Engagement is one of the hottest research topics in the field of educational psychology. Research shows that multifarious benefits occur when students are engaged in their own learning, including increased motivation and achievement. However, there is little agreement on a concrete definition and effective measurement of engagement. This special issue serves to discuss and work toward addressing conceptual and instrumentation issues related to engagement, with particular interest in engagement in the domain of science learning. We start by describing the dimensional perspective of engagement (behavioral, cognitive, emotional, agentic) and suggest a complementary approach that places engagement instrumentation on a continuum. Specifically, we recommend that instrumentation be considered on a “grain-size” continuum that ranges from a person-centered to a context-centered orientation to clarify measurement issues. We then provide a synopsis of the articles included in this special issue and conclude with sug...

The Challenges of Defining and Measuring Student Engagement in Science

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STEM Attrition: College Students' Paths into and out of STEM Fields. Statistical Analysis Report. NCES 2014-001.

![Figure][1] 

CREDIT: SUSAN RUST

The United States needs a broader, more coordinated strategy for precollege education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). That strategy should include all the STEM disciplines and address the need for greater diversity in the STEM professions, for a workforce with deep technical and personal skills, and for a STEM-literate citizenry prepared to address the grand challenges of the 21st century. There have been repeated efforts to produce major improvements in such education, including the production of voluntary national education standards for science and for mathematics in the 1990s. But as a battle-scarred veteran of those efforts, I view the next decade as the time when real progress might finally be made.

The term “STEM education” is now widely used, but what does it mean and how might it influence American education?

For most, it means only science and mathematics, even though the products of technology and engineering have so greatly influenced everyday life. A true STEM education should increase students' understanding of how things work and improve their use of technologies. STEM education should also introduce more engineering during precollege education. Engineering is directly involved in problem solving and innovation, two themes with high priorities on every nation's agenda. Given its economic importance to society, students should learn about engineering and develop some of the skills and abilities associated with the design process. The good news is that the National Assessment Governing Board has recognized the importance of this issue and recently approved the evaluation of technology and engineering education through examinations that will be given to U.S. students in 2014. Likewise, the draft Framework for Science Education released last month by the U.S. National Academies includes technology and engineering among four targeted disciplines.

![Figure][1] 

CREDIT: PETER VOGEL, PHYSICS BALSA BRIDGE BUILDING CONTEST, NOTRE DAME REGIONAL SECONDARY SCHOOL, VANCOUVER BC ([WWW.BALSABRIDGE.COM][2])

To succeed in this new round of education reforms, the United States will need equal treatment for science—broadly defined to include technology and engineering—in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently referred to as No Child Left Behind). For the past 8 years, this legislation has had the unintentional result of reducing or eliminating science from school programs, especially at the elementary level, by not including science test scores as a significant part of the calculation for measuring Adequate Yearly Progress. The current blueprint of the U.S. Department of Education for the reauthorization fails to remedy this situation; the final legislation could and should.

As stressed in the National Academies report Rising Above the Gathering Storm , students must acquire such skills as adaptability, complex communication, social skills, nonroutine problem solving, self-management, and systems thinking to compete in the modern economy. To the degree that STEM curricula incorporate group activities, laboratory investigations, and projects, they afford the opportunity for students to develop these essential 21st-century skills and prepare them to become citizens who are better able to make decisions about personal health, energy efficiency, environmental quality, resource use, and national security. Indeed, the competencies that citizens need to understand and address such issues, from the personal to global perspectives, are as clearly linked to knowledge in the STEM disciplines as they are to economics, politics, and cultural values.

The STEM community responded vigorously to produce the Sputnik-spurred education reforms of the 1960s. Likewise, the United States needs a bold new federal strategy for improving education that includes the creation of high-quality, integrated instruction and materials, as well as the placement of problems associated with grand challenges of society at the center of study. It is time to move beyond slogans and make STEM literacy a reality for all students.

 [1]: pending:yes
 [2]: http://WWW.BALSABRIDGE.COM

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/329/5995/996.full.pdf

What is STEM education

This study shows that participation in course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) improves students’ likelihood of graduating with a STEM degree and graduating within 6 years. These re...

Early Engagement in Course-Based Research Increases Graduation Rates and Completion of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Degrees

The substantial gender gap in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce can be traced back to the underrepresentation of women at various milestones in the career pathway. Calculus is a necessary step in this pathway and has been shown to often dissuade people from pursuing STEM fields. We examine the characteristics of students who begin college interested in STEM and either persist or switch out of the calculus sequence after taking Calculus I, and hence either continue to pursue a STEM major or are dissuaded from STEM disciplines. The data come from a unique, national survey focused on mainstream college calculus. Our analyses show that, while controlling for academic preparedness, career intentions, and instruction, the odds of a woman being dissuaded from continuing in calculus is 1.5 times greater than that for a man. Furthermore, women report they do not understand the course material well enough to continue significantly more often than men. When comparing women and men with above-average mathematical abilities and preparedness, we find women start and end the term with significantly lower mathematical confidence than men. This suggests a lack of mathematical confidence, rather than a lack of mathematically ability, may be responsible for the high departure rate of women. While it would be ideal to increase interest and participation of women in STEM at all stages of their careers, our findings indicate that if women persisted in STEM at the same rate as men starting in Calculus I, the number of women entering the STEM workforce would increase by 75%.

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Women 1.5 Times More Likely to Leave STEM Pipeline after Calculus Compared to Men: Lack of Mathematical Confidence a Potential Culprit.

Our science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce is crucial to America’s innovative capacity and global competitiveness. Yet women are vastly underrepresented in STEM jobs and among STEM degree holders despite making up nearly half of the U.S. workforce and half of the college-educated workforce. That leaves an untapped opportunity to expand STEM employment in the United States, even as there is wide agreement that the nation must do more to improve its competitiveness.Although women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs. This has been the case throughout the past decade, even as college-educated women have increased their share of the overall workforce.Women with STEM jobs earned 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs – considerably higher than the STEM premium for men. As a result, the gender wage gap is smaller in STEM jobs than in non-STEM jobs.Women hold a disproportionately low share of STEM undergraduate degrees, particularly in engineering.Women with a STEM degree are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM occupation; they are more likely to work in education or healthcare.There are many possible factors contributing to the discrepancy of women and men in STEM jobs, including: a lack of female role models, gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields. Regardless of the causes, the findings of this report provide evidence of a need to encourage and support women in STEM.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1964782_code15565.pdf?abstractid=1964782

Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation

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STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future. ESA Issue Brief #03-11.

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Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation. ESA Issue Brief #04-11.

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workers are essential to American innovation and competitiveness in an increasingly dynamic and global marketplace. In this report, we examine demographic disparities in STEM education and find that educational attainment may affect equality of opportunity in these critical, high-quality jobs of the future.We find that regardless of race and Hispanic origin, higher college graduation rates are associated with higher shares of workers with STEM jobs. But non-Hispanic Whites and Asians are much more likely than other minority groups to have a bachelor’s degree. Other key findings of this report include: Non-Hispanic Whites comprise the largest group of STEM workers, accounting for about seven out of ten STEM worker, which aligns closely with their share of the overall workforce; Non-Hispanic Asians are most likely (42 percent) to graduate college with a STEM degree, while the propensities of other groups are fairly similar (17-22 percent); half of all non-Hispanic Asian workers with STEM degrees have STEM jobs, compared to 30% of Hispanics and non-Hispanic Black and American Indian and Alaska Native workers; one in five STEM workers is foreign-born, of which 63 percent come from Asia; STEM workers in all demographic groups, including the foreign-born, earn more than their non-STEM counterparts. Hispanics and non-Hispanic Blacks receive a significantly larger STEM premium than do non-Hispanic Whites.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1934821_code15565.pdf?abstractid=1934821

Education Supports Racial and Ethnic Equality in STEM

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George McKittrick

Papers

Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation

STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future. ESA Issue Brief #03-11.

Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation. ESA Issue Brief #04-11.

Education Supports Racial and Ethnic Equality in STEM

Education Supports Racial and Ethnic Equality in STEM. ESA Issue Brief #05-11.