Connecting Math Attitudes with STEM Career Attainment: A Latent Class Analysis Approach

Abstract

Background For many years now, there have been many job vacancies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but not enough workers to fill these vacancies. Much attention has been given to understanding and changing this situation in our country. Purpose The purpose of this study is to address this dilemma by understanding what may be gained by investigating student's attitudes towards STEM in high school. Specifically, we study the relationship between students’ math attitudes and math self-efficacy beliefs and their career outcomes in STEM. Further, we do this across different English proficiency levels to see if any understanding may be gained by studying these groups differently. Research Design This study implemented secondary analysis by using a nationally representative sample of U.S. 10th graders from the Education Longitudinal Study. A latent class analysis was used to classify students’ math attitudes and self-efficacy. Results The results from this study provide empirical support suggesting that across all three English proficiency groups, students with high math attitudes and high math self-efficacy were more likely to have a career in STEM. When examining demographic characteristics, female students were more likely to have lower math attitude and lower math self-efficacy, which helps to explain why there is an underrepresentation of female students in STEM fields. We also found that race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status operated differently for each of the English proficiency groups. Conclusions/Recommendations This study directly links student math attitudes and self-efficacy to later career choice. This study has implications for researchers and policymakers who are developing interventions, suggesting that fostering positive math attitudes and self-efficacy would help encourage more students to pursue careers in STEM, particularly for non-native English speakers and female students.

How mathematical dispositions of adult learners play a role in their STEM choices

“…Students with unproductive mathematical dispositions do not generally engage with STEM outside of course requirements. Undergraduate students majoring in STEM are likely to have productive mathematical dispositions and performance (Dang & Nylund‐Gibson, 2017; Michaluk et al., 2018) already, given their choice of major. Some college majors tend to attract students with unproductive mathematical dispositions due to the perceived or actual lower use of math (e.g., elementary education; Hembree, 1990) .…”

Understanding the Trajectories of Math Achievement: What Is the Role of Language and Literacy?

“…Recently, Zhang et al (2017) investigated the impact of early language abilities on both formal (calculations including operations) and informal (basic number knowledge) math skills and found a strong predictive relationship between the early language and math skills of children in kindergarten to grade 3. Some have even explored the predictive power of students' attitudes toward math for later career choices, noting that students who hold more positive views on math tend to be in or hold aspirations toward careers closely related to math or STEM (Dang, & Nylund-Gibson, 2014).…”

Predicting eighth grade math motivation using school and national context.

“…Prior research has examined the role of individual, family, and school-level characteristics in predicting math motivation. Boys tend to endorse higher levels of math motivation than girls (e.g., Dang & Nylund-Gibson, 2017) and math motivation tends to decline with age (e.g., Watt et al, 2017). Although the specific relationship between math motivation and parental education level is unclear, higher paternal education level has been found to predict smaller declines in general academic motivation over time, whereas no effect has been found for maternal education level (Dotterer et al, 2009).…”