Talking about Leaving Revisited

"Switching" and "Persistence" Redefined: The Complexity of STEM Persistence.- The Significance of Interest and Choice.- High School to College: Student Preparation and Transition.- Learning Experiences in Gateway Courses and their Consequences.- Learning Experiences throughout STEM Majors.- Teaching Practices: Observed and Evaluated.- The Processes of Switching and Relocation.- Factors Beyond College that Shape Career Choices.- What Enables Persistence?.- Summary and Conclusions.

Elaine Seymour is co-founder and director emerita of Ethnography & Evaluation Research (E&ER) at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB). Her work has focused on change in STEM education and career paths, including efforts to improve quality, access, and diversity. Her best-known work, co-authored with Nancy M. Hewitt, Talking about Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences, (1997) which the current volume revisits and extends, is widely cited for its contribution to the nationwide effort to improve undergraduate STEM education. In addition to her many articles, published volumes by Seymour and E&ER members based on their research include: Talking about Disability: The Education and Work Experiences of Undergraduates with Disabilities in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Majors (1998); Partners in Innovation: Teaching Assistants in College Science Courses (2005) which draws on E&ER's evaluation studies of science education reform initiatives; and Undergraduate Research in the Sciences: Engaging Students in Real Science (2010), a comprehensive study of the benefits and costs of undergraduate research and the processes whereby these arise. She also contributed chapters on the processes of change and resistance to change to Transforming Institutions: Undergraduate STEM Education for the 21st Century (2015). In recognition of her research on women in science and engineering, WEPAN awarded her their 2002 Betty Vetter Award for Research, and, in 2006, she testified before Congress on trends and needs in STEM education reform. To meet the needs of classroom innovators for course evaluation methods relevant to their learning objectives, she co-developed, and continues to expand the scope of, the widely-used Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) online instrument that focuses exclusively on what students gain from their courses. She is a sociologist and a British-American whose education and career have been conducted on both

"I highly recommend this book to anyone concerned about improving student persistence. It has many suggestions for how departments should emphasize career opportunities in physics, improve pedagogy in introductory courses, examine grading policies, provide support to those with in - adequate high school preparation, and improve STEM preparation at the high school level." (Stephanie Chasteen, Physics Today, January, 2021)