Lene Møller Madsen

To Choose or Not to Choose Science: Constructions of Desirable Identities among Young People Considering a STEM Higher Education Programme.

In the literature, there is a general concern that a less number of students choose to study science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). This paper presents results from a Danish longitudinal study which examines students’ choice of whether or not to continue studying STEM after upper-secondary school. In particular, this study focuses on students who held an STEM subject as one of their favourite subjects at secondary educational level, but who chose not to study STEM at the tertiary level. This paper explores how students’ perceptions of STEM relate to their identity work. The data used, primarily consist of interviews with 38 students at the end of upper-secondary school. The analysis explores the students’ expectations of what higher education STEM might be like. These expectations are contrasted with the first-year experiences of 18 of the 38 students who eventually entered a higher education STEM programme. The results show that the students who did not choose STEM, perceived STEM as stable, rigid and fixed, and, hence, too narrow a platform for developing and constructing desirable identities. The experiences of those students who actually entered a STEM programme turned out to be similar to these expectations. However, many choosers would also prefer their studies as less rigid and fixed. If the institutions could adjust to the form and content of the courses, it might both meet the interests of choosers and non-choosers and thereby both increase recruitment and retention at STEM higher education programmes.

The Danish afforestation programme and spatial planning: new challenges

Grant-aided field afforestation has been part of agricultural policies across Europe since the implementation of EU-regulation 2080/92. However, the goals of afforestation are changing with increased focus on afforestation as a means of securing environmental and recreational purposes. Using Denmark as an example, the article outlines the goals of the new post-industrial forestry and highlights the importance of the spatial configuration of new woodlands in the landscape. With point of departure in an investigation of two counties, the planning framework for grant-aided field afforestation is analysed and consequences of its application are discussed. It is concluded that the present planning framework for afforestation seems to neglect important spatial concerns within the planning and implementation process. This is a result of uncoordinated strategies applied by the individual actors within the planning structure.

Studying the making of geographical knowledge: The implications of insider interviews

The article addresses the issue of being a ‘double’ insider when conducting interviews. Double insider means being an insider both in relation to ones research matter – in the authors’ case the making of geographical knowledge – and in relation to ones interviewees – our colleagues. The article is a reflection paper in the sense that we reflect upon experiences drawn from a previous research project carried out in Danish academia. It is important that the project was situated in a Scandinavian workplace culture because this has bearings for the social, cultural, and economic situation in which knowledge was constructed. The authors show that being a double insider affects both the interview situation and how interviews are planned, located, and analysed. Being an insider in relation to ones interviewees gives the advantage of having a shared history and a close knowledge of the context, and these benefits outnumber the disadvantages. Being an insider in relation to ones research matter makes it difficult to contest hegemonic discourses and tacit values and ideas. Recommendations on how to handle the double insider situation are given. The article concludes that for analytical purposes, it is useful to separate the two roles, but in reality they coexist and are intertwined.

The First-Year Experience: Students’ Encounter with Science and Engineering Programmes

To increase the number of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), it is not sufficient to attract more students to the programmes. It is equally important to ensure that the students complete their studies. This chapter presents a qualitative analysis of the experiences of 20 students who entered a science or engineering programme at a Danish university. In this longitudinal study, narrative interviews were carried out with the students during their first year. The chapter explores how the students were striving to bridge the gap between what they had expected the programme to be like, and what they experienced when entering. Drawing on Tinto’s model of student departure, the academic and social integration is discussed. The analysis suggests that the curriculum of the STEM programmes makes it difficult for students to become academically integrated. This is primarily because of the sequencing (when do students meet which content?), the pace, and the teaching and learning activities.

A Narrative Approach to Understand Students’ Identities and Choices

This chapter demonstrates how narrative theory in general, and narrative psychology in particular, contribute to understand how students make meaning of their choice of post-secondary studies. In particular two central ideas within the theory are unfolded; the concept of identity and the concept of time. The applicability of the theory is discussed using empirical examples. The chapter argues that a narrative approach provides an understanding of choice of study as continuous processes where individuals work on their identities in terms of negotiating and constructing a coherent choice-narrative. As a consequence future studies need to be careful when interpreting student statements about how they always wanted to study a particular subject. Narrative psychology illustrates how we need to contextualize this ‘always’ in terms of the students’ current position, cultural context and meaning making. At the end of the chapter consequences for future research are discussed as well as how this approach to students’ choices of study contributes to our understanding of students’ science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) choices.

Using student interviews for becoming a reflective geographer

This paper presents a case for interviewing students as an effective yet complex way to integrate reflexive practice into teaching and research. Even though many human geographers are accustomed to conducting qualitative interviews in various contexts, it is not straightforward to interview ones own students. This paper addresses three issues: implications of doing insider interviews; ethical issues of interviewing students where power relations are at stake and using visual co-constructions as a means of levelling the analytical power of the insider interviewer. We show how student interviews have enhanced our reflection-on-action and give recommendations for prospect student interviewers.

What Makes Them Leave and Where Do They Go? Non-completion and Institutional Departures in STEM

This chapter presents the results of a quantitative analysis of national data covering Danish students who in the period 1995–2009 completed an upper-secondary school programme and entered a higher-education science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) programme. The analysis focuses on identifying variables that change the hazard ratio for (1) entering a STEM programme and (2) leaving a STEM programme without completing it. Finally, the chapter explores (3) the destinations of students who leave a STEM higher-education programme. It is found that there has been no change in the relative chance of a male or female student entering a STEM programme. The results suggest that female students are more affected by achieving a high grade-point average and by the educational background of their parents than are the male students. The relative risk of non-completion is higher for women than for men, but the most important factor is GPA on entry. A disturbing result is that when student leave a STEM programme, only one third enter another STEM programme. Slightly more enter a non-STEM programme while non-STEM leavers only rarely enter a STEM programme. Non-completion in STEM higher education is a net loss of STEM graduates.

The first-year experience of non-traditional students in Danish science and engineering university programmes

To understand student drop-out from university, research must explore students’ first-year experiences and the challenges they encounter. This article analyses the first-year experiences of non-traditional students in Danish science and engineering university programmes. Focusing on identity theory and the framework of integration processes provided by Tinto, the article presents the challenges experienced by students from non-academic backgrounds and by students with ethnic minority backgrounds. The analysis presents four themes that are experienced as particularly challenging for the students: (1) a strong career focus which is hard for the students to maintain in their transition into university; (2) how the students from some non-academic backgrounds encounter the challenges they meet with limited resources; (3) how they spend time and resources on their family and how this affects their integration in the programme; and (4) the process of academic and social integration are particularly challenging as they require students to submit themselves to the cultural expectations of their studies, which can be hard to understand for students from families with no prior experiences of academia. The article discusses how these experiences can be understood within an identity framework.

Why Do Students in STEM Higher Education Programmes Drop/Opt Out? – Explanations Offered from Research

This chapter takes it point of departure in a discussion of the current literature on student drop/opt out within science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) (This chapter is based on a section of Ulriksen L, Madsen LM, Holmegaard HT, Stud Sci Educ 46(2):209–244, 2010). It outlines Tinto’s model of understanding retention in general within higher education and it discusses the critique of the model. Tinto’s model approaches students’ meeting with higher education as an integration process involving both academic and social aspects of university life. Further, the chapter presents the ideas of Seymour and Hewitt. They reject the idea that students’ drop out/opt out should be understood as a problem within the student. Instead, they address it as a relation between the institutions and the students. The chapter argues how the concept of identity can be a way forward to understand this relation, and provides a short overview of the current research on identity and student persistence in STEM. Research focusing on identities has in recent years become a subfield in the study of students continuing with or leaving STEM programmes. Finally the chapter concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for further research.

Being a Woman in a Man’s Place or Being a Man in a Woman’s Place: Insights into Students’ Experiences of Science and Engineering at University

This chapter presents a study carried out in three Danish higher education study programmes within science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM), each with a heavy imbalance in students’ biological sex. In Denmark few female students apply for computer science and physics with nanotechnology while few male students apply for molecular biomedicine. The study explores how students of the minority biological sex attain recognition within the study programme and how they negotiate their identities to gain a sense of belonging. The results show how both male and female students, being the minority in their study programme, need to engage in narrow gendered identity negotiation-processes to belong and become socially and academically integrated into their new study programme. We show how female students need to position themselves as non-feminine and strive to become ‘one of the boys’ whereas male students are restricted to positioning a certain kind of masculinity to become recognized. There is more room for doing gender within computer science for the female students than within physics and nanotechnology. The male students within molecular biomedicine are expected to position themselves as something different from the girls. Their negotiation strategy to get integrated into their study programme could be labelled as ‘segregation’. The implications of these results are discussed.