Attrition in STEM

[jimbogumbo]

One of the findings that jumped out at me was no gender difference in attrition in Physics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0

[marshwiggle]

One of the findings that jumped out at me was no gender difference in attrition in Physics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0

Actually, the highest gender differences were in bio and neuro, fields that attract a high number of women. So that suggests attrition may be more to do with the kind of people who choose a discipline, rather than the discipline itself. (i.e. The kind of women who choose physics are much more similar to the men who choose physics than the kind of women who choose biology are to the men who choose biology.)

[dismalist]

I've long believed all intellectual endeavors should be more like physics. Now we have an additional reason.

[jimbogumbo]

One of the findings that jumped out at me was no gender difference in attrition in Physics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0

Actually, the highest gender differences were in bio and neuro, fields that attract a high number of women. So that suggests attrition may be more to do with the kind of people who choose a discipline, rather than the discipline itself. (i.e. The kind of women who choose physics are much more similar to the men who choose physics than the kind of women who choose biology are to the men who choose biology.)

That may be, but the American Physical Society has made gender attrition a focus. It also explicitly states that pedagogical research should be counted equally with content research in P&T decisions, which benefits everyone regarding attrition.

[Hibush]

This article really annoyed me because of how the authors define being "in science". There are a number of problems.

First is the entry to "science", is anyone who publishes twice. How many students or technicians not heading into science or research end up on a couple of papers? Lots! They are counted as attrition, but I don't think they were ever in.

On the attrition end, they use ceasing to publish as exiting "science". It is probably a reasonable measure of people in academic research, but that is not all of science. Think of all the people who teach science without publising. Think of all the industry researchers who do massive science but don't publish. (Pharma alone spends $100 billion a year on R&D; that money supports a lot of people who are unquestionably in science. Defense companies may employ even more non-publishing scientists.) People who move from a university bio lab to a pharma job are often moving up in their science career.

The data in the paper are informative about one slice of the science job market, but don't mean what the authors claim. I'm afraid that misreadings of this paper will lead to ineffective or counterproductive policy responses.

[Ruralguy]

Yes, publishing is definitely a flawed measure (even somewhat within academia).

[fizzycist]

Are neuro and bio fields where students are expected to publish before starting a PhD?

In physics, the fraction of PhD applicants with publications is getting higher every year, but still not the norm.

I wonder whether this criterion makes certain fields more reflective of retention very early on (post Bachelor's) vs after PhD or whatever.

Anyway, it was still an interesting read. Our dept does pretty clearly have trouble retaining women, particularly acute at the Freshman/Sophomore transition.

[Hibush]

I wonder whether this criterion makes certain fields more reflective of retention very early on (post Bachelor's) vs after PhD or whatever.

Our dept does pretty clearly have trouble retaining women, particularly acute at the Freshman/Sophomore transition.

It is helpful to understand undesirable attrition, and I agree that the paper has some useful information despite the limitation.

What do the women who change major from physics do in sophomore year? Do they consider themselves part of attrition? Or did they find something better to do?

What is "better"? That really depends on some often tacit values. Some people I know in the math/physics realm feel that going less quantitiative is softer and a lesser pursuit. On the other hand, qs a biologist, I think we can put those students on an even better life course if they change to my department! Those are the sort of things the faculty researchers will consider because those are our values as faculty. But what about the students' perspective? That is the one that really matters.

What do you know about your phusics majors?

[marshwiggle]

One of the findings that jumped out at me was no gender difference in attrition in Physics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0

Actually, the highest gender differences were in bio and neuro, fields that attract a high number of women. So that suggests attrition may be more to do with the kind of people who choose a discipline, rather than the discipline itself. (i.e. The kind of women who choose physics are much more similar to the men who choose physics than the kind of women who choose biology are to the men who choose biology.)

That may be, but the American Physical Society has made gender attrition a focus. It also explicitly states that pedagogical research should be counted equally with content research in P&T decisions, which benefits everyone regarding attrition.

But it still seems strange that a professional society focus (by a mostly male group) would have a more pronounced effect than the presence of a much higher proportion of females in the field itself. If that is indeed the case then it really bears looking into. (And note the divergence is visible all along the graphs, not just near the end. The male and female lines in physics are together all the way through, while they start to separate for biology early on and the gap monotonically widens.)
 

[pgher]

One of the findings that jumped out at me was no gender difference in attrition in Physics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0

Actually, the highest gender differences were in bio and neuro, fields that attract a high number of women. So that suggests attrition may be more to do with the kind of people who choose a discipline, rather than the discipline itself. (i.e. The kind of women who choose physics are much more similar to the men who choose physics than the kind of women who choose biology are to the men who choose biology.)

That may be, but the American Physical Society has made gender attrition a focus. It also explicitly states that pedagogical research should be counted equally with content research in P&T decisions, which benefits everyone regarding attrition.

But it still seems strange that a professional society focus (by a mostly male group) would have a more pronounced effect than the presence of a much higher proportion of females in the field itself. If that is indeed the case then it really bears looking into. (And note the divergence is visible all along the graphs, not just near the end. The male and female lines in physics are together all the way through, while they start to separate for biology early on and the gap monotonically widens.)
 

I wonder if the logic is something like, "There's lots of women in this field, so there must not be a problem," vs. "There's clearly a gender disparity in this field, so let's figure out how to mitigate any inequities."

[marshwiggle]

One of the findings that jumped out at me was no gender difference in attrition in Physics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0

Actually, the highest gender differences were in bio and neuro, fields that attract a high number of women. So that suggests attrition may be more to do with the kind of people who choose a discipline, rather than the discipline itself. (i.e. The kind of women who choose physics are much more similar to the men who choose physics than the kind of women who choose biology are to the men who choose biology.)

That may be, but the American Physical Society has made gender attrition a focus. It also explicitly states that pedagogical research should be counted equally with content research in P&T decisions, which benefits everyone regarding attrition.

But it still seems strange that a professional society focus (by a mostly male group) would have a more pronounced effect than the presence of a much higher proportion of females in the field itself. If that is indeed the case then it really bears looking into. (And note the divergence is visible all along the graphs, not just near the end. The male and female lines in physics are together all the way through, while they start to separate for biology early on and the gap monotonically widens.)
 

I wonder if the logic is something like, "There's lots of women in this field, so there must not be a problem," vs. "There's clearly a gender disparity in this field, so let's figure out how to mitigate any inequities."

Yes, but wouldn't the larger number of women in the field be more aware of, and more vocal about, the disparities?

[fizzycist]

Jimbo, American Physical Society is a great prof society but it has negligible effect on gender outcomes, one only needs to compare to other countries to see that.

Last I checked, physics has a lower fraction of women degree attainers than similar disciplines like math, astronomy, chemistry. Yet 50% of HS physics takers are women. I think it's safe to say that physics is not free of gender issues (we can argue whether it is a problem or not, but I personally think yes).

Hibush, our dept had done climate surveys and the like. Often we find that our students have lots of similar complaints independent of gender (too many classes, too hard, lack of community early on, super long and risky training path, etc.). Seems to lead to gender imbalance in response. But we would benefit from a ton of more and higher quality info including comparison with adjacent fields and schools.

 

[jimbogumbo]

fizzycist: we ar actually in complete agreement. Imo this article gives us no useful info regarding the drop off in female participation after high school or the early undergrad data. Physics and Math are essentially identical at those decision points.


Aside: I would greatly enjoy being a fly on the wall if a certain trio (picture a physicist, a mathematician and dismalist*) were passionately arguing.


* If dismalist is unavailable, substitute with a random economist.

[Hibush]

Hibush, our dept had done climate surveys and the like. Often we find that our students have lots of similar complaints independent of gender (too many classes, too hard, lack of community early on, super long and risky training path, etc.). Seems to lead to gender imbalance in response. But we would benefit from a ton of more and higher quality info including comparison with adjacent fields and schools.

What major do they switch to? I'm in an applied biology department, a field that is not on the radar of high school students. Therefor we get transfers from biology at sophomore year, after they took an intro course and discovered that this field is a lot more fun than basic biology. That change of major may be attrition from the initial path to a health career or a biology research career. But it is not "attrition" from science or from academic success. The biology department isn't worried about it.

[Ruralguy]

I don't think you can simply call attrition from a science department "attrition from science" without knowing where the person landed. At my school, many science majors "attrit" from one science field to another.  Similar with what happens post graduation. They may not go to physics grad school, but might work in public outreach at a national lab. i don't think that us "attrition."