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Background: Capturing measures of students' attitudes toward science has long been a focus within the field of science education. The resulting interest has led to the development of many instruments over the years. There is considerable disagreement about how attitudes should be measured, and especially whether students' attitudes toward science can or should be measured unidimensionally, or whether separate attitude dimensions or subscales should be considered. When it is agreed upon that the attitudes toward science construct should be measured along separate subscales, there is no consensus about which subscales should be used. Methods: A streamlined version of the modified Attitudes Towards Science Inventory (mATSI), a widely used science measurement instrument, was validated for a more diverse sample as compared to the original study (Weinburgh and Steele in Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 6:87-94, 2000). The analytical approach used factor analyses and longitudinal measurement invariance. The study used a sample of 2016 self-reported responses from 6 and 7th grade students. The factor analysis elucidated the factor structure of students' attitudes toward science, and some modifications were made in accordance with the results. Measurement invariance analysis was used to confirm the stability of the measure. Results: Our results support that the subscales, "anxiety toward science" and "value and enjoyment of science," are two factors and stable over time. Conclusions: Our results suggest that our proposed modified factor structure for students' attitudes toward science is reliable, valid, and appropriate for use in longitudinal studies. This study and its resulting streamlined mATSI survey could be of value to those interested in studying student engagement and measuring middle-school students' attitudes toward science.

In longitudinal studies, measurement invariance is required to conduct substantive comparisons over time or across groups. In this study, we examined measurement invariance on a recently developed instrument capturing student preferences for seven instructional strategies related to science learning and career interest. We have labeled these seven instructional strategies as Collaborating, Competing, Caretaking, Creating/Making, Discovering, Performing, and Teaching. A better understanding of student preferences for particular instructional strategies can help educators, researchers, and policy makers deliberately tailor programmatic instructional structure to increase student persistence in the STEM pipeline. However, simply confirming the relationship between student preferences for science instructional strategies and their future career choices at a single time point is not sufficient to clarify our understanding of the relationship between instructional strategies and student persistence in the STEM pipeline, especially since preferences for instructional strategies are understood to vary over time. As such, we sought to develop a measure that invariantly captures student preference over a period of time: the Framework for Observing and Categorizing Instructional Strategies (FOCIS). We administered the FOCIS instrument over four semesters over two middle school grades to 1009 6th graders and 1021 7th graders and confirmed the longitudinal invariance of the FOCIS measure. This confirmation of longitudinal invariance will allow researchers to examine the relationship between student preference for certain instructional strategies and student persistence in the STEM pipeline.

This study examined a new form of pervasive gender inequality: the gender gap among high achievers in math and considered its implication for developing STEM talents. Using the cross-nation Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) data from both 2003 and 2012, we examined the mathematics gender gap among 15-year-old high achievers across ten countries/regions. We showed a consistent male advantage among the top performers in mathematics. Follow-up regression analyses revealed that the gap was associated with some socio-demographic and schooling/attitudinal variables, even after controlling for the background variables. We argue that education communities should acknowledge and address this form of gender inequality, as it could have ramifications for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education pipeline. Educators and society in general still face challenges in closing the gender gap among high achievers in math with an aim to develop a gender-balanced STEM talent pool.

Shortages of qualified science and mathematics teachers are a ubiquitous problem in the United States. Many schools face both sides of the problem: recruitment and retention of those teachers. Since bringing new teachers in and keeping them are equally important, where should school districts look for teachers that are most likely to stay? While many school districts cannot afford to be too choosy in where they look, their limited resources also mean that they cannot look everywhere. Therefore, information on who are more likely to stay may be valuable for districts to focus their resources for maximum impact. Using a sample of mathematics and science teachers extracted from the "Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of 1999-2000" and the "Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) of 2000-2001," connections between teacher and school district characteristics regarding retention are investigated to offer insight into how mathematics/science teacher recruitment might be focused. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table and 3 footnotes.)

The connection between high school chemistry pedagogical experiences and introductory college chemistry performance has been a topic researched in published science education literature since the 1920s. However, analysis techniques have limited the generalizability of these results. This review discusses the findings of a large-scale, multi-institutional research study addressing many of these previous limitations. The findings reveal that high school experiences are significantly associated with college performance. The implications indicate that high school chemistry teachers may have a positive impact in preparing their students for future success in introductory-level college chemistry. (This paper is a summary of Tai, Sadler, & Loehr, 2005.)

Do summer laboratory research apprenticeships during high school have an impact on entry into MD/PhD programs? Apart from the nearly decade-long span of time between high school and matriculation into an MD/PhD program, young people have many life-shaping experiences that presumably impact their education and career trajectories. This quantitative study (n = 236,432) examines the connection between early laboratory research apprenticeship experiences at the high school level and matriculation into one of the more rigorous educational programs for scientific research training. The span of time covered by this analysis reaches across more than a decade, examining the potential importance of research experiences during the precollege years in the educational trajectory of young people. Intertwined with this question on research experiences is a second major concern regarding diversity in the life sciences research corps. Diversity in this wide-ranging discipline refers specifically to the underrepresentation of Blacks/African Americans, Hispanics/Latino/as, and American Indians/Alaska Natives among the ranks of research scientists. Thus, this study includes analyses that specifically focus on research apprenticeships of Blacks/African Americans and Hispanics/Latino/as and their entrance into MD/ PhD programs.

Mentors play important roles in determining the working environment of out-of-school-time clubs. On robotics teams, they provide guidance in hopes that their protégés progress through an engineering process. This study examined how mentors on one robotics team who defined their mentoring style as "let the students do the work" navigated the challenges of a "build season" and participation in regional competitions. What were some of the challenges faced by mentors and students? How did they cope when students played the largest role in team and design decisions? The mentor-student interactions captured in the research showed mentors playing supporting roles while students took command of all aspects of building the robot. The students on the team found themselves self-directing, learning, and gaining confidence by doing, and having fun with like-minded peers.

Research shows that women are entering the field of physics at a faster rate than the field of chemistry through bachelor's and doctoral degrees. However, STEM studies primarily compare women to men or examine them as a single entity. Therefore, a paucity of research exists that examines what may differentiate women in certain critical and underrepresented fields of STEM education, such as the physical sciences. The focus of this study is to examine differences among women in chemistry in the physical sciences based on background demographics and motivational factors such as academic achievement and experiences ranging from secondary through postsecondary education. This study examines the following research question: "On average, do females who select chemistry as compared to physics doctoral programs differ in their reported personal motivations and background factors prior to entering the field?" This question is analyzed using variables in a logistic regression from the Project Crossover Survey data set through a subset of female physical science doctoral students and scientists (n = 1137). Results show that females who have higher secondary and postsecondary grades and positive experiences in postsecondary chemistry as well as negative postsecondary physics experiences are more likely to enter the field of chemistry as opposed to physics. Therefore, success and experiences in entry-level chemistry courses are critical for female entry into the field and should be further examined. Overall, analyses show that women should not be studied in comparison only to men or as a single entity; they should also be compared to one another to uncover what motivation and background variables influence them to enter a particular field.

This study addresses the association between middle-school students' reported participation in science summer programmes and their reported expectation of a career in science and engineering. Data were collected on 1,580 students from eight middle schools in five states, applying an accelerated longitudinal design. Two consecutive cohorts were sampled over a two-year period time. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between students' participation in science summer camps and their career interest in science and engineering while initial career interest and background information were considered. Results indicate that students who participated in science summer camps before or in the first year of the study, compared to students who did not, are significantly more likely to report science and engineering as their future career field in the second year of the study. It appears that students who once participated in science summer camps were more likely to later report a career interest in the science and engineering fields.

The conflict between the amount of material to be addressed in high school science classes, the need to prepare students for standardized tests, and the amount of time available forces science educators to make difficult pedagogical decisions on a daily basis. Hands-on and inquiry-based learning offer students more authentic learning experiences with benefits beyond test scores. However, these alternative teaching/learning techniques can be more time consuming than textbook use and exacerbate the conflict between pedagogy and time. The study reported in this article questioned 2712 college Biology students about their high school science experiences. Analyses indicate that the amount of time spent reading biology texts does not influence learning outcomes. (Contains 3 tables.)

In section two of a 2002 amendment on the Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Improvement Act, congress stated "A workforce that is highly trained in science...is crucial to generating the innovation that drives economic growth..." (Committee on Science, 2002). Given the growth in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers and the exodus of aging and highly skilled workers from these fields as projected by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), fulfilling this order is likely to be challenging. In 2005, The BLS projected that between 2004 and 2014, employers in the United States would be hiring 2.5 million STEM workers (BLS, 2005). Despite this looming deficit, some STEM fields in the United States are actually graduating fewer bachelor's degree students than 20 years ago (NSF, 2006). In 2004, 64,675 students earned engineering bachelor degrees compared to 76,153 in 1984. Bachelor's degrees in Physical sciences totaled 14,240 in 2004, while they reached 15,831 in 1984. This emphasizes the importance of increasing student interest in science in order to ensure we will be capable of filling the projected openings and maintaining competitive in the global market.

Spurred by concerns about an inadequately sized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce, there has been a growing interest in out-of-school time (OST) science activities as a means to foster STEM career interest. This study examines the association between OST science activities and STEM career interest in university through a logistic regression model and the calculation of prototypical odds ratios. The analysis addresses two main research questions: What is the correlation among different forms of OST activities? And, controlling for student demographic and background variables, what specific forms of OST activities are associated with STEM career interest in university? The study uses data from the "Persistence Research in Science and Engineering" survey (n = 6882), which employs a nationally representative sample of university students enrolled in introductory English courses. Results indicate that students' participation in OST activities, as well as their middle school interest in science and mathematics and their gender, plays a significant role in university career interest in STEM. Conclusions suggest that making OST clubs and competitions and the inclusion of non-fiction and science fiction within English Language Arts programmes may be beneficial to the development of students in STEM careers. Limitations include the paucity of research examining which students participate in these activities and what specific features or characteristics benefit them.

Even with the history of debate over the merits of homework, there are significant gaps in the research record regarding its benefit to students. The focus of this study is on the association between time spent on homework and academic performance in science and math by assessing survey and transcript data from two nationally representative samples of high school students collected in 1990 and 2002. Using multiple linear regressions and controlling for students' background, motivation, and prior achievement, we investigated how much variance in science and math course grades and achievement test scores could be explained by time spent on homework in those classes. The results indicate that there is no consistent significant relationship between time spent on homework and grades, but a consistently positive significant relationship between homework and performance on standardized exams. (Contains 7 tables and 3 footnotes.)

As the global economic crisis continues, sustaining the United States' position as a leader in research and development is a top concern of policy makers. Looking to increase the number of students pursuing degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), calls for improved mathematics and science education abound. We completed a two-part analysis to assess the school-based factors related to students choosing to complete a major in STEM. The results indicate that the majority of students who concentrate in STEM make that choice during high school, and that choice is related to a growing interest in mathematics and science rather than enrollment or achievement. These results indicate that the current policy focus on advanced-level course taking and achievement as measures to increase the flow of students into STEM may be misguided. (Contains 10 tables and 3 footnotes.)

This US study investigates interactive associations between structure in inquiry-type learning activities and academic attainment in high school science with introductory college science performance as the outcome. Past studies of this type have tended to use smaller samples and shorter-range methods of assessing the influence of interactions. This study used a large-scale nationally representative sampling of science students and investigated the existence of long-range associations between high school and college. Replicated across three different disciplinary data-sets (biology, chemistry, and physics) totaling over 8,000 surveys, the analysis discovered an interaction between structure and attainment associated with differences in long-range student performance. The implications for these findings in terms of theory and practise are discussed in the conclusions. (Contains 5 figures, 6 tables and 2 notes.)

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the feasibility of accounting for student performance in advanced high school coursework through the adjustment of high school grade point average (HSGPA) while separating out variables that are independently considered in the admission process, e.g., SAT/ACT scores, community affluence, type of high school, and race/ethnicity. This study relates three variables: high school science grade, high school course level (i.e., regular, honors, Advanced Placement (AP), and AP examination score. These three are compared, using as a common metric how well students perform in their introductory college biology, chemistry, or physics coursework. The authors collected data from more than 18,000 students at 63 randomly selected colleges and universities stratified by size to match the proportional enrollment at small (enrollment less than 1,000 students), medium, and large (enrollment greater than 10,000 students) institutions. For the purposes of their analysis, the authors limited their sample to first-semester, introductory biology, chemistry, and physics courses fulfilling graduation requirements for science or engineering majors. Two variables were found to correspond to substantially better performance in college science courses: increasing rigor of high school science experience and higher grades in high school science courses. These two variables can be related to each other using relative improvement in college grade as a common metric. The results are stable even with the inclusion of control variables--variables typically treated separately in the admissions process. In units of high school letter grade, an honors course in the subject corresponds to an increase of one-half of a letter grade and an AP courses corresponds to an increase of one letter grade; for students who pass the requisite AP exam, the grade level equivalent is two additional letter grades. (Contains 3 figures, 2 tables and 6 footnotes.)

Do students who focus on some content areas in high school chemistry have an advantage over others in college chemistry? Published research on high school preparation for college science dates back as far as the 1920s, but results have been mixed. This manuscript seeks to answer this question through the use of a broad-based survey of 3521 introductory college chemistry students. This study provides descriptive analyses showing the distribution of high school content experiences reported by college chemistry students from 31 four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The results indicate that stoichiometry rises above seven other topic areas studied in high school as most strongly predictive of college chemistry success. In addition, three mathematics background predictors, including calculus background, were found to be highly significant. (Contains 5 figures, 5 tables, and 6 notes.)

Examines the extent to which a high school physics course prepares students for college physics success. In this study of 1,933 introductory college physics students, demographic and schooling factors account for a large fraction of the variation in college physics grades at 18 colleges and universities from around the nation. (Author/SAH)

The article presents a study which analyzes the frequencies and characteristics of high school laboratory experiences in physics as described by introductory college students. It distributes a survey aimed to gather information on a large number of curricular concerns in high school science. The outcome in the regression model shows that too much time spent concentrating on laboratory process was related with lower performance by introductory physics students.

This study relates the performance of college students in introductory science courses to the amount of content covered in their high school science courses. The sample includes 8310 students in introductory biology, chemistry, or physics courses in 55 randomly chosen U.S. colleges and universities. Students who reported covering at least 1 major topic in depth, for a month or longer, in high school were found to earn higher grades in college science than did students who reported no coverage in depth. Students reporting breadth in their high school course, covering all major topics, did not appear to have any advantage in chemistry or physics and a significant disadvantage in biology. Care was taken to account for significant covariates: socioeconomic variables, English and mathematics proficiency, and rigor of their preparatory high science course. Alternative operationalizations of depth and breadth variables result in very similar findings. We conclude that teachers should use their judgment to reduce coverage in high school science courses and aim for mastery by extending at least 1 topic in depth over an extended period of time. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed93:798–826, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article identifies gender differences in the high school physics experiences and background of students in introductory college physics courses in the United States. It discusses the use of data from a project entitled "Factors Influencing College Science Success." The article determines how the experiences of males and females who took introductory college physics differ.

The article discusses the advanced coursework for college admissions in the U.S. According to a publication by Hawkins and Clinedinst 2006, the majority of college and universities recompute high school grade point average, eliminating courses viewed as superfluous and accentuating those deemed to be advanced. Moreover, college admissions officers consider advanced placement for enrollment, but the College Board only recognizes students who pass the entrance exam for the specific courses. Furthermore, the reasons why students gave for retaking the introductory course were also discussed.

The article presents a study comparing block scheduling with traditional scheduling in teaching high school science courses. A comparison between a traditionally scheduled science class and two different block scheduled class reveals that there are no significant differences between their frequencies of instructional methodologies. Furthermore, an investigation on the performance of students from the three scheduling plans in introductory college science courses shows that students in traditionally scheduled class attained higher performance than those in block scheduled classes. The study concludes that block scheduling does not translate into better student performance in introductory college science courses.

The article examines the influence of high school chemistry subject to the performance of college freshmen in introductory college chemistry in the U.S. To gather the needed information, a questionnaire was drafted that include an inquiry on the quantity of time students recalled spending on chemistry content topics. Researchers discover that stoichemistry is the one topic considered by majority of students as the most important predictor of college chemistry performance. The predicted grade of students who reported a heavy emphasis on stoichemistry was 2.6 points.

This study compares frequencies of instructional practices across differing scheduling plans (Traditional and Block plans), and explores the association between high school scheduling plans and college science preparation, using introductory college science grades as the outcome measure. More than 7000 students enrolled in introductory college biology, chemistry, and physics were surveyed. No large difference was found when comparing the use of frequencies of instructional practices across scheduling plans. Regression models investigating associations between scheduling plans and college grades found significant, but small differences in predicted college grades for Traditional, 4:4, and Unique Block students; however, the analysis found two negative interactions on college grades linking alternate Block (AB) with HS science achievement and AB block with peer tutoring. Overall, the results indicate that Block scheduling plans do not appear to provide an advantage to students in terms of college preparation in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses how a high school physics course prepares students for college physics success. Relationship of the high school physics courses with the grade earned in introductory college physics; Range in the effectiveness of pre-college preparation.

Discusses the role of high-school physics in preparing students for college physics. Importance of the physics subject; Dissatisfaction of college professors; Relationship between high school and college physics; Considerations of demographic variables; Regression models for college grade in introductory physics.

The article presents a study which examines the effect of high-school science and mathematics on college science performance. In this study, the researchers randomly selected 77 colleges and universities from a comprehensive list of roughly 1700 4-year institutions. In addition, the researchers designed three parallel surveys tailored to the disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics. The surveys consist a series of interviews of college students, high-school teachers and college professors in a separate analysis.