Variety is the spice of life — and it turns out it’s also a key ingredient for academic achievement in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). A recent study in AERA Open, a journal published by the American Education Research Association, reveals that college students in STEM courses excel in more diverse classroom environments. This research highlights how engaging with classmates from different backgrounds can propel individual performance and success.
Led by Nicholas Bowman, PhD, education policy professor and director of the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education at the University of Iowa, “The Role of Minoritized Student Representation in Promoting Achievement and Equity Within College STEM Courses” explores the impact of underrepresented racial minority (URM) and first-generation college student representation on grades in postsecondary STEM courses.
Conducted with the support of researchers from Indiana University, University of Michigan-Flint, Washington State University, and Renison University College in Ontario, Canada, the study utilized data collected by the College Transition Collaborative, now known as Equity Accelerator — a research organization that uses behavioral and social science to create more equitable learning and working environments. The study is the first of its kind to use a large, multi-institutional dataset and to specifically focus on the representation of first-generation students in the classroom.
“Across multiple analytic approaches, the representation of URM and first-generation students within STEM courses was positively associated with grades among students from both privileged and minoritized identities,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Broadly speaking, the present work highlights the importance of mitigating or removing contextual barriers that inhibit the success of students with minoritized identities.”
The researchers analyzed data from nearly 12,000 students interested in STEM at 20 institutions — spanning more than 87,000 individual grades across approximately 8,500 STEM courses. Findings revealed that higher proportions of URM and first-generation students in a class were associated with improved STEM grades for all students. In STEM classes with greater diversity, the gap in grade outcomes of URM and non-URM students decreased by 27%, and in courses with more first-generation students, the gap between them and those with a family history of attending college dropped by 56%.
“It’s really notable that improving racial and socioeconomic representation leads to benefits for everyone and reduces inequities at the same time,” Bowman said in a press release. “It is not a zero-sum game.”
This research underscores the substantial benefits of diversity in the classroom, particularly in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on race-conscious admission in higher education, Bowman noted.
“It is critical that colleges and universities redouble their efforts to create learning environments that have substantial diversity,” he said in the release. “This is especially true in the STEM fields, where there are long-existing equity gaps.”●
