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

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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.