Over the last 12 years, the members of CU-Boulder’s Ethnography and Evaluation Research (E&ER) have studied factors contributing to these losses and tracked faculty efforts to address them. E&ER is a multidisciplinary unit that includes researchers from sociology, education, psychology, physics, chemistry, nursing, and communication.

In a four-year study they identified poor quality in SME undergraduate education as the greatest single contributor both to the loss of students with entering SAT scores of 650 or above, and to dissatisfaction among students who persist to graduation. The finding was consistent across the seven types of institutions studied. Since publication of these startling results, E&ER has continued to study facets of SME undergraduate and graduate education and evaluate national and institution-based initiatives to improve SME education.

To assist science faculty, Elaine Seymour, E&ER’s director, worked with the National Institute for Science Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to develop a web site (FLAG) that offers learning assessment tools (www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise/Cl1). In collaboration with Sue Daffinrud at the University of Wisconsin, Seymour also developed an online classroom evaluation instrument (SALG) that faculty can use to collect student assessments of their learning (www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise/cl1).

E&ER also works on science-related issues with programs on the CU-Boulder campus. In a collaboration with ATLAS (Alliance for Technology, Learning, and Society), E&ER is studying the factors leading to greater participation and retention among undergraduate women in computer science and information technology programs. They also provide the evaluation team for the LEAP (Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion) program (see Learning the Lessons of Leadership).

E&ER, now part of CU-Boulder’s newly formed Center for Advanced Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences (CARTSS), has been nationally acclaimed for its work in assessing quality and access to science, mathematics, engineering, and technology undergraduate and graduate education. Their work assures that methods are identified to retain undergraduate and graduate students in science and technology fields.