Career Commitment and Retention in STEM: Examining the Impact of a Career Management Intervention

STEM 中的职业承诺和保留：检查职业管理干预的影响

• 批准号: 1623145
• 负责人: Marie Hammond
• 金额: $ 35万
• 依托单位: Tennessee State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1623145&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Career; Commitment; Retention; STEM; Examining

Researchers at Tennessee State University will examine the impact of a career development intervention that was revised based on lessons learned from prior research. The project will focus on STEM career persistence by investigating career decision making difficulties, stages of change in career development, growth mindset, and academic satisfaction. Participants will develop a ten-year plan for matriculating through undergraduate education to graduate school and beyond, receive information about the importance of academic support activities, and develop skills in planning and managing their career paths. These goals will be achieved through the implementation of a research-based series of workshops designed to increase students' understanding about how to align their career aspirations with job market trends and how to manage their career plan. The expected outcome is that students will have an increased commitment to their major field of study, self-efficacy for career-related tasks, and greater confidence in their potential for success. The research findings will contribute to the vocational psychology and STEM persistence literature by integrating theory related to career development with research on an effective intervention with African American STEM students.The proposed project is a mixed-methods research design to investigate several research questions: (1) In what ways will the intervention increase career planning and management skills of African American students' (2) In what ways will the intervention reduce students' career decision-making and planning difficulties? (3) What will be the effect of the intervention on African American students' commitment to and interest, performance, and retention in STEM? and (4) What effect will the intervention have on African American students' participation in professional opportunities? Quantitative data will be gathered using a quasi-experimental pre-/post-test control group longitudinal design. Variables will include measures of career decision-making difficulties, change processes, growth mindset, and productive persistence. Qualitative data will be gathered using focus groups and individual interviews from different STEM academic departments. Data analysis will be conducted using MANOVA/MANCOVA. Additional analyses will examine for the impact of gender, race/ethnicity, first-generation status, and STEM major. Documentation of the effectiveness of the intervention will support the replication of the model at other HBCUs focusing on increasing the diversity of the STEM workforce. This project is supported by the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) Broadening Participation Research in Education track. This program track supports ideas to create and study new models and innovations in STEM teaching and learning, investigate the underlying issues affecting the differential participation and success rates of students from underrepresented groups, and produce knowledge to inform STEM education practices and interventions.

田纳西州立大学（Tennessee State University）的研究人员将根据先前研究的经验教训，对职业发展干预进行修订，以检验其影响。该项目将通过调查职业决策困难、职业发展变化阶段、成长心态和学业满意度，重点关注STEM职业持续性。参与者将制定从本科教育到研究生院及以后的十年入学计划，获得有关学术支持活动重要性的信息，并发展规划和管理其职业道路的技能。这些目标将通过实施一系列以研究为基础的讲习班来实现，这些讲习班旨在提高学生对如何使他们的职业抱负与就业市场趋势保持一致以及如何管理他们的职业规划的理解。预期的结果是，学生将对自己的专业学习领域有更多的投入，对与职业相关的任务有更强的自我效能感，对自己成功的潜力更有信心。通过将职业发展相关理论与对非裔美国STEM学生的有效干预研究相结合，研究结果将为职业心理学和STEM持久性文献做出贡献。本项目是一个混合方法的研究设计，旨在调查以下几个研究问题：(1)干预将以何种方式提高非裔美国学生的职业规划和管理技能(2)干预将以何种方式减少学生的职业决策和规划困难？(3)干预将对非裔美国学生对STEM的投入和兴趣、表现和保留率产生什么影响？(4)干预对非裔美国学生参与专业机会有何影响？定量数据将采用准实验前/后测试对照组纵向设计收集。变量将包括职业决策困难、改变过程、成长心态和生产性持久性的测量。定性数据将通过焦点小组和来自不同STEM学术部门的个人访谈来收集。数据分析将使用MANOVA/MANCOVA。其他分析将考察性别、种族/民族、第一代身份和STEM专业的影响。干预措施有效性的文件将支持该模式在其他hbcu的复制，重点是增加STEM劳动力的多样性。本项目由历史上的黑人学院和大学本科项目（HBCU-UP）扩大参与教育研究项目支持。该项目支持创建和研究STEM教学和学习的新模式和创新的想法，调查影响代表性不足群体学生的差异参与和成功率的潜在问题，并为STEM教育实践和干预提供知识。