تغییرات در نظریه ضمنی توانایی در زیست شناسی و ترک تحصیل از رشته های STEM: روش منحنی رشد نهفته

This longitudinal study was designed to investigate the associations between changes in implicit theories of ability in biology and college students’ dropout from STEM majors. We modeled the one-year growth patterns of entity and incremental beliefs about ability in biology with 4 time points of self-reported data and two covariates—biology domain knowledge and inference making and gateway course grade, and predicted STEM dropout with the growth trajectories of implicit theories. Results indicated that students’ entity beliefs increased, while incremental beliefs decreased over time, which provides support for the changeability of implicit beliefs over a short period of time. The growth of incremental beliefs was directly associated with STEM dropout above and beyond biology course grade and biology domain knowledge and inference making. Low intercept and negative slope of incremental beliefs predicted leaving STEM majors; however, the decline of entity beliefs did not have significant effects on dropout. Interestingly, the effect of biology domain knowledge and inference making on STEM dropout was mediated by biology course grade and incremental beliefs. The findings imply the importance of monitoring changes in students’ implicit beliefs and gateway course achievement in order to better understand and promote STEM retention.

The shortage of students who persist in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and the consequent shortage of STEM professionals have caused educational and economic concerns in the United States (National Science Board, 2012). As early as in 1996, a steady decline over the previous few decades in first year undergraduates majoring in science was reported (National Academy of Sciences—National Research Council, 1996). In the 2003–2004 cohort of undergraduates, 13.7% had the intention of majoring in STEM; compared to the 1995–1996 cohort, this was a decrease of 10% (Planty et al., 2009). In addition, approximately 40% of students who entered college intending to major in STEM eventually switched to non-STEM majors in the undergraduate years (National Science Board, 2012). The high rate of attrition from STEM majors has been one of the main reasons for the decline in the overall number of students in college STEM programs and STEM graduates. This calls for more research focusing on predictors of retention in and prevention of dropout from STEM majors (Scott, Tolson, & Huang, 2009).