Differentiating Rural Locale Factors Related to Students Choosing and Persisting in STEM

For the growing worldwide economy to be successful, science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) workers are needed. Once recruited to pursue a STEM major, the challenge is keeping these students on track. A large diverse workforce is needed in these fields, but past research has shown students from rural settings are disadvantaged when attending college. It is difficult to look at differences of rural vs. urban to determine whether these settings have any impact on a students' decisions to declare and persist in a STEM major. Many states have large portions considered rural, Maine (61.3 percent), Vermont (61.1 percent), West Virginia (51.3 percent) (World Population Review, 2022). In states like these, it is hard to differentiate rural and urban settings since much of the state is rural. This study attempts to look at locales in a way that classifies them, not by population or proximity to urban settings, but by other factors that may affect students related to STEM persistence. This case study is the state of West Virginia and cluster analysis is used to develop Locale Codes (LC) to differentiate counties based on a variety of factors, including declaring and persisting in a STEM major. The findings show some counties have a higher percentage of students declaring STEM, but these students are less successful in college than other counties that have proportionally fewer students declaring STEM. The factors related to the locale that contribute to these differences are examined.