CAREER: Characterizing Master's-Level Departure from the Engineering Doctorate through Multiple Stakeholders' Perspectives

这个项目解决了工程学科博士生流失的关键问题。虽然工程博士十年的完成率男性只有65%，女性只有56%，但这些数字在未被充分代表的群体中要低得多。这些数据表明该领域人才的大量流失。这项职业研究通过分析研究生、考虑离开的研究生以及为这些学生提供建议的教师的观点，来描述和模拟硕士水平的离开工程博士课程的情况。这项研究支持了国家采取行动的呼吁，例如2018年美国国家科学院关于21世纪研究生STEM教育的报告，该报告认为，理解科学、技术、工程和数学研究生课程的保留对保持经济和国家竞争力至关重要。这项职业研究将从系统层面的角度全面了解硕士水平的离职。为了发展这一模型，本研究将1)描述硕士级别的离职的常见叙述，并模拟学生随时间的离职决定，2)描述教师离职的观点。运用角色认同理论、期望值理论、理想工作者理论和领导-成员交换理论，通过访谈、纵向调查和纵向短信调查对学生离职进行建模。以教师为中心的研究阶段将调查离职/质疑研究生和教师之间关于流失和离开的潜在冲突叙述。了解教师和学生之间潜在的不和谐观点对于为任何利益相关者群体制定干预措施至关重要。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project addresses the critical issue of doctoral student attrition in engineering disciplines. While the ten-year completion rates for engineering PhDs are only 65% for men and 56% for women, these numbers are significantly lower for students from underrepresented groups. These statistics represent a significant loss of talent for the field. This CAREER research characterizes and models Master's-level departure from engineering PhD programs by analyzing the perspectives of departers, graduate students who are considering departure, and faculty who advise these students. This research supports national calls to action such as the 2018 National Academies report on Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century, which posits that understanding retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduate programs is critical to maintaining economic and national competitiveness. This CAREER research will develop a comprehensive understanding of Master's-level departure with a systems-level perspective. In order to develop this model, the research will 1) characterize common narratives of Master's-level departure and model students' departure decisions over time, and 2) characterize faculty perspective of departure. Modeling student departure will be accomplished through interviews, a longitudinal survey, and a longitudinal text message survey that utilize role identity theory, expectancy value theory, ideal worker theory, and leader-member exchange theory. The faculty-centric research phase will investigate potentially conflicting narratives about attrition and departure between departed/questioning graduate students and faculty. Understanding these potentially dissonant perspectives between faculty and students are critical to developing interventions for either stakeholder group.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.