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Science and Engineering in the U.S. - NSF Indicators
By Crobar in Neurognosis
April 23, 2010

Unbeknownst to many, back in mid-January the National Science Foundation released its annual report on the state of science and engineering here in the United States. For the past near decade the Science and Engineering Indictors have painted a uneventful picture of science in the United States. However, the troublesome aspect is that the U.S. is being surpassed by other countries in students obtaining science degrees and even the number of students entering into science programs. Even though R&D expenditures have remained steady here in the U.S., in other countries they grown exponentially especially in Asia.

However, it isn't the growth in other countries where I see the real problem. I usually proceed to chapter seven - "Public attitudes and understanding". This is the section where we get an idea of how science is perceived and understood by the general public. One point which is encouraging is that the interest and involvement of the general public in science has remained steady for a long while. Many people report going to a museum, zoo or other similar science institution. This has remained fairly consistent since 1979. Although these are not the places most people obtain their information. TV was listed as the #1 outlet for science information followed closely by the internet. While this isn't terribly encouraging it isn't necessarily discouraging either especially in regard to the internet - there is a wealth of accurate, solid scientific information on the web but there is also quite a large amount of BS there too.

While it is encouraging that people see science as important and are somewhat involved, the public knowledge paints a different picture. The report finds that "many Americans do not give correct answers to questions about basic factual knowledge of science or the scientific inquiry process". Knowledge was found to be positively related to formal education level, income level and the number of science and math course taken and verbal ability. Public knowledge hasn't increased over time and has been fairly steady since the early 90's but it hasn't decreased either which is good.

While stasis in these areas isn't bad, it isn't progress either. China is emerging quickly as a science and technology leader and is poised to overtake the U.S. in these areas.

On the general public, adult level we're okay - not bad but not progressing, we're in a steady state. The student level seems to show something different though. While some assessments have shown students to hold steady (TIMMS), others have found deificits in middle-school (PISA, ranking #200 in math and science internationally).

Moving into college we see that the number of obtained bachelors degrees continues to rise and those in the science area as well. The difference comes when examining graduate degrees. It seems that foreign students are obtaining a larger and larger portion of graduate degrees here in the U.S. While this could be viewed as somewhat discouraging - most of those graduates intend to stay here in the U.S. after graduation.

When compared internationally the U.S. earned only 11% of the S&E degrees in 2006 - behind the EU (19%) and the leader, China (21%). BUT, the U.S. awarded the most S&E doctorates followed closely by China.

The information is mixed. The results aren't bad but they aren't showing progress either. If we are to stay on top of the game in science and engineering, some improvement needs to occur. How do we make this happen? Well, I can't say that I know - it's a complicated issue with many factors involved. Some think we shouldn't worry since there's no overall decreases that are significant. Others think the massive increases in countries like China are threatening to the U.S. and they may be right.

I can't say that I've contributed to the progress myself - my degrees are in the field of psychology. Even though my graduate work focuses on psychophysiology and I spent many hours in a lab working on enzyme immunoassays many will still view my education as being in the area of a "soft" science - as opposed to "hard" sciences like physics and chemistry. However, the area in which I'm interested (as I stated earlier) is the general public and their knowledge of science. With Carl Sagan as one of my personal heroes - like him I believe that science education in the general community is important. This is one of the reasons I write so many blogs about science research. I know it isn't much but it's something and to me, if just one person learns something then I was successful. Not to mention that my blogs sometimes inspire some debate especially when I talk about evolution.

So why did I write this blog? Just passing on the info my friends.