Structure and belonging: Pathways to success for underrepresented minority and women PhD students in STEM fields
Structure and belonging: Pathways to success for underrepresented minority and women PhD students in STEM fields
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0209279
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发表时间：
2019-01-09
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Richards, Mark A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fisher, Aaron J.;Mendoza-Denton, Rodolfo;Richards, Mark A.
尽管几十年来努力减轻偏见，增加不同背景学生的机会，但在STEM领域，少数族裔和女性博士后和女性博士后精英职位的晋升仍然落后于占多数的男性。2015年，国家科学基金会研究生教育联盟和加州大学伯克利分校(Berkeley，Caltech，Stanford，UCLA)教授联盟对数学、物理、工程和计算机科学领域的研究生进行了广泛的调查，以确定提高博士生成功的杠杆，并及时提高STEM领导职位的多样性，特别是教授职位。调查数据是通过通径分析来解释的，通径分析是一种确定各种感兴趣的因素和结果之间的直接和间接重大关系的方法。我们调查了两个重要的结果：发表率，这在很大程度上决定了一个新博士学生在学术市场上的竞争力，以及主观幸福感。女性和少数族裔学生认为自己为研究生课程做好了充分的准备，并被同事(教职员工和同学)录取，并经历了结构清晰的博士课程，最有可能以与占多数的男性同龄人相当的速度发表论文。女性博士生经历的痛苦程度明显高于男性同龄人，无论是多数人还是少数人，而女性和少数人学生的痛苦程度都得到了缓解，因为她们清楚地表达了期望，认为她们已经为研究生水平的课程做好了充分的准备，并感到被同事接受。目前尚不清楚女学生中更高水平的痛苦是否与她们在STEM博士项目中的经历直接相关。研究结果表明，缓解不利影响多样性的因素原则上不应要求投入大量资源，而是需要关注当地文化和个别STEM博士项目的结构。
The advancement of underrepresented minority and women PhD students to elite postdoctoral and faculty positions in the STEM fields continues to lag that of majority males, despite decades of efforts to mitigate bias and increase opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds. In 2015, the National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (NSF AGEP) California Alliance (Berkeley, Caltech, Stanford, UCLA) conducted a wide-ranging survey of graduate students across the mathematical, physical, engineering, and computer sciences in order to identify levers to improve the success of PhD students, and, in time, improve diversity in STEM leadership positions, especially the professoriate. The survey data were interpreted via path analysis, a method that identifies significant relationships, both direct and indirect, among various factors and outcomes of interest. We investigated two important outcomes: publication rates, which largely determine a new PhD student's competitiveness in the academic marketplace, and subjective well-being. Women and minority students who perceived that they were well-prepared for their graduate courses and accepted by their colleagues (faculty and fellow students), and who experienced well-articulated and structured PhD programs, were most likely to publish at rates comparable to their male majority peers. Women PhD students experienced significantly higher levels of distress than their male peers, both majority and minority, while both women and minority student distress levels were mitigated by clearly-articulated expectations, perceiving that they were well-prepared for graduate level courses, and feeling accepted by their colleagues. It is unclear whether higher levels of distress in women students is related directly to their experiences in their STEM PhD programs. The findings suggest that mitigating factors that negatively affect diversity should not, in principle, require the investment of large resources, but rather requires attention to the local culture and structure of individual STEM PhD programs.