CAREER TRAJECTORIES OF STEM DOCTORAL STUDENTS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF LATENT GROUPS USING CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE MEASURES AND METHODS

该研究项目的重点是了解STEM领域边缘化群体的经验和观点。项目组的研究计划有三个目标。首先是根据STEM博士生和毕业生的职业动机和愿望，研究影响和预测其职业轨迹的因素。其次是制定和整合文化上敏感的学生和背景层面的措施，以调查STEM博士生的职业道路。第三是验证STEM中边缘化群体的调查措施。因此，该项目提供了实质性和方法上的贡献。在第一种情况下，该项目有望提供新的经验证据，以了解STEM学生的职业轨迹，影响他们的机制和因素，以及不同亚组的差异。在第二种情况下，该项目旨在开发与社会认知职业理论（SCCT）相关的新措施和量表，评估其心理测量特性，并评估其在不同人群中的操作和效用。此外，该研究结果还可以弥补目前STEM研究生培养和职业发展定量分析的主要缺陷。该项目的主要研究人员将采用混合方法的研究设计来回答三组研究问题：（1）根据STEM博士生和应届毕业生的职业动机和目标，可以确定哪些离散的亚人群？每个子群体的特征是什么？(2)什么样的个人近端和更广泛的社会因素影响STEM博士的职业轨迹。学生和应届毕业生在每个子人群？为什么？为什么？(3)是否有证据支持为本研究改编和开发的调查结构的结构和跨组有效性？研究人员将从北卡罗来纳州三所机构的现任和近期博士生中收集调查数据，并使用回归混合模型分析数据集。研究结果可以为政策和实践提供信息，以扩大不同STEM博士生的管道。该项目由EHR核心研究（ECR）计划资助。ECR支持基础STEM教育研究项目，解决与STEM学习和学习环境相关的问题，扩大STEM领域的参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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 research project focuses on understanding the experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups in STEM fields. Three aims frame the project team's research plan. First is to examine factors that influence and predict career trajectories of subgroups of STEM doctoral students and graduates based on their career motivations and aspirations. Second is to develop and integrate culturally responsive student and context-level measures to investigate the career pathways of STEM PhD students. Third is to validate survey measures for marginalized groups in STEM. Thus framed, the project offers both substantive and methodological contributions. In the first case, the project holds promise to provide novel empirical evidence to understand STEM students’ career trajectories, the mechanisms and factors that influence them, and variability across diverse subgroups. In the second case, the project seeks to develop new measures and scales associated with Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), evaluating their psychometric properties and evaluating their operation and utility across diverse populations. Moreover, the study results could address key shortcomings in current quantitative analyses of STEM graduate training and career development.The project's principal investigators will employ a mixed-methods research design to answer three sets of research questions: (1) What discreet sub-populations can be identified based on the career motivations and objectives of STEM PhD students and recent graduates? What are the characteristics of each sub-population? (2) What individual proximal and broader social factors influence the career trajectories of STEM Ph.D. students and recent graduates within each sub-population? Why? (3) Does evidence support the construct and cross-group validity of the survey constructs adapted and developed for this study? The investigators will collect survey data from current and recent doctoral students of three North Carolina institutions and analyze the data set using regression mixture modeling. The study results could inform policies and practices to expand the pipeline for diverse STEM doctoral students. The project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. ECR supports fundamental STEM education research projects that address issues relevant to STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM fields, 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.