Zooming into the STEM Pipeline: Post-Secondary Participation and Attrition in Mathematics

This paper presents results from research that investigated the participation and attrition rate of male and female candidates in two post-secondary mathematics courses (Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics). The data for this study consisted of the course results over five years from 2013-2017 for 15,220 candidates (N = 19,585) from 71 post-secondary educational institutions in Jamaica. They were analysed using frequencies (totals and percentages) and descriptive statistics. The data analysis revealed that, on average, over the five years and across each of the five years, approximately 18% of the students who engaged in post-secondary education opted to participate in a mathematics course. However, there was a sharp decrease in the Year 2 student participation after completing the related Year 1 course. Another key finding was that a higher percentage of males chose to undertake Applied Mathematics in Year 2 and equal proportions of male and female candidates in the other three courses. These findings suggest that initiatives are needed which improve student achievement and experience in the first year of each mathematics course which could potentially decrease student attrition across years and curb the leakage at this juncture of the STEM pipeline. [For the complete proceedings, see ED655360.]