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Undergraduate STEM education must improve–here’s how to do it

STEM fields are essential for the nation’s economic health and global success, but some troubling trends point to the need to monitor undergraduate STEM education with a critical eye, according to a new report [1].

Undergraduate STEM education plays a central role in building a robust STEM workforce, according to the National Academies of Sciences, which summarizes a committee’s recommendations around bolstering STEM education.

Scientists’ earnings have stagnated since the 1960s, recent science doctorates have had trouble obtaining academic positions, and U.S. science faces increased foreign competition for global research. Those three trends could knock the U.S. out of its dominant position in science. They also could slow economic growth that is fueled by technological innovation, according to the report.

(Next page: Recommendations and indicators to improve undergraduate STEM education)

But to combat those trends, the committee identified three goals, interconnected and mutually supportive, to help improve the quality and impact of undergraduate STEM education:

1. Increase students’ mastery of STEM concepts and skills by engaging them in evidence-based STEM educational practices and programs.
2. Strive for equity, diversity, and inclusion of STEM students and instructors by providing equitable opportunities for access and success.
3. Ensure adequate numbers of STEM professionals by increasing completion of STEM credentials as needed in the different disciplines.

“Using evidence-based practices (Goal 1) and striving for equity, diversity, and inclusion (Goal 2) will help to ensure adequate numbers of STEM professionals and prepare all graduates with core STEM knowledge and skills (Goal 3),” according to the report.

Because a common national assessment of core STEM concepts and skills does not exist, and because rapid changes in the STEM field would result in ongoing changes to common learning goals, the committee proposed a method of monitoring progress in student learning through objectives and indicators of the adoption of research-proven teaching practices.

The committee reached several other conclusions about undergraduate STEM education, as well, all relating to data around objectives and indicators:

• To monitor the status and quality of undergraduate STEM education, federal data systems will need additional data on full-time and part-time students’ trajectories across, as well as within, institutions.

• To monitor the status and quality of undergraduate STEM education, recurring longitudinal surveys of instructors and students are needed.

• To monitor progress toward equity, diversity, and inclusion of STEM students and instructors, national data systems will need to include demographic characteristics beyond gender and race and ethnicity, including at least disability status, first-generation student status, and socioeconomic status.

The availability of data for the indicators is limited, and new data collection is needed for many of them:

• No data sources are currently available for most of the indicators of engaging students in evidence-based educational practices (Goal 1).
• Various data sources are available for most of the indicators of equity, diversity, and inclusion (Goal 2). However, these sources would need to include more institutions and students to be nationally representative, along with additional data elements on students’ fields of study.
• Federal data sources are available for some of the indicators of ensuring adequate numbers of STEM professionals (Goal 3). However, federal surveys would need larger institutional and student samples to allow finer disaggregation of the data by field of study and demographic characteristics.

Three options would provide the data needed for the proposed national indicator system:

1. Create a national student unit record data system, supplemented with expanded surveys of students and instructors (Option 1).
2. Expand current federal institutional surveys, supplemented with expanded surveys of students and instructors (Option 2).
3. Develop a nationally representative sample of student unit record data, supplemented with student and instructor data from proprietary survey organizations (Option 3).

This focus on national-level indicators will help provide a clearer picture of undergraduate STEM education and will offer insight on how improvement efforts fare as STEM education evolves.