Career Commitment and Retention in STEM: Examining the Impact of a Career Management Intervention

田纳西州立大学的研究人员将检查一项职业发展干预措施的影响，该干预措施是根据先前研究中吸取的经验教训进行修订的。该项目将通过调查职业决策困难、职业发展变化阶段、成长心态和学业满意度来关注STEM职业生涯的持续性。学员将制定从本科教育到研究生及以后升学的十年计划，获得有关学术支持活动重要性的信息，并培养规划和管理职业道路的技能。这些目标将通过实施一系列以研究为基础的讲习班来实现，这些讲习班旨在提高学生对如何使其职业抱负与就业市场趋势保持一致以及如何管理其职业规划的理解。预期的结果是，学生将对自己的专业领域有更多的承诺，对与职业相关的任务有更高的自我效能感，并对自己的成功潜力有更大的信心。通过将职业发展相关理论与对非裔美国STEM学生进行有效干预的研究相结合，本研究结果将有助于职业心理学和STEM持久力文献的研究。本研究采用混合方法研究设计，以考察以下几个研究问题：(1)干预将如何提高非裔美国学生的职业规划和管理技能？(2)干预将以何种方式减少学生的职业决策和规划困难？(3)干预将对非裔美国学生对STEM的承诺和兴趣、表现和保持有何影响？以及(4)干预对非裔美国学生参与职业机会有何影响？定量数据的收集将采用准实验前测/后测对照组纵向设计。变量将包括对职业决策困难、变化过程、成长心态和生产性坚持的衡量。定性数据将使用焦点小组和来自不同STEM学术部门的个人访谈来收集。将使用MANOVA/MANCOVA进行数据分析。其他分析将检查性别、种族/族裔、第一代地位和STEM专业的影响。记录干预措施的有效性将有助于在其他HBCU复制这一模式，重点是增加STEM工作人员的多样性。该项目得到了历史黑人学院和大学本科生计划(HBCU-UP)的支持，该计划扩大了教育领域的参与研究。该项目支持在STEM教学和学习中创建和研究新模式和创新的想法，调查影响来自代表性不足群体的学生的差异参与和成功率的根本问题，并产生知识，为STEM教育实践和干预提供信息。

Researchers at Tennessee State University will examine the impact of a career development intervention that was revised based on lessons learned from prior research. The project will focus on STEM career persistence by investigating career decision making difficulties, stages of change in career development, growth mindset, and academic satisfaction. Participants will develop a ten-year plan for matriculating through undergraduate education to graduate school and beyond, receive information about the importance of academic support activities, and develop skills in planning and managing their career paths. These goals will be achieved through the implementation of a research-based series of workshops designed to increase students' understanding about how to align their career aspirations with job market trends and how to manage their career plan. The expected outcome is that students will have an increased commitment to their major field of study, self-efficacy for career-related tasks, and greater confidence in their potential for success. The research findings will contribute to the vocational psychology and STEM persistence literature by integrating theory related to career development with research on an effective intervention with African American STEM students.The proposed project is a mixed-methods research design to investigate several research questions: (1) In what ways will the intervention increase career planning and management skills of African American students' (2) In what ways will the intervention reduce students' career decision-making and planning difficulties? (3) What will be the effect of the intervention on African American students' commitment to and interest, performance, and retention in STEM? and (4) What effect will the intervention have on African American students' participation in professional opportunities? Quantitative data will be gathered using a quasi-experimental pre-/post-test control group longitudinal design. Variables will include measures of career decision-making difficulties, change processes, growth mindset, and productive persistence. Qualitative data will be gathered using focus groups and individual interviews from different STEM academic departments. Data analysis will be conducted using MANOVA/MANCOVA. Additional analyses will examine for the impact of gender, race/ethnicity, first-generation status, and STEM major. Documentation of the effectiveness of the intervention will support the replication of the model at other HBCUs focusing on increasing the diversity of the STEM workforce. This project is supported by the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) Broadening Participation Research in Education track. This program track supports ideas to create and study new models and innovations in STEM teaching and learning, investigate the underlying issues affecting the differential participation and success rates of students from underrepresented groups, and produce knowledge to inform STEM education practices and interventions.