0% 0%

20% 20%

40% 40%

60% 60%

80% 80%

Life & Physical Sciences Social Sciences Non-Science & Engineering

Traditional Transfer Part-Time Intermittent

0% 0%

20% 20%

40% 40%

60% 60%

80% 80%

All bachelor's recipients Math & Computer Science Engineering

C ha rt 2 . A ttendan c e pa tte rns of b a cc a laure a te re c ipients , by

dom a in o f m a jo r s tudy : 1 9 9 1

Science Resources Studies Division

DATA BRIEF Directorate for

Social, Behavioral

and Economic

Sciences

National Science Foundation

 by Nancy M.

Conlon

Vol. 1995, No. 7, May 5, 1995

Electronic

Dissemination

SRS data are available through

the World Wide Web (http://

www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/start.htm)

and also through STIS (Science

and Technology Information

System), NSF’s online

publishing system, described in

NSF 94-4, the “STIS flyer.”

For a paper copy of the flyer,

call 703-306-1130. For an

electronic copy, send an e-mail

to stisfly@nsf.gov (Internet). For

NSF’s Telephonic Device for the

Deaf, dial 703-306-0090.

A large number of

students never

ventured into

mathematics and

computer science

and life and physical

sciences.

grades are they getting?; How do grades vary

by course?; How many students are attending

school part-time?; Are they transferring among

institutions?; Are women and men studying

different subjects in different ways?; and Do

minority students construct their programs

differently from majority students?

Attendance Patterns

Of the more than 1 million baccalaureate

recipients in liberal arts and sciences in 1991,

about 52 percent were “traditional” students.

That is, they were granted degrees from the

school where they matriculated as freshmen

and had spent uninterrupted years of full-time

study (chart 1). The remaining students did

some or all of the following: transferred

among institutions, attended part-time, or were

intermittent (i.e., they spent at least one term

away from their home campus). The attendance patterns of the students varied by area

of study. Among the sciences, the percentage

(2) graduates with more than one attendance pattern are

counted in each relevant category of attendance pattern.

SOURCE: University of Pennsylvania, Institute for Research on Higher Education

NOTE: Percents do not add to 100 because (1) dual

majors are counted in more than one field of study and

National Database of Undergraduate

Curriculum Available

E

ducators and policymakers are increas-

 ingly concerned that many students

graduate from American colleges and universities after having completed an undergraduate curriculum of disconnected, largely

unchallenging courses. The newly developed

Curriculum Assessment Service National

Database is designed to facilitate analyses of

course-taking behavior of undergraduate

students. Transcript information for over

42,000 students from a random sample of

100 U.S. colleges and universities will

provide researchers an opportunity to analyze

student course-taking, student demographics,

and academic characteristics for 1991

baccalaureate recipients in liberal arts and

sciences.

These data can answer such questions as,

What are American students studying?; Are

they taking or avoiding mathematics, science

and engineering courses?; What kinds of

Chart 1. Attendance patterns of baccalaureate recipients,

by domain of major study: 1991

538,161

325,829

188,787

17,321

11,067 8,545 8,685

36,530

227,765 15,956

11,340 12,410

39,123

9,673 11,339

110,367

44,844 34,341

247,753

167,112

350,819

7,042

143,764

19,825
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of traditional students was the highest

in life and physical sciences, with 66

percent. This percentage was the

lowest for mathematics and computer

science, at 48 percent. The mathematics and computer science domain also

had the largest share of part-time

students: 24 percent.

Study Loads and Concentration

By regulation or inclination (or both),

students tended to concentrate on the

courses that are directly linked to their

majors. Life and physical science

majors had the highest percentage of

students, 87 percent, taking 13 courses

or more in the domain of their major.

Social science classes were extremely

popular with nonmajors; 94 percent of

the 1991 baccalaureates who had not

majored in social science took at least

one course in that area. Mathematics

and computer science and life and

physical sciences were less popular

among nonmajors. In fact, a large

minority of students never ventured

into these fields or into foreign language classes either.

Grades

These data permit the analyses of the

differences in grade-point average

(GPA) by sex, race, and ethnicity.

Differences in GPA for these groups

may be affected by a myriad of factors

including variability by school, the

effect of course selection, precollege

preparation, and part-time versus fulltime status.

Researchers may want to ask such

questions as, When students with

certain majors received good grades,

were those students getting good

grades just in their major fields or

everywhere?; Did nonmajors in

mathematics, science, or foreign

languages take courses in those

subjects early enough in their careers

to allow for a major?; What kinds of

humanities courses did science majors

take?; and When humanities majors

took science, what sorts of courses did

they choose?

Researchers and investigators will

want to mine this new database for the

wealth of information it contains about

the class of ’91 and to consider what

that information implies about college

students today.

Notes

A comprehensive report with tabulations of detailed statistics, including

sex and racial categories for the

variables studied, along with the

complete methodology of the project is

available from Susan Shaman, Institute for Research on Higher Education,

University of Pennsylvania, 4200 Pine

Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (tel.

(215) 898-5897).

This project was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities,

the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The

study was developed by the University

of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Research on Higher Education and the

Association of American Colleges and

Universities.

The data presented here combine life

with physical sciences and mathematics with computer sciences, although

data for each field can be disaggregated.

The degree data differ from those

developed for the annual Integrated

Post-Secondary Education Data

Survey (IPEDS) Completions Report,

produced by the Department of

Education, for a variety of reasons.

For more information contact Nancy

Conlon at the following address:

S&E Indicators Program

Division of Science Resources Studies

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 965

Arlington, VA 22230

phone: (703) 306-1777, ext. 6911

e-mail: nconlon@nsf.gov

For a free copy of this Data Brief,

write to the above address, call

703-306-1773, or send e-mail to

srspubs@nsf.gov.