Evaluation of a College Freshman Diversity Research Program
Abstract
Since 2005, the Pre-Major in Astronomy Program (Pre-MAP) at the University of Washington (UW) Department of Astronomy has made a concentrated effort to recruit and retain underrepresented undergraduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This paper evaluates Pre-MAP in the context of the larger UW student population using data compiled by the University's student database. We evaluate the Pre-MAP program in terms of our goals of recruiting a more diverse population than the University and in terms of a higher fraction of students successfully completing degrees. We find that Pre-MAP serves a higher percentage of underrepresented minorities and equal percentages of women compared to entering freshmen classes at UW. Additionally, Pre-MAP has a higher percentage of degree completion with higher average GPA's and similar time to completion when compared to UW as a whole and other STEM majors, particularly with students that place into lower-level math courses (such as basic algebra or pre-calculus).
Cite
@article{arxiv.1311.5486,
title = {Evaluation of a College Freshman Diversity Research Program},
author = {Sarah Garner and Michael J. Tremmel and Sarah J. Schmidt and John P. Wisniewski and Eric Agol},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.5486},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
Originally intended for submission to Astronomy Education Review (AER) but not completed before AER ceased publication. 13 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. For more information on Pre-MAP, see http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/premap/