Choosing Careers in Science and Math: An Integrated Approach

智力优势：职业选择是一个复杂过程的结果，并受到无数因素的影响：1)社会背景影响，如课堂环境和文化上共有的性别刻板印象；2)个人属性特征，如数学和科学能力和个人性别图式；3)生活目标，特别是与工作、婚姻和家庭有关的目标。做出职业决策的个人必须整合这三个领域的信息，然而研究人员很少超越他们自己的研究范式。这阻碍了解释为什么一些有能力的女孩选择科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）职业，而另一些却没有。本研究整合了三个广泛的研究领域（社会背景、个人属性和生活目标），通过系统地评估这些因素在四个关键教育过渡点（从小学到初中、从初中到高中、高中毕业和大学开始）的职业选择中的相对重要性。然后将现有的课堂课程与研究结果相结合，以确定在教育的不同阶段可能最有效的促进STEM职业兴趣的策略。更广泛的影响：关注教育和发展转变的研究尤其有利于STEM教育项目，因为它将这些项目与女孩在上学不同时间点的兴趣和需求相匹配，将课堂实践与最终的STEM职业选择联系起来。该项目的一个主要目标是告知教育工作者，在不同的教育阶段，哪些课堂策略和课外项目对提高STEM职业选择最有效。在顾问小组的协助下，该研究计划要求创建一个纲要，将研究结果转化为支持不同教育时间点对STEM职业兴趣的关键问题，并确定解决这些问题的资源。最终成果发表在《课堂联系指南：缩小性别差距》中，该指南将通过专业发展项目、教师培训、全国专业会议演讲以及阿拉巴马大学和其他大学的STEM学院教授、院长和行政人员广泛传播。

Intellectual Merit: Career choices are the result of a complex process and are influenced by a myriad of factors: 1) social-contextual influences such as classroom environment and culturally shared gender stereotypes, 2) person-attribute characteristics such as math and science ability and personal gender schemas, and 3) life goals, especially those related to work, marriage, and family. The individual making a career decision must integrate information from all three areas, yet researchers rarely reach beyond constructs in their own research paradigm. This hinders the development of an explanation of why some capable girls choose science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers and others do not. This research integrates the three broad areas of research (social-contextual, person-attribute, and life goals) by systematically assessing the relative importance of these factors in career choices during four key educational transition points: Transition from grade school to middle school, transition from middle school to high school, at the end of high school, and at the start of college. Existing classroom programs are then mapped on to the research findings to identify strategies for promoting interest in STEM careers that are likely to be most effective at different points in education. Broader Impacts: Research focusing on educational and developmental transitions especially benefits STEM education programs by matching these programs with the interests and needs of girls at different time points in schooling, connecting classroom practices to eventual STEM career choices. A main goal of this project is to inform educators about which classroom strategies and extracurricular programs are most effective for enhancing STEM career choices at different time points in education. With the assistance of an advisory panel, the research plan calls for the creation of a compendium that translates the research findings into key issues for supporting interest in STEM careers at different educational time points and identifies resources to address these issues. The end product is presented in the Classroom Connections Guide: Closing the Gender Gap that will be widely disseminated through professional development programs, teacher training, presentations at national professional meetings as well as to STEM college professors, deans, and administrative staff at the University of Alabama and other universities.