This quantitative longitudinal study sought to highlight the difference between the proportion of men and women who planned to pursue a STEM major in the fields of mathematics, natural sciences, engineering, and computer and information sciences as freshmen, as well as to determine the proportion of men and women who changed their major choice by their senior year. In addition, the researcher sought to identify women students’ unique background characteristics and college experiences that have taken place over the course of their undergraduate college career that may have predicted their declared major choice (STEM versus non-STEM) as seniors. A review of the literature, along with Astin’s Involvement Theory, encouraged the hypothesis that college experiences influence women’s college major choice: STEM versus non-STEM. Secondary data obtained from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the higher Education Research Institute was used. The sample was delimitated to include only full-time undergraduate students who were graduating in 2012 or 2013. Five research questions were addressed in this study. Astin’s (1993) Input-Environment-Outcome Model was used as a conceptual framework. Descriptive (frequencies and percentages) and inferential (chi-square test and discriminant analysis) statistics were used to analyze the data. The results found a statistically significant difference between the proportion of men and women who planned to pursue a STEM major as freshmen as well as the proportion of men and women who changed their major choice from STEM to non-STEM. Discriminant analysis was used to predict group membership of STEM versus non-STEM major choice among women. It was found that many variables had an impact on predicting STEM group membership among women: satisfaction with college math and science courses, high school GPA, SAT score, high self-ratings of problem-solving skills and mathematical ability, and participating in undergraduate research. There were also variables that had a greater ability of predicting non-STEM group membership. The findings from this study will hopefully inform policy and practice. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are included. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Using a sequential, explanatory mixed methods design, this dissertation study compared students who persist in the biology major (persisters) with students who leave the biology major (switchers) in terms of how their pre-college experiences, college biology experiences, and biology performance figured into their choice of biology and their persistence in or departure from the biology major. This study combined 1) quantitative comparisons of biology persisters and switchers via a questionnaire developed for the study and survival analysis of a larger population of biology freshmen with 2) qualitative comparison of biology switchers and persisters via semi-structured life story interviews and homogenous focus groups. 319 students (207 persisters and 112 switchers) participated in the questionnaire and 36 students (20 persisters and 16 switchers) participated in life story and focus group interviews. All participants were undergraduates who entered The University of Texas at Austin as biology freshmen in the fall semesters of 2000 through 2004. Findings of this study suggest: 1) Regardless of eventual major, biology students enter college with generally the same suite of experiences, sources of personal encouragement, and reasons for choosing the biology major; 2) Despite the fact that they have also had poor experiences in the major, biology persisters do not actively decide to stay in the biology major; they simply do not leave; 3) Based upon survival analysis, biology students are most at-risk of leaving the biology major during the first two years of college and if they are African-American or Latino, women, or seeking a Bachelor of Arts degree (rather than a Bachelor of Science); 4) Biology switchers do not leave biology due to preference for other disciplines; they leave due to difficulties or dissatisfaction with aspects of the biology major, including their courses, faculty, and peers; 5) Biology performance has a differential effect on persistence in the biology major, depending on how well students perform in comparison to other courses or other students. / text

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.93-103).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.93-103).

Thesis (M. S.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisors: Dr. Aubrey Kent and Dr. Jerome Quarterman, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Sport Management, Recreation Management, and Physical Education. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 14, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 49 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (35-39). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2010. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

This quantitative study utilized secondary data from one large four-year, state university in the southwestern US. The relationship between registration time and academic performance was examined as well as the relationship between registration time and retention of first-time-in-college (FTIC) undergraduate students during their first semester of enrollment at the university. The differences between decided and undecided students were tested regarding students’ academic performance and retention of the same population. The study population for the fall 2011 semester included 6,739 freshmen, and the study population for the fall 2012 semester included 4,454 freshmen. Through multiple and logistic regression models, registration time was shown to statistically have a relationship with academic performance and retention (p < .05). Later registrants showed to have a negative relationship with GPA and were less likely to return the following spring semester. The explained variance (R2) for both measures of academic performance and retention along with descriptive statistics are also presented. A Mann Whitney U test and chi square test indicated that a statistically significant association between decided and undecided students exists for academic performance and retention (p < .05). Decided major students performed better as measured by semester GPA performance and were more likely to return the following spring semester. Recommendations and implications are issued regarding future research, policy, and practice.

Undergraduates' field of study is intricately linked to inequality in the US, where women have surpassed men in most indexes of academic achievement but continue to be less likely than men to complete STEM degrees. This gendered variation in major selection has substantial implications for stratification: college major choice is closely related to labor market outcomes and advancement to future degrees. Building on recent theoretical developments in social aesthetics and field theory, the project argues that academic interests are developed in concert with encounters in the environment, and that position in academic fields at the start of university, gendered distributions of interest patterns, and peer influence play a critical role in gender differentiation in college major choice. The project uses a unique longitudinal data combining complex administrative databases from an elite American university, merging admissions, housing, course, financial aid, and alumni data. Multiple correspondence analysis shows that students' interests are organized in academic fields characterized by divisions between knowledge domains: science interests oppose social sciences, economics interests oppose humanities, and life sciences are differentiated from hard sciences. Knowledge domains share features of retention and attraction, and movement between disciplines that are close together in students' interest spaces are more common. Using clustering methods, the project shows that there are important distinctions in how students are interested in disciplines: some students are particularly devoted to knowledge domains, while other students are generalists. These finding have important implications for women and men, who have different interest patterns. There is durability in gender differences in high school interests reinforced by both retention and attraction to disciplines once at school. The last chapter of the dissertation explores the role that peer influence plays in these outcomes. Because students' interests are organized in academic fields, peer influence on academic major choice is better understood as a field effect. Utilizing the fact that roommate assignment is random at this university, the project shows that choosing a major is associated with roommate's interests coming into college, and this association depends on students' own initial interests when applying to university. Generalist science students are more likely to complete science degrees when they have science or engineering roommates compared to those who have humanities roommates, while devoted science students are less mutable. Because women are less likely to have roommates who are in sciences and engineering, gender segregation of roommates contributes to gender difference in STEM outcomes. By reframing choice as a question of social aesthetics, the project makes important contributions to understanding choice, inequality and peer influence.