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This article empirically tests a previously developed theoretical framework for mathematics identity based on students' beliefs. The study employs data from more than 9,000 college calculus students across the United States to build a robust structural equation model. While it is generally thought that students' beliefs about their own competence in mathematics directly impact their identity as a \"math person,\" findings indicate that students' self-perceptions related to competence and performance have an indirect effect on their mathematics identity, primarily by association with students' interest and external recognition in mathematics. Thus, the model indicates that students' competence and performance beliefs are not sufficient for their mathematics identity development, and it highlights the roles of interest and recognition.

Given the importance of mathematics identity for students continued participation and engagement with mathematics, it is important for educators and researchers to be able to explore students’ mathematics identity development. However, an instrument with validity evidence that can be used to explore mathematics identity efficiently and with groups of students is not currently available. This article draws on prior research to test and validate items for a mathematics identity instrument to be used with fifth through twelfth grade students. This study includes 1559 participants from two school districts in a midwestern state in the USA. Analysis includes assessing four components of validity including content validity, internal structure, relationship to other variables, and generalization. Findings provide evidence for the reliability and validity of the items in the mathematics identity scale, giving researchers and educators a way to explore this construct efficiently.

Invasive pathogens and bark beetles have caused precipitous declines of various tree species around the globe. Here, we characterized long‐term patterns of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae; MPB) attacks and white pine blister rust, an infectious tree disease caused by the pathogen, Cronartium ribicola. We focused on four dominant white pine host species in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI), including sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), western white pine (P. monticola), whitebark pine (P. albicaulis), and foxtail pine (P. balfouriana). Between 2013 and 2017, we resurveyed 152 long‐term monitoring plots that were first surveyed and established between 1995 and 1999. Overall extent (plots with at least one infected tree) of white pine blister rust (blister rust) increased from 20% to 33%. However, the infection rate across all species decreased from 5.3% to 4.2%. Blister rust dynamics varied greatly by species, as infection rate decreased from 19.1% to 6.4% in sugar pine, but increased in western white pine from 3.0% to 8.7%. For the first time, blister rust was recorded in whitebark pine, but not foxtail pine plots. MPB attacks were highest in sugar pines and decreased in the higher elevation white pine species, whitebark and foxtail pine. Both blister rust and MPB were important factors associated with elevated mortality in sugar pines. We did not, however, find a relationship between previous fires and blister rust occurrence. In addition, multiple mortality agents, including blister rust, fire, and MPB, contributed to major declines in sugar pine and western white pine; recruitment rates were much lower than mortality rates for both species. Our results highlighted that sugar pine has been declining much faster in SEKI than previously documented. If blister rust and MPB trends persist, western white pine may follow similar patterns of decline in the future. Given current spread patterns, blister rust will likely continue to increase in higher elevations, threatening subalpine white pines in the southern Sierra Nevada. More frequent long‐term monitoring efforts could inform ongoing restoration and policy focused on threats to these highly valuable and diverse white pines.

In this study we surveyed 958 college students enrolled in Pre-calculus, Calculus I, and Calculus II courses at two different public universities in the United States to explore STEM career goals with self-identified personality attributes, mathematics identity, and strength of gender identification. We analyzed the results of our data by gender, using a series of Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests, and correlation. We found that, for both genders, certain self-identified personality attributes were more common amongst college students who selected a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) career goal as compared to college students who did not select a STEM career goal. We also found a weak correlation between the strength of one’s gender identification and mathematics identity. In this paper we report our findings and reflect on our results with regards to the shortage of women entering STEM careers.

Background Sustainability is increasingly a vital consideration for engineers. Improved understanding of how attention to sustainability influences student major and career choice could inform efforts to broaden participation in engineering. Purpose Two related questions guided our research. How do career outcome expectations related to sustainability predict the choice of an engineering career? Which broader sustainability‐related outcomes do students perceive as related to engineering? To address both questions, we compared effects for engineering and nonengineering students while controlling for various confounding variables. Design/Method We conducted a survey to collect responses about sustainability and other variables of interest from a national sample of college students in introductory English classes. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlational analysis. Results Students who hope to address certain sustainability issues such as energy, climate change, environmental degradation, and water supply are more likely to pursue engineering. Those who hope to address other sustainability issues such as opportunities for women and minorities, poverty, and disease are less likely to do so. Students hoping to address sustainability‐related outcome expectations with obvious human relevance are less likely to pursue engineering. Yet those students who perceive “improving quality of life” and “saving lives” as associated with engineering are more likely to pursue the profession. Conclusions Our results suggest that showing students the connection between certain sustainability issues and engineering careers could help those striving to increase and diversify participation in engineering. A broader range of engineers would likely bring new ideas and ways of thinking to engineering for sustainability.

Millions of seahorses a year are traded internationally, with many eventually sold at retail shops as curios, as aquarium pets, and especially for use in traditional medicine. The entire genus is now protected by CITES, but conservation measures have been limited in part by difficulties with species identification and incomplete understanding of trade patterns. In this study, we use molecular techniques to make species- and population-level identifications of 56 seahorses sampled from both traditional medicine and curio shops in San Francisco and central California. Seahorses from medicinal sources included unexpectedly large numbers of the eastern Pacific Hippocampus ingens, a species poorly protected by current CITES export recommendations. Curio shops were dominated by H. barbouri, a spiny species that has been reportedly confused in trading records as H. histrix. Specific populations of origin could be inferred for several species through comparison with publicly available phylogeographic data. Our results underscore the strengths and weaknesses of current recommended export regulations, and we suggest that molecular forensics can help in verifying trade documentation and developing more effective conservation measures.

We expand on prior qualitative research about mathematics identity development using data from a large national US survey of 10,437 students in 336 college calculus classes. Multinomial logistic regression models find that a stronger mathematics identity predicts higher student interest in pursuing certain STEM careers when compared with non-STEM careers, particularly those in physical and computer sciences, engineering, and mathematics, or in science or mathematics teaching. Multiple linear regression models identify that certain instructional practices employed by high school mathematics teachers predict higher levels of students’ mathematics identity. These include a high amount of interaction within the classroom, a focus on mathematics connections, and activities involving conceptual learning. Surprisingly, the role of the textbook, ways of organizing students (individual, small group, whole class), forms of assessment, and use of calculators or computers did not significantly predict students’ mathematics identity.

There is a need for research to explore the connections between students' self-perceptions and their goals and future engagement with mathematics. This is particularly the case when considering that student interest declines as they transition through K-12 and gender differences continue to persist in mathematics related careers. Knowing how students identify with mathematics might provide insight into students' self-perceptions of mathematics and how these perceptions relate to students' career choices. This quantitative study uses a mathematics identity framework based upon students' self-perceptions related to mathematics. Specifically, students' self-perceptions relating to mathematics interest, recognition by others in mathematics, and mathematical competence and performance were explored. Data were drawn from the Factors Influencing College Success in Mathematics (FICS-Math) project, which was a national survey of college students enrolled in a single-variable calculus course at 2- and 4- year institutions across the United States. This survey yielded a total of 10,492 surveys from students attending 336 college calculus courses/sections at 134 institutions. The results highlight the salience of the mathematics identity framework, indicating that mathematics interest, being recognized by others in mathematics, and beliefs about their ability to perform and understand mathematics were directly related to students' mathematics identity. This led to the construction of a structural equation model for the mathematics identity framework detailing the relationship between the sub-constructs of mathematics identity. Results also indicated that gender differences in students' self-perceptions still exist though effect sizes were small. In addition, self-perceptions as seen through a mathematics identity proxy were shown to be a strong predictor of students' career choice as a mathematician, as a science/math teacher, and in STEM fields. This study establishes an explanatory framework for mathematics identity that provides insight into gender differences and students' career choices in mathematics related fields. Implications of this study are that students' self-perceptions might provide insight into why students persist in areas related to mathematics, how teachers might help students develop a positive sense of affiliation with mathematics, and how this mathematics identity framework might provide a lens for future research.

Identity is a multifaceted, nuanced, and dynamic construct that has received increased attention and reinvigorated a rich line of research studies in science, engineering, and mathematics education (STEM). Scholars have drawn on different traditions from various social science disciplines to define, measure, and understand identity. This chapter synthesizes the research across STEM contexts to provide a more robust and integrated understanding of identity scholarship across STEM education and draws attention to a careful consideration of the strengths, gaps, and limitations of identity research. This synthesis, in turn, will provide recommendations for future research and priority areas of investigation. This chapter synthesizes the research across science, engineering, and mathematics education (STEM) contexts to provide a more robust and integrated understanding of identity scholarship across STEM education and draws attention to a careful consideration of the strengths, gaps, and limitations of identity research. Identity is a multifaceted, nuanced, and dynamic construct that has received increased attention and reinvigorated a rich line of research studies in STEM. Reasons for this phenomenon include the funding structures of programs to support research, the access to educational institutions, and training and roles of researchers in STEM education or discipline-based education research. Studies of identity in post-secondary education and beyond most often focus on STEM identities as a process of professional formation or association with the duties, responsibilities, and knowledge associated with a professional role. Future work should also explore specific connections to the classroom or interventions that may promote the development of a positive STEM identity with students.

Disciplinary Differences in Engineering Students' Aspirations and Self-PerceptionsIn discussions of the recruitment and retention of the next generation of engineers, students aresometimes treated as a homogeneous group with respect to the necessary preparation for collegeas well as their career values and aspirations despite engineering educators' knowledge of thediversity of career opportunities and technical specialties across engineering disciplines.Moreover, initiates just starting their post-secondary education in engineering may not perceivedisciplines as experts do: they may identify and find affinity for features of an engineeringspecialty that may be illusory or somewhat different than those perceived by practitioners.This paper begins a coherent discussion of student perceptions of engineering disciplines byconducting a comparative analysis of students at the start of their engineering studies. The dataused in this analysis is drawn from a nationally-representative survey, conducted in 2011, ofstudents enrolled at 50 colleges and universities in the U.S. In total, 6772 students returned theproject's survey which included questions on students' backgrounds, high school experiences, aswell as their career plans, personal values, and future aspirations.By identifying the students in this data who were “very likely” or “extremely likely” to major ineight different disciplines (bio-engineering, chemical , engineering, electrical/computer ,environmental , industrial/systems, materials, and mechanical engineering), we show howstudent goals, values and self-perceptions differ. Regression analysis is used to study how thelikelihood of entering one of these eight disciplines is associated to specific outcomes; namely,career outcome expectations, students' self-beliefs around identities in science generally, physics,and mathematics (each having sub-components of interest, recognition, andperformance/competence beliefs) as well as a construct measuring global agency (beliefs in theability of science & engineering to change the world in a global sense) and personal agency(beliefs in science & engineering to change one's life).The results indicate that students intending to major in engineering show substantial inter-discipline distinctions (all effects at the 1% level). For example, bio-engineers are notable intheir particularly high science identities and high agency measures. Chemical engineers, bycontrast, have significantly higher science, math, and physics identities than average while beingdistinct from other engineers in their lowered career expectations for personal/family time.Environmental engineers are notable in their significantly lower than average physics and mathidentities and lower desires to “apply math and science” in their careers. Electrical/computerengineers show higher inclinations to “develop new knowledge and skills” and “invent/designthings”. The complete results for all eight majors under study will be reported in the full paper.The utility of this work is that it should help to guide more effective recruiting of students intoengineering disciplines and allow for a broadening of recruitment efforts to students who wouldnormally be overlooked for engineering careers. These results contribute to the discussion ofwhy students may choose to leave engineering studies or switch between disciplines. This workshould also inform the ways in which engineering educators should reform their teachingpractices to be more in line with students' particular interests and goals.