Did you ever ask yourself “Is science me?” The authors of this study wanted to explore how people answer this question for themselves, and how identity and background factors influence high school students’ choices to study SEM career paths.

The authors of this study conducted interviews with a group of 145 10th grade students across 6 California public schools, once when the students were sophomores, and again when they were seniors. In both interviews, students were assigned into categories by race, gender, and economic status. The interviews started by talking about each student’s current SEM classes, then about how SEM was woven throughout a student’s everyday life and hobbies. They also talked about family expectations relating to SEM, a student’s perception of some scientists, the influence of gender and race in SEM, and each student’s dreams for the future.

The second interview had additional questions about how the students’ teachers and families influenced their ideas on SEM, and how the students viewed and prioritized SEM-related activities in their lives. Students were categorized into three groups after senior year interviews: 1) High Achieving Persisters who stayed in SEM and got high grades, 2) Low Achieving Persisters who stayed in SEM and got lower grades, 3) Lost Potentials, who left SEM.

Lost Potentials and Low Achieving Persisters had many things in common. Firstly, both categories were composed primarily of students from minority backgrounds. Students within these categories did not have family members or role models in SEM to guide them. Many struggled with non-academic responsibilities such as needing to work to support the family. Concerningly, many Lost Potentials and Low Achieving Persisters cited guidance counselors refusing to place them into more “difficult” SEM classes. Although a lack of academic confidence and time caused some Lost Potentials to abandon the SEM pipeline, Low Achieving Persisters shifted their career goals instead of abandoning them, such as going to trade school or community college instead of a 4 year.

Even High Achieving Persisters struggled with academic confidence. However, they persisted through difficult courses because they had classmates they could relate their struggles to. All of the Asian students fell into the High Achieving Persister category. Most had family members in the SEM field, in contrast to the Lost Potentials and Low Achieving Persisters. 

This study suggests that factors such as ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status play a factor in what we decide to pursue in the future, as well as how many failures we are willing to persist through in order to achieve our dreams. It also suggests that the reason many SEM students fail or give up on their career dreams is that they lacked the proper support systems to see their dreams through to the end. Studies like this are important to EPIC because we are interested in why some people fail, while others persist, and also how help from others may alter our responses to failure. 

For more information about Aschbacher et al.’s (2010) study, check out the link for the journal article:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/tea.20353

This post was written by Jonathan Young.

Reference:

Aschbacher, P. R., Li, E., & Roth, E. J. (2010). Is science me? High school students’ identities, participation and aspirations in science, engineering, and medicine. Journal of Research in Science Teaching: The Official Journal of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, 47(5), 564-582.