DC Accepted Papers Paper:
Teachers' Encouragement in STEM Class Enrollment and Its Impact on High School Achievement
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
| I examine the role of teachers’ encouragement in improving student outcomes using a representative sample of U.S. high school students. A range of outcomes have been used to study the impact of teachers’ encouragement: 11th grade GPA, high school Math GPA, high school Science GPA, Math self-efficacy, Science self-efficacy, and selectivity of the colleges that students enrolled in 2013. The main independent variable of interest is a binary indicator built on the student observation - whether the student took math and science in 11th grade because teachers encouraged them. Using restricted-access data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, I show that teachers’ encouragement-driven math class enrollment in 11th grade is associated with a 0.05 standard deviation increase in high school math GPA. On the other hand, teachers’ encouragement-driven science class enrollment in 11th grade is associated with a 0.035 standard-deviation increase in high school science GPA. Secondly, Teachers’ encouragement-driven science class enrollment in 11th grade is associated with a 0.05 standard-deviation increase in science class self-efficacy. Finally, using selectivity classifications of enrolled colleges provided by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), I show that teachers’ encouragement-driven science class enrollment in 11th grade increases the probability of enrollment in “highly selective” colleges by 2.8%. |
