Student–Faculty Interaction and Discrimination from Faculty in STEM: The Link with Retention

Julie J. Park (), Young K. Kim, Cinthya Salazar and Shannon Hayes
Additional contact information
Julie J. Park: University of Maryland
Young K. Kim: Azusa Pacific University
Cinthya Salazar: University of Maryland
Shannon Hayes: University of Maryland

Research in Higher Education, 2020, vol. 61, issue 3, No 2, 330-356

Abstract: Abstract Previous studies have documented student–faculty interaction in STEM, but fewer studies have specifically studied negative forms of interaction such as discrimination from faculty. Using a sample of 562 STEM undergraduates from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, we use hierarchical generalized linear modeling to investigate various types of student–faculty interaction in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and in particular, the link between discrimination from faculty and retention in STEM. While Black students interacted more frequently with faculty, they were also most likely to report experiencing racial/ethnic discrimination. Overall, female, Black, and Latinx students were more likely to leave STEM by the fourth year of college than male, White, and Asian American peers. Feeling that professors made a student feel uncomfortable due to race/ethnicity was negatively linked with STEM retention. None of the traditional forms of student–faculty interaction (i.e., non-discriminatory) predicted retention. Variation in patterns by race, gender, and income are discussed, as well as implications for research, policy, and practice.

Keywords: Student–faculty interaction; Retention; STEM; Discrimination from faculty; Higher education outcomes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11162-019-09564-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:reihed:v:61:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11162-019-09564-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11162

DOI: 10.1007/s11162-019-09564-w

Access Statistics for this article

Research in Higher Education is currently edited by Robert K. Toutkoushian

More articles in Research in Higher Education from Springer, Association for Institutional Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().