| NSF Org: |
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 4, 2014 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 20, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1420330 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Mark Leddy
DRL Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | August 15, 2014 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $194,085.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $229,865.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2017 = $35,780.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
21 N PARK ST STE 6301 MADISON WI US 53715-1218 (608)262-3822 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
21 N. Park Street, Suite 6401 Madison WI US 53715-1218 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
Disabilities Research in STEM, ECR-EDU Core Research |
| Primary Program Source: |
04001718DB NSF Education & Human Resource |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
This collaborative research project will study the effects of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills and training gained from high school through college on the career-long learning prospects of diverse groups of individuals and their adaptation to changing workplace experiences. Project investigators at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will also contribute to the important research on STEM broadening participation issues, specifically the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender and disability with STEM education, STEM workforce development and STEM career success.
The research team will conduct interviews with individuals who originally participated in a U.S. Department of Education survey called the High School and Beyond (HS&B) study. The students were high school seniors when the data was initially collected in 1980. Some of these students also provided additional survey data in 1982, 1984 and 1986. Beginning with this longitudinal survey data, the researchers will study the STEM training that students acquired and the STEM competencies they developed in school. Drawing on specific coursework, test scores, grades, degree attainment, and field of degree, the investigators will analyze how these competencies contribute to workforce success and flexibility in mid-life work for persons with diverse, intersecting attributes defined by race, ethnicity, gender and disability.
The new data set will be made available to the public and to researchers through the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. The project will use a large population sample, combining data from the sophomore and senior cohorts of the HS&B study, in order to conduct theoretically grounded analytic modeling about the relationships between STEM training, workforce outcomes and diversity attributes. The main theoretical focus of the work is examining the relative contributions of education as credentials (signaling theory) versus the relative contributions of what is learned in school and non-school settings (human capital theory).
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Funding for this project supported the collection and analysis of data from the High School and Beyond Senior cohort. The sample includes almost 12,000 people who were attending around 1,100 public and private high schools across the nation in 1980. Members of the sample are representative of the population of high school seniors at that time and include oversamples of African American and Latinx students. We achieved a 63% weighted response rate for this round of data collection.
Results of research using these data have already advanced our understanding of the importance of taking demanding math courses in high school, and the skills and knowledge resulting from those courses, on a variety of outcomes at midlife. Beyond opportunities and achievement in mathematics, the High School and Beyond data have helped us learn about how other experiences and opportunities in adolescence continue to shape peoples’ outcomes 30 or more years later. We have learned that:
- The skill demands of sample members’ occupations- including demands for math and language skills, skills with people and the importance of learning on the job- resemble those of their parents, and increasingly so as sample members age.
- Far from being the exception, going back to school after age 25 is the norm. While high school grades, test scores and parental education continue to shape educational trajectories, African Americans are slightly more likely than otherwise similar non-Hispanic whites to earn a graduate degree after age 25, all else equal.
- Women who take college preparatory math in high school are at less risk of having bad jobs at midlife than are women who did not take such courses, all else equal, and both women and men who completed advanced math appear to having an easier time adapting to a changing economy as they age.
- Those who make it through at least algebra 2 are also less likely to die by their early 50s net of several other factors including their math test scores in high school and their educational attainment.
The data supported under this award should be available under (free) license through the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics some time in 2020. This grant has helped position High School and Beyond to make contributions to social and behavioral science in the future as well. With support from the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Aging), we will go into the field for a new round of data collection in the spring of 2021.
Last Modified: 06/26/2020
Modified by: Eric S Grodsky
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