Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to democratize education by providing learners with access to high-quality free online courses. However, evidence supporting this ...democratization across countries is limited. We explored the question of MOOC democratization by conducting cross-national comparisons of gender differences in the enrollment in and completion of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) MOOCs. We found that while females were less likely than males to enroll in STEM MOOCs, they were equally likely to complete them. Further, a higher probability to enroll in STEM MOOCs and smaller gender gaps in STEM MOOC enrollment and completion were found in less gender-equal and less economically developed countries.
•Subjective task value (STV) trends in three domains from G9 to G11 were tracked.•We identified three differential joint STV trajectories across domains.•Changes of STVs in one domain shaped one ...another to form STV hierarchies.•STV trajectories impacted long-term STEM aspirations and participation.•Gender differences in STEM fields were affected by gendered STV trajectories.
This study used variable- and pattern-centered approaches to better capture the impact of adolescents’ joint developmental trajectories of subjective task values (STVs) in three domains (Finnish, math and science, and social subject) from grades 9 to 11 on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) aspirations at four years postsecondary school and STEM participation at six years postsecondary school (N = 849 Finnish youth; 52.1% female; 99% native Finnish). Results showed that while adolescents’ average STVs in different domains remained stable, three differential joint STV trajectories emerged across domains. Individual changes of STVs in one domain shaped STVs in other domains to form unique relative STV hierarchies within subgroups that impacted long-term STEM aspirations and participation. Gender differences in STV trajectory profile distributions partially explained the overall underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. This study is among the first to incorporate multiple domains and explore how STVs fluctuate over time in both homogeneous and heterogeneous fashions. These findings underscore the importance of examining heterogeneity in motivational trajectories across domains.
Drawing on Eccles' expectancy-value model of achievement-related choices, we examined how work values predict individual and gender differences in sciences, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) ...participations in early adulthood (ages of 25/27, 6 or 8 years after postsecondary school), controlling for subjective task values attached to academic subjects in late adolescence (11th grade, age 18). The study examined 1,259 Finnish participants using a person-oriented approach. Results showed that: (a) we could identify four profile groups based on five core work values (society, family, monetary, career prospects, and working with people); (b) work-value profiles predicted young adults actual STEM participation in two fields: math-intensive and life science occupations above and beyond academic task values (e.g., math/science) and background information; (c) work-value profiles also differentiate between those who entered support- vs. professional-level STEM jobs; and (d) gender differences in work value profiles partially explained the differential representation of women across STEM sub-disciplines and the overall underrepresentation of women in STEM fields.
Why do students pick various courses? Interdisciplinary research has highlighted the role of structural constraints, normative expectations, and individual motivation as the joint influences of ...agency and structure in the service of life goals. Here, we examined undergraduates’ reasons for course choices for their most difficult and most important courses. We compared the reasons for non-major vs. major courses, for freshman vs. juniors, and across different disciplines. College students selected courses that fulfilled their major or breadth requirements, particularly in their freshman year. STEM courses were taken more for career development reasons than other disciplines, particularly humanities courses; social sciences courses were taken more for interest than STEM courses; and humanities courses were taken more for intellectual broadening than STEM courses.
Introduction
Parents' science support and adolescents' motivational beliefs are associated with adolescents' expectations for their future occupations; however, these associations have been mostly ...investigated among White, middle‐class samples. Framed by situated expectancy‐value theory, the current study investigated: (1) the associations between parents' science support in 9th grade and Latine adolescents' science intrinsic value, utility value, and STEM career expectations in 11th grade, and (2) whether these indicators and the relations among them differed by adolescents' gender and parents' education.
Methods
Study participants included Latine adolescents (n = 3060; Mage = 14.4 years old; 49% female) in the United States from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009.
Results
Analyses revealed a significant, positive association between parents' science support and Latine adolescents' science utility value. Additionally, there was a significant, positive association between parents' science support and Latinas' science intrinsic value, but not for Latinos' science intrinsic value. Latine adolescents' science utility value, but not their science intrinsic value, predicted their concurrent STEM career expectations. Though there were no significant mean level differences in adolescents' science utility value or parents' science support based on adolescents' gender, the measure of adolescents' science intrinsic value varied across girls and boys. Finally, adolescents whose parents had a college degree received greater science support from parents compared to adolescents whose parents had less education than a college degree.
Conclusion
Findings suggest parents' science support and adolescents' intrinsic and utility values have potential associations with Latine adolescents' STEM career expectations near the end of high school.
This study explores various measures of the ethnic makeup in a classroom and their relationship with student outcomes. We examine whether measures of ethnic diversity are related to achievement ...(mathematics, reading) and feeling of belonging with one's peers over and above commonly investigated composition characteristics. Multilevel analyses were based on data from a representative sample of 18,762 elementary school students in 903 classrooms. The proportion of minority students and diversity measures showed negative associations with student outcomes in separate models. Including diversity measures and the proportion of minority students, diversity of minority students mostly lost its significance. However, the results suggest that diversity measures may provide additional information over and above other classroom characteristics for some student outcomes. The various measures of diversity led to comparable results.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This study suggests that the ethnic makeup of classrooms is related to student outcomes. That is, students in classes with a higher proportion of ethnic minority students showed slightly lower achievement and feeling of belonging with one's peers even if the socioeconomic status, the immigrant background of the family, cognitive ability, and gender of the student is equal. In addition to the proportion of ethnic minority students, average socioeconomic status, and average cognitive abilities, we looked at the ethnic heterogeneity in each classroom and found that this was mostly independent from student outcomes. Only for math we found a positive association indicating that students in a more ethnically diverse classroom showed slightly higher test scores-however, this slight association cannot be interpreted as a causal relationship because of our cross-sectional design. The findings suggest that measures of heterogeneity may uncover relationships that the mere proportion of minority students which disregards various ethnic groups in the classroom is unable to show and open a discussion on how to investigate effects of ethnic diversity in educational research.
Students’ motivational beliefs about learning physical science are critical for achieving positive educational outcomes. In this study, we incorporated expectancy-value theory to capture the ...heterogeneity of adolescents’ motivational trajectories in physics and chemistry from seventh to twelfth grade and linked these trajectories to science-related outcomes. We used a cross-sequential design based on three different cohorts of adolescents (
N
= 699; 51.5 % female; 95 % European American;
M
ages
for youngest, middle, and oldest cohorts at the first wave = 13.2, 14.1, and 15.3 years) coming from ten public secondary schools. Although many studies claim that physical science motivation declines on average over time, we identified seven differential motivational trajectories of ability self-concept and task values, and found associations of these trajectories with science achievement, advanced science course taking, and science career aspirations. Adolescents’ ability self-concept and task values in physics and chemistry were also positively related and interlinked over time. Examining how students’ motivational beliefs about physical science develop in secondary school offers insight into the capacity of different groups of students to successfully adapt to their changing educational environments.
The present research examined the joint effects of social, dimensional, and temporal comparisons on students' academic self-concepts and parents' beliefs about their children's competencies during ...students' transition phase from elementary school to junior high school. To this end, we tested the newly developed 2I/E model using longitudinal data including 2,417 students between Grades 6 and 7 and 1,846 parents. We found strong social comparison effects and moderate dimensional and temporal comparison effects on students' self-concepts. In line with our assumption that students should be particularly sensitive to changes in their achievements during phases of school transition, the temporal comparison effects were stronger than in any prior study of the 2I/E model. Parents' ratings of their children's competencies were also predicted by social, dimensional, and temporal comparisons. However, whereas the social comparison effects on students' and parents' ratings were equally strong, the dimensional and temporal comparison effects were stronger on students' ratings. We finally tested how social, dimensional, and temporal comparisons affected changes in students' self-concepts and parents' competence beliefs over 1 year. Although the effects of all 3 comparisons were still significant, we found drastic changes in their strengths, with the strongest effects on changes in competence beliefs occurring for temporal comparisons. Overall, our study provides a variety of new insights into the impact of comparison processes on the formation of competence beliefs. In particular, it emphasizes the role of temporal comparisons. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Individuals use different kinds of comparative information in forming their beliefs about their competencies: Social comparisons involve comparing one's performance with that of others, temporal comparisons are comparing one's current performance to previous performance, and dimensional comparisons are comparing one's performance in different subject areas. The present study investigated how these comparison processes influenced students' beliefs about their own competencies and their parents' beliefs about their children's competencies across a major transition occurring in most U.S. schools-the elementary to junior high school transition. Results showed that students and their parents used all 3 kinds of comparative information, but in general students used temporal and dimensional comparisons more than did parents. Moreover, the influence of temporal comparisons on students' competence beliefs was stronger than in prior studies examining these effects during periods where no school transition took place. The study's findings have implications for teachers' understanding of students' development of their competence beliefs and the kinds of messages they can give to both their students and their students' parents to enhance students' beliefs in their competencies at the time of transition.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to democratize education by providing learners with access to rich sources of information. However, evidence supporting this democratization ...across countries is limited. We explored the question of democratization by investigating whether females from different countries were more likely to enroll in and complete STEM MOOCs compared with males. We found that whereas females were less likely to enroll in STEM MOOCs, they were equally likely to complete them. We found smaller gender gaps in STEM MOOC enrollment in less economically developed countries. Further, females were more likely than males to complete STEM MOOCs in countries identified as having a high potential to become the largest economies in the 21st century.
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