Understanding PhD Career Pathways: Transitions and Persistence in the PhD-Prepared STEM Workforce

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The Council of Graduate Schools will examine data about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) PhD career aspirations and alumni outcomes from a network of 70 diverse U.S. doctoral institutions. The proposed project will conduct a survey to examine individual and environmental factors that influence retention and persistence in STEM careers and transitions between employment sectors. The underlying assumption of the project is that individual attributes such as self-efficacy and career values, as well as environmental factors such as organizational climate of the STEM workplace, could explain job transitions and persistence of early- and mid-career STEM doctorate holders. The project will contribute to knowledge about how these individual attributes and perceptions of environmental factors might change with various socialization, acculturation, and professionalization processes during and after the STEM doctoral education is completed. The project responds to recent studies that uncover declining interest in STEM academic careers and decreasing satisfaction with graduate school experiences by empirically documenting how socialization, acculturation, and professionalization activities may affect career progression in the STEM workforce. The project also isolates potential avenues for policy interventions designed to increase STEM persistence.Grounded in career anchor and social cognitive career theory, the study will employ a mixed-methods design to investigate three research questions: (1) How do factors, including participation in various career and professional development activities, as well as prior employment as contingent faculty and/or postdoctoral trainee, explain persistence and transitions of STEM PhD alumni in the STEM professoriate or other STEM workplaces? (2) How do factors, including participation in various career and professional development activities, as well as prior/current employment as contingent faculty and/or postdoctoral trainee, explain perceptions about organizational climate and culture in STEM fields among doctoral scientists and engineers? and (3) How do individual factors, including participation in various career and professional development activities, as well as prior employment as contingent faculty and/or postdoctoral trainee, as well as perceptions about organizational climate and culture in STEM fields, influence career transitions of STEM PhD alumni and students across employment sectors in and out of STEM fields? Researchers will conduct a follow-up survey of more than 2,500 alumni and 4,000 student participants in the current Understanding PhD Career Pathways for Program Improvement in STEM project and include semi-structured qualitative interviews of a purposeful sample of survey respondents. Having collected the data, the researchers will run logistic regressions to determine which covariates are most informative for explaining STEM field persistence and transitions. The project will produce data that can guide investments and strategies to support STEM career development.This project is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, STEM professional workforce development theme. ECR funds fundamental research projects that address STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.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.