Gender in STEM Education: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Dataset

National Science Foundation Surveys of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and Technology, 1979-2001. Part 1: Survey of Public Attitudes Multiple Wave Data

Data for this exercise come from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Surveys of Public Attitudes, which were administered every two or three years from 1979 to 2001. The goal of the surveys was to assess public attitudes toward, and interest in, science and technology, as well as the public's understanding of scientific concepts. The dataset has two subsets. Part 1 is used in this exercise, and includes a wide variety of topics including respondents' interest in medical inventions, space exploration, foreign policy, and government spending on scientific research. It also contains demographic information (gender, race, age, marital status, etc.), and data on levels of education with an emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

This exercise will use the following variables:

• Gender (GENDER)
• Highest level of math in high school (HIHSMATH)
• Took high school physics course (HSPHYSIC)
• Took high school chemistry course (HSCHEMIS)
• Number of science courses in college in 3 categories (COLLSCI3)
• College major (COLMAJ)
• Job in science field (SCIENG)
• How would R feel if daughter wanted to be a scientist? (DAUGHSCI)
• How would R feel if son wanted to be a scientist? (SONSCI)
• Study year (YEAR)

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography