Collaborative Research: Progressions of Skill Development in Biology Doctorates

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The University of Utah will conduct a collaborative project with the University of Virginia to determine how research skills are developed in graduate students. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the goal of graduate education is to prepare a highly-skilled workforce, not just a credentialed one. Skills are, thus, central to both the process of graduate education and the value of degrees in the labor market. However, skill development is a poorly understood aspect of graduate education. The project will, therefore, demonstrate how interactions among knowledge and skill, socialization experiences, and motivation play out over time. In addition, it will provide novel insights into racial/ethnic inequalities in graduate school trajectories and outcomes. This has been a missing link in previous research about the issue of inequality. Understanding how skills are developed over time and how they interact with relevant motivational constructs can optimize the creation of training experiences that both maximize students? skill development and reduce inequality by identifying the key predictors of success and the pivotal points in the progression of Ph.D. programs. The investigators will use a Social Cognitive Theory framework in combination with the socialization framework to conduct a longitudinal study of 280 new Ph.D. matriculants in the biological sciences. The specific aims are to:(1) Develop a longitudinal dataset that includes performance-based skill data and socialization/training experiences, and test specific hypotheses regarding skill development. (2) Determine whether skill development trajectories vary across racial/ethnic and gender groups and contribute to inequalities in graduate school outcomes, and test hypotheses regarding skill trajectories.(3) Use insights from the findings to propose interventions to improve skill development during graduate school and decrease racial/ethnic and gender inequality in student experiences and outcomes. The creation of a unique dataset that includes performance-based repeated measures of skills over multiple years of doctoral training, in conjunction with measures of motivation and types of socialization experiences, will provide the foundational context to generate and test theoretical advancements in graduate education.