Relationship between Academic Preparation in General Chemistry and Potential Careers

I and II, respectively) students in the study ( n = 4113) were confident in their career choices but the indicators of success evaluated did not support students’ confidence. A small positive correlation of how prepared students feel about their confidence in their career choice was produced. Chem I and II on-sequence students statistically outperformed the corresponding off-sequence students, but also concluded was that as confidence in career choice rose, entering automaticity skills (what students can do without a calculator as measured by the Math-Up Skills Test (MUST)) and course averages decreased. The majority of the unsuccessful students scored below average on the MUST but were confident in their future careers. The majority of the non-STEM majors had low MUST scores and struggled with successful completion of the courses. The majority of the STEM majors sought degrees in healthcare professions and completed the course with averages higher than the other subgroups except the small group of students seeking a dual career in healthcare and engineering, which entered with the highest MUST score average and completed the courses with the highest overall average.


Introduction
Retention and degree completion rates for the last four decades have remained stagnant [1]. Efforts are currently being made to increase retention rates at many universities because graduation rates are expected to improve when there is an increased retention of students from first-to-second year [1]. Congruence of career interest to a major is one of the essential components that must be in place for a productive first-year academic performance. This study seeks to understand students' incoming background characteristics and how precollege preparation impacts preparedness and career choice leading to success in first-and second-semester general

ARTICLE INFO Summary
In an effort to orient more students towards a STEM career, the Texas public school system has developed a series of graduation programs starting as early as ninth grade based on labor-market criteria that are intended to improve the number of graduates seeking STEM careers. This evaluation discovered that first-and second-semester general chemistry (Chem I and II, respectively) students in the study (n = 4113) were confident in their career choices but the indicators of success evaluated did not support students' confidence. A small positive correlation of how prepared students feel about their confidence in their career choice was produced. Chem I and II on-sequence students statistically outperformed the corresponding off-sequence students, but also concluded was that as confidence in career choice rose, entering automaticity skills (what students can do without a calculator as measured by the Math-Up Skills Test (MUST)) and course averages decreased. The majority of the unsuccessful students scored below average on the MUST but were confident in their future careers. The majority of the non-STEM majors had low MUST scores and struggled with successful completion of the courses. The majority of the STEM majors sought degrees in healthcare professions and completed the course with averages higher than the other subgroups except the small group of students seeking a dual career in healthcare and engineering, which entered with the highest MUST score average and completed the courses with the highest overall average. chemistry (Chem I and II, respectively), both considered gateway courses for many future STEM majors.

Literature Review
Career-development endeavors without foundational skills combined with appropriate psychosocial integration delays students' ability to enter the workforce even when an undergraduate degree is attained. The essential components of first-year academic performance are "academic preparation, motivation, and career interest-major congruence" [1, p. 187]. When gaps exist in this triad, then delays to entering the workforce exist. For institutions that have introduced first-year seminars, career-planning activities are usually included. A student at UT Austin "tweeted" (March 2020) about why are students immediately sandwiched into a specific degree plan, supposedly supporting a career path, and not being given more opportunities to explore alternatives that might prove to be more in sync with their future career choice, just to meet the "mandate" of completing a 4-year degree within the allotted timeframe. The official answer centers on cost to students, who when they take more than four years to complete required courses, they pay more tuition but it also may reflect on the quality of the university. The University of Texas at Austin reported (2013) that students who graduate on time spend 40% less than those who require six years. USA Today [2] published, most college students at public universities complete their bachelor's degree in six years, according to a study by the non-profit organization, Complete College America.
Another reason given for students not finishing their degrees within the appropriate timeframe is that entering freshmen do not envision on how college connects them with a career when their degree is completed. According to the National Center for Education Statistics about 80% change their majors at least once before they graduate, which in turn may require students to obtain additional loans. Texas pre-college students are being encouraged to identify a career path by the ninth grade-well before substantive "cognitive development and acquisition of foundational skills" are laid [1, p. 182 studies) for all college-bound students must also include the above mentioned four years of mathematics and science. It is possible to earn more than one endorSement as long as the foundational requirements are met.

Institutions
The Networking for Science Advancement (NSA) team is certain that over 90% of the students who agreed to participate in this evaluation entered the nine participating Texas institutions with exposure to the same state-mandated, isomorphic curriculum.  and how the isomorphic curriculum is assessed (i.e., State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness = STAAR with five end-of-course assessments in Algebra I, English I and II, U.S. History and Biology required for graduation and to be eligible for automatic college admission students must also complete an Algebra II course). TEA also places a great deal of emphases on the career-orientation of students starting in middle school (see above). Students in this study are enrolled in Chem I or Chem II either in on-or off-sequence classes; on-sequence students enroll in Chem I in the fall Semester and Chem II in the spring with off-sequence students enrolling in reverse Semesters. In Table 2 find the population demographics as to the breakdown of gender, classification and intended major. In Chem I on, Chem II on and Chem II off, female enrollment exceeds that of males. In Chem I off-sequence, the gender distribution is about equal with males slightly edging out females. Overall, female enrollment is close to two-thirds as compared to male enrollment. Note: Sums of columns do not equal 100% because some students chose not to report their classification, gender or reported being non-binary and were subsequently omitted due to small numbers. Students who completed the courses with less than 10% overall average were not included in the various analyses nor were the small number of students classified as post-baccalaureates.

Diagnostic Instrument
The original quiz that became what the NSA team named the MUST (Math-Up Skills Test) was generated by Hartman and Nelson [5].

Research Question
At the end of the Semester, final course grades (determined as a percentage of points earned out of total points possible) were collected for students from each class as an output measure (dependent variable) indicative of course completion. The major inputs of concern are students' MUST scores used to determine incoming preparation needed for successfully completing Chem I and Chem II, split by the students who are either enrolled in on-or off-sequence courses. Other self-reported inputs include students' self-reported preparedness and career expectation(s) as measured by their confidence level (Likert scale) for their chosen career with specific attention paid to health professions (seeking a medical doctor or other) and/or engineering (any and all).
What indicators determine if students who enter general chemistry with above average confidence in their career choice are appropriately matched with their career goals?

Indicators of Successful Performance
In this study students' final course averages (Table 3) were statistically different (p < 0.05) between the on-and off-Semesters for both Chem I (n = 3058) and Chem II (n = 1055). For Chem I, the class average (SD) (SEM) was 76.6 (15.9) (0.316) for on-sequence students (n = 2520) and 68.6 (18.1) (0.782) for off-sequence students (n = 538). For Chem II, the class average (SD) (SEM) was 81.4 (12.0) (0.452) for on-sequence students (n = 708) and 64.4 (18.7) (1.00) for off-sequence students (n = 347). Since there is a statistical difference between these groups, we will consider them separately for some of this evaluation and then consider them together as Chem I and II, and finally split the population into various STEM and non-STEM course-major groups. Likewise, in Table 3, view the entering MUST scores where statistical differences at the p < 0.05 level also existed. Chem I on-sequence outperformed offsequence; Chem II on-sequence outperformed off-sequence. The percentage of Chem I-off unsuccessful students is about 1.5 times that of Chem I-on; percentage of unsuccessful Chem II-off is about 3.5 times that of Chem II-on. (The NSA team has another paper specifically on unsuccessful Hispanic general chemistry students [11].) Aligning the MUST averages from low to high (Chem II off, Chem I off, Chem I on and Chem II on), these means perfectly align with the course averages and percentage of successful students.  In Table 5, note that about half as many Chem II-off students live in university-supported housing as compared to the other groups. Over a fourth of the students are employed with the Chem II-off group having the greatest percentage (50%) working and most of these students (85%) work off campus or both on and off.
Only about 25% of the students work on campus. The impact of employment on students' course averages becomes very apparent in Table 6. Overall students who do not work have a higher course average than those who do, and there is a general linear decline of each group of students as number of hours employed increases.
Except for Chem I-on students (Figure 1), there is a slight bump in course average for the students who work 1-10 h/week. There was a similar improvement seen in the recently accepted paper by the NSA team on Chem II students [9]. The most obvious divide is the downfall of Chem II students when on/off semesters are combined; with a successful class average being over 69.5%, note that only those who do not work or only work 1-10 h/week successfully complete the courses. Almost the same trend is true for Chem I students, but here the divide does not appear until the students work 21 or more hours per week. For Chem II-off students unsuccessful averages predominate (i.e., the only student group with a successful average were the Chem II males who worked 1-10 h/week).  how regardless of gender, the students in the on-sequence classes are much stronger than those in the off-sequence classes. Table 7 is a companion to Table 6. Table 7 documents the number of students employed. The total population considered is n = 4060 of the 4113 since some students did not report their gender or considered themselves to be nonbinary (n = 53 or 1.3%). A greater percentage of the Chem II students work as compared to the Chem I students, but most of this difference is due to the Chem II off-sequence students.

Figure 2:
Bar graph denoting course averages of each work category by gender. In almost all cases except for males who work full time, those enrolled in Chem II on-sequence course held the highest course grade. With the same exception, the lowest performing group were students enrolled in the Chem II off-sequence course. In general males and females who do not work or work for 1-10 hours, complete their courses with the highest average.

Confidence in Career Choices
For this part of the analysis of the results, the on-and off-  *p < 0.05 MUST score and course average for students least confident in career choice are significantly higher than the MUST score and course average for those most confident in their career choice.
About 75% of the students responded that they intended to seek a career path towards either the healthcare profession and/or engineering and the other 25% were seeking some other career not given special attention; a few did not report their confidence level so the sample explored is n = 4088. The confidence average of each group (i.e., those planning to become a healthcare professional, engineer, both or neither) is above 3.5 (range = 3.76 to 4.04) ( Table   9). When class averages of these groups are arranged, the highest course average did not agree with the students who had identified healthcare as their chosen profession; students seeking healthcareprofession degrees had the second highest course average with it being statistically different from that of the students who were seeking dual majors in engineering and healthcare professions.
Even though their averages were statistically different at p < 0.05, the Likert scale averages (3.80 to 4.04) were not different.

Statistical differences in students' confidence levels existed between Healthcare and Health & Engineering and Healthcare and
Other.  Breaking down the intended major groups to highlight the broader categories of STEM vs. non-STEM majors (Table 10)

Preparedness and congruence of career interest to major
The final analysis (Table 11)       (about 20% of the total population) seek STEM degrees, just not careers in the healthcare professions or engineering. This group is average (i.e., overall average is also 3.11) on their self-reported preparedness for the course and about two-thirds are confident in their career choice. More students who are confident in their career choice scored under average on the MUST than those who were less than confident. The majority of the A students from this group scored above average on the MUST and just over half of these students were confident in their career choice even though about half proved to be unsuccessful in the course.

Figure 7:
Alluvial diagram for STEM majors seeking a healthcare professional career. This group represents over half of the population evaluated and is similar to the STEM majors without an expected career in healthcare and/or engineering as to their preparedness and MUST entry scores but they did complete the course with a higher class average than the other STEM majors (except those seeking dual careers). About four-fifths of this group is confident in their career expectations leading to the healthcare professions. There were more successful than unsuccessful students and most of the unsuccessful students entered with low automaticity skills as identified by their MUST scores; very few students with above average MUST scores were unsuccessful.  : Alluvial diagram for STEM majors seeking an engineering and healthcare professional career. This group is by far the strongest prepared group. They entered with highest self-reported preparedness scores, the highest automaticity ability as reflected in the highest MUST scores and finished the courses with the highest overall average with many receiving a letter grade of A. The group is small (n = 46) and mostly male with probably a third questioning their seeking a dual career in health and engineering, even those almost all the less-than-confident students entered with middle and above MUST averages. No unsuccessful students scored above average on the MUST and no under average MUST scorer made an A letter grade. The majority of the students in this group were confident, made above average on the MUST and were successful in the courses.
Only in the engineering and engineering & health groups did the number of males exceed the number of females ( The alluvial diagrams (Figures 3-9) based on students' preparedness present some interesting observations. The best way to understand these images is to read the captions to each figure. The vertical lines represent left to right: gender, the level of students' self-reported confidence, MUST range as being above, average (middle) or under average and final course grade. Figure 3 is an overall representation of the population (n = 3997). Figures   4-9 follow the order of the groups in Table 11. For

Discussion
The lesson learned from this evaluation is that non-STEM major students who enroll in general chemistry classes for science majors are at a disadvantage. Regardless of how confident in career choice they report, their preparation for their courses (i.e., their prior knowledge) is of upmost importance to having a more successful outcome. When they enter with low automaticity ability (what they can do without a calculator), they lack the mental-math skills that provide them with the ability to answer and complete problems they are likely to encounter in their general chemistry studies without struggling with the basic arithmetic skills as identified by the MUST, an excellent known predictor of course outcomes [6,9].
The state of Texas is instilling confidence in students that STEM degrees are important but entering mathematics (especially what they can do without a calculator) needs to be improved. Some institutions have general chemistry courses for non-STEM majors, some use to but have phased them out, and some only offer general chemistry for science majors. If we want all students to succeed, we need to provide a platform that breeds success and offer courses that do not practically predetermine that one or more groups of students are setup for failure.
The Texas Education Agency has done a very good job at stressing the importance of a career but these students appear to be more confident in their careers than is supported by being successful in general chemistry. What is taught and/or experienced in the pre-college days is very important but more emphasis needs to be placed on removing calculators from the classroom and making students improve their number-sense problem-solving ability without the use of a calculator. The MUST has proven over and over again to be predictive of final course averages in Chem I and II.
Are students' confidence levels matched to their career goals?
The answer to the main question is mixed. The students who are

Conclusion
This study provided no surprises as to who in general succeeds and who does not: males for the most part have better automaticity than females and are typically more successful, students who enroll in on-sequence Chem II classes are some of our best students, students who work more than 10 h put themselves at The greater students' automaticity as measured by the MUST the less they struggle with being successful in general chemistry I and II. Adding more calculator-free instruction for all STEM and non-STEM majors in general chemistry is advisable and will improve students' mental-math capability. Summer bridge programs and the like should emphasize students' automaticity skills to help prepare Improving our students QR calculator-free skills is a place to start to attempt to improve retention and graduation rates. You never know when your Apollo 13 moment is going to happen, and paper and pencil are all you have!