rates of women through a critical race len.• Whole population data - our findings are fully representative

of the institutions studied.• Can be generalized to other large public institutions to the

extent that MIDFIELD institutions are representative of those.• To study the effect of the choice of metric to define success,

our study includes two separate persistence metrics:

Eight-Semester Persistence

The number or percentage of students matriculating in any engineering discipline who are still enrolled in an engineering discipline in their eighth semester (although not necessarily in the engineering discipline in which they originally matriculated).

Six-Year Graduation

The number or percentage of students matriculating in any engineering discipline who have graduated in any engineering discipline within six chronological years (again, not necessarily from the engineering discipline in which they matriculated).

Yield

The number of students graduating within six chronological years as a percentage of those students who persist to eight semesters.

The product of the yield and the eight-semester persistence is the six-year graduation rate.

6 8

8

# #

# #

graduating in years persisting to the th semesterSix year graduation rate

persisting to the th semester matriculating

At first, eight-semester persistence in engineering appears to be a consistent predictor of six-year graduation.

100

1000

10000

100 1000 10000

Yield, thenumberin each

populationgraduating

inengineering

withinsix years

Number in each population persisting to the eighth semester in engineering

Female

Male

Regression linefor females at each institution

Regression linefor males at each institution

Matriculating in ENGR

Persisting to the eighth semester in ENGR

Graduating in six years in ENGR

Race / Ethnicity / Sex Number % of Total Number % of Matriculants Number % of

Matriculants

Asian Female 1003 1.4% 686 68% 623 62.1%

Asian Male 3933 5.4% 2629 69% 2414 61.4%

Hispanic Female 397 0.5% 243 61% 219 55.2%

White Male 45291 61.9% 27797 61% 24760 54.7%

White Female 9999 13.7% 5821 58% 5419 54.2%

Hispanic Male 1624 2.2% 1015 63% 859 52.9%

Black Female 3957 5.4% 2403 61% 1932 48.8%

Native-Am. Female 68 0.1% 33 49% 32 47.1%

Native-Am. Male 258 0.4% 150 58% 116 45.0%

Black Male 6624 9.1% 3891 59% 2722 41.1%

TOTAL 73154 100% 44768 61% 39096 53.4%

Female and male populations aggregated by race with similar graduation rates may have widely varying experiences. Letters represent institutions; filled circles are female populations. Note that institutional differences outweigh gender differences.

Female and male populations aggregated by race with similar graduation rates may have widely varying experiences. Letters represent institutions; filled circles are female populations. Note that institutional differences outweigh gender differences.

A B

C D

Trajectories of Asian Engineering Students

Trajectories of Black Engineering Students

Trajectories of Hispanic Engineering Students

Trajectories of Native American Engineering Students

Systematic Majority Measurement Bias

• Asians and Whites - 82 percent of the total. undergraduate engineering population studied.

• Masks the performance of the underrepresented populations.

Trajectories of White Engineering Students

Conclusions

At all institutions, women who persist to the eighth semester are more likely to graduate than men who persist to the eighth semester.

Using eight-semester persistence as a success metric can underreport the persistence of women to graduation. This is true for all aggregated populations of women and many racial subpopulations.

While we have demonstrated that persistence varies by institution,

presumably because of institutional recruitment and retention practices, within each institution it is clear that an eight semester metric belies six year graduation persistence.

Conclusions

Eight semester persistence metrics that do not disaggregate by race conflate data that heavily over-represents white males. These produce data that suggest men outpace their gendered counterparts at the eighth semester marker. Following these students to six year graduation, and disaggregating by race and gender, reveals that women in several racial/ethnic groups graduate at a higher rate.

Ultimately, our work demonstrates that trajectories of persistence

are non-linear, gendered, and racialized, and that higher education has developed the way in which engineering persistence is studied based on the behavior of the majority, specifically the White, male population.

Acknowledgements

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation Grant No. REC-0337629 (now DRL- 0729596) and EEC-0646441, funding the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) and a collaborative NSF Gender in Science and Engineering Research Grant (0734085 & 0734062). The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.