UC Irvine

The health of the U.S. economy and its position as a global leader is intimately tied to innovation in science and technology. While abundant evidence has shown that diverse teams working together and capitalizing on innovative ideas and distinct perspectives outperform homogenous teams and despite the millions of dollars invested in STEM education each year, the United States has not been able to achieve STEM workforce diversity goals. Using nationally representative data from the first wave of the High School Longitudinal Study (2009), this study explores the science self-efficacy and achievement of 9th graders with a focus on differences across race/ethnicity. As expected based on prior work, average science and math achievement of individuals from groups underrepresented in science (namely Hispanic and Black students in this study) are lower than that of those overrepresented in science (White and Asian in this study). Surprisingly, the science self-efficacy of Black students was found to be higher than that of all other groups except Asian. This miscalibration calls into question whether interventions focused on increasing science self-efficacy in Black high school students would be as effective at increasing achievement as it is in the other ethnicities studied. These results have far-reaching implications for educational interventions and strongly suggests that culture and context-specific strategies should be employed rather than more generalized approaches.