School counselors could help high school girls erase the STEM gender gap

Key points:

New research from the Houston Educational Research Consortium (HERC) at Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research finds that female students may be more likely to pursue STEM curriculum when they receive support from high school guidance counselors.

In 2013, the Texas legislature introduced “endorsements,” which function like college majors to give high school students the opportunity to major in an area aligned with their long-term goals. To earn an endorsement, Texas students must take specific course sequences or routes in one or more focus areas.

In the Houston Independent School District, the first students to graduate under the new endorsement system in 2018 did not receive formal guidance about their endorsement pathways after their initial choice in ninth grade. However, in 2019, the school district added a check-in session with guidance counselors for all students to help them complete their approvals.

In “The Role of Guidance Counselors in Narrowing the Gender Gap in STEM Endorsements,” published last month, HERC researchers found that when HISD implemented these controls, the likelihood of female students completing a STEM major increased significantly, and the effect was particularly strong. for female students from less privileged backgrounds. As a result, the gender gap in STEM completion in HISD almost completely disappeared, narrowing from 6.2% in 2018 to 0.8% in 2019.

“The endorsement counseling program was not necessarily geared toward gender, but rather toward helping students succeed in light of the recent policy change. But there is growing research showing that male and female students react differently to social capital interventions,” says Brian Holzman, lead author of the study and now assistant professor of educational administration at Texas A&M University. “Both male and female students were switching to STEM in the second cohort. “We just discovered that the effects of the program were stronger for female students.”

HERC Director Erin Baumgartner notes that while there could be several reasons for the overall increase in completion of STEM endorsements during this period, the findings suggest that guidance from school counselors may be a possible solution to the gap. gender in STEM and an especially promising strategy to increase access to STEM for female students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

“There is much research showing that students benefit from access to effective counselors, who can provide personalized support based on students' unique experiences and needs,” Baumgartner said. “The challenge is for schools to provide the right ratio of trained counselors to students to offer appropriate support.”

The researchers said they hope this work will shed light on the impact of supporting students, especially women, pursuing STEM education. Research summaries are online at https://kinder.rice.edu/research/stem-endorsement-and-pathway-college.

This press release originally appeared online.