Mapping Rural Students’ STEM Involvement: Case Studies of Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Enrollment in the States of Illinois and Kansas

Mapping Rural Students’ STEM Involvement: Case Studies of Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Enrollment in the States of Illinois and KansasThirty percent of America's K-12 students attend rural schools according to the NationalResearch Center on Rural Education Support. While many research end...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inAssociation for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers p. 23.885.1
Main Authors Versypt, Joel J, Ashlee N. Ford Versypt
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published Atlanta American Society for Engineering Education-ASEE 23.06.2013
Subjects
Case studies
Chemical engineering
College students
Colleges & universities
Core curriculum
Curricula
Engineering education
Enrollments
Geographical distribution
Mapping
Mathematics education
Organic chemistry
Representations
Rural areas
School districts
Science education
Software
STEM education
Students
Technical education
Illinois
Kansas
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Mapping Rural Students’ STEM Involvement: Case Studies of Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Enrollment in the States of Illinois and KansasThirty percent of America's K-12 students attend rural schools according to the NationalResearch Center on Rural Education Support. While many research endeavors investigate howone’s gender, race, or socioeconomic status affect participation in the science, technology,engineering, and math (STEM) “pipeline,” less research is focused on rural students as anunderrepresented group. Rural students may face numerous obstacles to entering the STEMfields including low educational aspirations, lack of STEM role models, lack of access to STEMoutreach, and lack of access to advanced math and science curriculum. These factors can bothlimit students’ entry into STEM fields and hinder the progress towards degree completion oncethe students maturate.This paper focuses on rural students and their representation in the STEM pipeline through casestudies in the field of chemical engineering. The primary contribution is a geographic analysis ofthe distribution of chemical engineering undergraduate students studying in two states. Thepurpose of the research is to determine the representation of rural students amongst chemicalengineering undergraduates and to identify ways to improve the flow of rural students throughthe STEM pipeline in chemical engineering.The researchers used the geographic software program ArcGIS to map the zip codes of thepermanent addresses for in-state undergraduate students studying chemical engineering at publicand private universities in Kansas and Illinois (see Figures 1-2). Census data showing the urbanareas in each state are included. The maps show that rural students are underrepresented in thechemical engineering discipline as the percent of rural students studying chemical engineeringin-state is significantly lower than the total percent of rural population. The paper also providesrecommendations for actions that could be undertaken to increase STEM participation anddegree attainment for rural students by various entities, including colleges and universities,chemical engineering departments, rural high schools, and industry.Figure 1: Home address distribution of chemical engineering undergraduates from Kansasattending in-state universities 2011-2012.Figure 2: Home address distribution of chemical engineering undergraduates from Illinoisattending in-state universities 2010-2011.