Abstract
General chemistry is among the largest classes taught at most universities because many science programs, like medicine, require students to take the introductory course. A new study reports that general chemistry may play an outsize role in why underrepresented students, like Black or female students, leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Scott Freeman and coworkers at the University of Washington (UW) analyzed student data from 15 years (2001–2016) of general chemistry classes at the university (Sci. Adv. 2020 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz5687). Over that time, more than 25,000 students took at least one course in the three-course general chemistry sequence. Students whose programs require only the first course in the sequence weren’t included in the analysis. The researchers analyzed the data to determine how final grades in each course affected the likelihood of various categories of students persisting in STEM. They performed regression analyses with respect to multiple variables—gender, underrepresented
Published Version
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