LaCosse Jennifer, Canning Elizabeth A, Bowman Nicholas A, Murphy Mary C, Logel Christine
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA.
Sci Adv. 2020 Oct 2;6(40). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb6543. Print 2020 Oct.
Students who speak English as a second language (ESL) are underserved and underrepresented in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. To date, most existing research with ESL students in higher education is qualitative. Drawing from this important body of work, we investigate the impact of a social-belonging intervention on anticipated changes in belonging, STEM GPA, and proportion of STEM credits obtained in students' first semester and first year of college. Using data from more than 12,000 STEM-interested students at 19 universities, results revealed that the intervention increased ESL students' anticipated sense of belonging and three of the four academic outcomes. Moreover, anticipated changes in belonging mediated the intervention's effects on these academic outcomes. Robustness checks revealed that ESL effects persisted even when controlling for other identities correlated with ESL status. Overall, results suggest that anticipated belonging is an understudied barrier to creating a multilingual and diverse STEM workforce.
把英语作为第二语言（ESL）的学生在高等科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域中未得到充分服务且代表性不足。到目前为止，高等教育中针对ESL学生的现有研究大多是定性的。基于这一重要的研究成果，我们调查了一种社会归属感干预措施对学生在大学第一学期和第一年的归属感预期变化、STEM平均绩点以及获得的STEM学分比例的影响。利用来自19所大学的12000多名对STEM感兴趣的学生的数据，结果显示该干预措施提高了ESL学生的预期归属感以及四项学业成果中的三项。此外，归属感的预期变化介导了干预措施对这些学业成果的影响。稳健性检验表明，即使在控制了与ESL身份相关的其他身份特征后，ESL的影响依然存在。总体而言，研究结果表明，预期归属感是创建多语言和多样化STEM劳动力队伍中一个未得到充分研究的障碍。
