In recent years, a lot of people have been concerned about the relatively low numbers of science majors among American college students.
The percentage of science and engineering graduates in the US has been far below that in China and Japan.
Why is this? Are young Americans uninterested in science?
Some new answers come from research by Todd and Ralph Stinebrickner (an academic father-and-son team).
On the basis of a unique data set, the Stinebrickners find that at the time of college entrance, students think science is an appealing major. In the study’s sample, 19.8% of students believe they will choose science — a higher percentage than for any other discipline. In the end, however, only 7.4% end up majoring in it.
On this count, science stands alone. No other major displays such a large disparity between initial expectations and actual outcomes. It turns out that students who start as majors in science show an unusual propensity to leave the field, and those who don’t start in science are unlikely to switch to it.
Is there something wrong with college science teachers? Are students bored by their courses?
The Stinebrickners don’t have conclusive answers, but they provide strong hints. They collected data on students’ expectations about their grades in specific courses and compared those expectations with their actual grades. Far more than students in other courses, science students turn out to be unrealistically optimistic about their performance. Their unexpectedly low grades appear to discourage them from continuing in science.
College teachers aren’t to blame. American students aren’t uninterested in science, nor are they ignorant of the professional opportunities that a degree in this field could bring. Many of them would like to major in science and plan to do so. But when they are disappointed by their own performance, they switch. The impediment is a lack of high school preparation.
Bloomberg View