Broadening Impact: Key Factors That Improve Diversity in STEM Research Careers

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): While many studies focus on specific interventions, our aim is to investigate the normative structures that surround interventions. Institution-wide contexts determine whether an intervention can be successful in increasing productivity of STEM degrees, and faculty are central to the process at every stage of broadening participation and facilitating student movement through disciplinary networks. The project involves a mixed method approach using large scale data in a quantitative phase with an embedded qualitative design that help explain how institutions increase capacity for STEM production and also explain the faculty experience in working with students and STEM interventions. Data sources include existing federal datasets on institutions' production of STEM bachelor's degrees and eventual STEM Ph.D. recipients; a national survey of STEM faculty; a 10-year follow-up survey of students who entered college in 2004 with intentions to major in a STEM discipline; case studies of institutions with a specific focus on institutional structures, interventions, and faculy roles in facilitating students' progress toward research careers in the sciences; and a network analysis that maps the academic networks successful students use to advance along their STEM pathways. This project seeks to improve understanding regarding institutional efficiency in STEM production and the faculty role in increasing STEM degree attainment at the undergraduate and graduate levels, while also remaining attentive to the myriad individual level factors that affect students' choices for STEM careers in the post- baccalaureate phase. This project aims to provide empirical data regarding how to best support interventions and expand practices so that institutions and their faculty improve the likelihood for students' access and success in STEM research careers.