Too few Black males in stem: exploring how Black male stem majors understand and explain their interests and success in stem fields.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20289709

The purpose of this study was to examine how Black Male Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, (STEM) majors at a historically Black university, understand and explain their interests and success in STEM fields. This study was focused on the lived experiences and meaning-making of eight first and second-generation African American male STEM majors. It explored the participants lived experiences, and meanings ascribed to these experiences to make sense of them. Inadequate preparations in math and science have deprived many minorities of a good education because they do not have the necessary foundation to succeed in college-level classes. The main objective of this study was to help identify some of the reasons why so few African American males exhibit and pursue interests in STEM fields. In this qualitative study, the interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach was used. The researcher has sought to explore how Black male STEM majors understand and explain their interest and success in STEM fields. To investigate this phenomenon, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with eight black male STEM majors. Ogbus (1998) Cultural-Ecological Theory of Minority School Performance, a theoretical framework, posits that the way a group achieves minority status, coupled with community and family educational values, impacts academic achievement. This study has found that for the African American male STEM participants, in addition to internal motivations, passion, and self-efficacy, the pivotal forces (a) Attitudes toward math, science, and technology, will impact (b) choosing STEM as a major; and that, (c) the educational environment, (d) familial involvement and, (e) the availability of educational funding, were all important factors in the preparation and development of STEM interests.