IS SCIENCE ME? Tracing the Roots of Girls' Decisions to Pursue Science

这项为期3年的纵向项目研究了7-12年级女生的不同态度、看法和经历如何影响通往或远离大学理科专业的微妙和明确的选择。参与者来自4个城市和郊区，他们的学生代表了不同的经济背景和种族。设计将跟踪两组学生，一组从7年级到10年级，另一组从10年级到大学一年级。初中组让学生在正式进入初选阶段之前可以广泛了解他们的经历，而高中组关注的是那些最有可能追求科学和工程职业的学生。这项研究包括对整个队列的年度大规模调查，以及对部分学生的年度深入访谈。与选定的家长、科学教师、辅导顾问和其他人的背景访谈也包括在内。本项目采用定量和定性分析相结合的研究方法，旨在探索女生在学校和课外经历与她们选择理科大学专业之间的联系。这些变量已被发现与成就和对科学的态度的性别差距有关，但它们与女孩决定攻读科学专业之间的正式联系尚未确定。这项研究有可能确定可能有助于理科专业招收女性的因素。

This 3-year longitudinal project studies how diverse girls' attitudes, perceptions, and experiences in grades 7-12 influence both subtle and explicit choices leading towards or away from a college major in science. Participants come from 4 urban and suburban districts whose students represent a range of economic background and ethnicities. The design would follow two cohorts of students, one from 7th to 10th grade and one from 10th grade into the first year of college. The middle school cohort allows a broad look at student experiences before they formally enter the pipeline, while the high school cohort focuses on those students who are most likely to pursue science and engineering careers. The study includes an annual large-scale survey of the full cohort and an annual in-depth interview with a continuing subset of students. Contextual interviews with selected parents, science teachers, guidance counselors, and others are also included. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques are used.This project seeks to explore the linkage between school and extracurricular experiences of female students to their decision to pursue a science college major. These variables have been found to be related to the gender gap in achievement and attitudes about science, but a formal linkage between them and girls' decision to pursue a science major has not been established. This research has the potential to identify factors that might facilitate the recruitment of females in science majors.