CareerBound: Internet-Delivered Resilience Training to Increase the Persistence of Women Ph.D. Students in STEM Fields

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Intellectual MeritThe study is addressing the question of whether deliberate resilience training "delivered via the Internet" can strengthen women doctoral students' persistence in physical sciences, engineering and mathematics, fields where women display high rates of attrition even as their numbers in doctoral programs have continued to rise. An internet-based, multimedia-enhanced program is being developed and evaluated for its effectiveness in reducing attrition and strengthening career aspirations and personal skills of female doctoral students in selected fields at multiple universities. Grounded in the literatures of career development, self-efficacy, and empirically supported interventions and instructional tools, the set of personal and psychosocial skills are addressed as "resilience skills" and the psycho-educational strategy to strengthen these skills as "resilience training."The courseware is designed to inoculate participants against documented interpersonal, climate, and role challenges women face in male-dominated STEM fields. It uses interactive critical incident technology to create an audio-visual library of narratives by prominent senior women scientists and engineers who have handled such situations successfully. It provides training in specific coping skills, including decision-making, problem solving, cognitive restructuring, conflict management, negotiation, and communication.Based on comparisons both with control conditions and estimated persistence baselines by discipline, the training will be evaluated on measures of personal competence such as coping self-efficacy and interpersonal skills, reports of intentions to achieve the doctorate and enter STEM careers, and records of academic persistence and degree completion. An expert advisory council drawn from the national science, engineering, and educational research communities is augmenting the expertise of the PIs.Broader ImpactsThis project is providing a potential new tool for broadening participation among women seriously under-represented in STEM. It has the potential to reach all of the thousands of women who are in STEM doctoral programs across the nation. Evidence of effectiveness will inform practice for IGERTS and other doctoral reform initiatives. More broadly research results will be disseminated through professional and disciplinary associations such as the ASEE, AWIS, WEPAN, SWE, American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, American Educational Research Association, and Council of Graduate Schools, and through National Academy networks and those associated with IGERT, PFF, and CID, and through publications in appropriate journals such as Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, the Psychology of Women Quarterly, and the Journal of Higher Education. This web-based intervention is easily and inexpensively scalable, and capable of adaptation.