Investigating the Impact of Factors on Hispanic Students' College Major Choices in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medical Fields

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that impact Hispanic students' college major choice in STEMM fields. The study sought to answer the following research questions: 1. How do percentages of Hispanic students that declare a major in a STEMM-related field vary by gender and/or locale (i.e. suburban, urban, rural)? 2. How do student-level factors (including socioeconomic status, math self-efficacy beliefs, attitude toward math, academic interaction, high school exposure to math and science) and locale impact the likelihood that Hispanic students enter a STEMM-related field?;Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were run on the extracted data from the ELS: 2002 database. Various factors were analyzed to determine the best predictors of STEMM college majors among Hispanic students.;The study revealed that of the sample, only 36% entered a STEMM college major while the other 64% declared a non-STEMM major. The logistic regression identified high school exposure to math and science and math self efficacy beliefs to be the most predictive variables for Hispanic students that declare a STEMM college major whereas academic interaction and socioeconomic status were two variables that indicated an equally likely chance of entering a STEMM college major regardless of interaction level or socioeconomic quartile. In regard to the urbanicity variable measured, Hispanic ? students from urban locales had slightly higher odds of declaring a STEMM major as compared to Hispanic students residing in suburban or rural areas.