The Impact of Career Academies on STEM Coursetaking: Moving to the Next Level

• Activity Number: 475
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Social Statistics Section
• Author(s): Rheta E. Lanehart*+ and Patricia Rodriguez de Gil and Maressa Dixon and Jeffrey D. Kromrey
• Companies: University of South Florida and University of South Florida and University of South Florida and University of South Florida
• Keywords: Propensity scores ; Observational studies ; ITEST ePEP ; HSLS:09

Abstract

Propensity score (PS) methods provide viable strategies for reducing selection bias in nonexperimental (observational) studies. An NSF funded project previously used propensity score analysis to examine the impact of special educational programs on advanced mathematics course enrollment (Rodriguez de Gil et al., 2012). Results indicated that students who enrolled in career academies were almost twice as likely to enroll in a Calculus course. Encouraged by the findings from the previous study, we are currently using PS and survival analyses to investigate rigorous high school STEM/ICT coursetaking for students in a southern state who identified an interest in STEM or ICT careers as part of their 8th grade electronic Personal Education Planners (ePEPs) and the persistence of STEM coursetaking through high school. Comparison of rigorous STEM coursetaking trends and persistence with national data (High School Longitudinal Study: HSLS09) will be made. This study reports on correlates of 8th and 9th grade coursetaking and procedures used to identify the initial STEM cohort from the HSLS09 national dataset.