Collaborative Research: Taking the Long View: Investigating the Role of Biology Interest and Far-Sighted Career Goals on Students' Persistence in STEM career Pathways

许多努力正在进行中，以满足美国的科学和技术劳动力需求。尽管学生们带着对STEM领域的兴趣进入大学，但许多人并没有坚持这些专业。 该项目将调查两个基本的，但未充分研究的因素，可能会限制学生的参与，包括那些在生物学职业中代表性不足的群体：学生对他们所追求的学科的兴趣的强度和他们在整个学习过程中的职业目标的清晰度。这项建议奠定了调查这两个因素对大学毕业后准备的影响的基础，通过记录目前的兴趣和职业目标范围内进入本科生物专业在两个机构，并调查这些因素是否预测学生在他们的本科生涯中追求的关键经验。没有明确的职业目标和兴趣的学生可能无法认识到在本科生涯中追求哪些经验是重要的，可能难以在不同的有益经验中进行选择，或者当事情变得困难时可能没有动力坚持下去。这个项目也将促进我们对早期学生如何需要发展这些目标和兴趣，成为在大学期间的竞争力的理解。这些发现将为有效干预措施的设计和部署提供信息，以帮助学生在失去获得关键经验的机会之前制定职业目标和更强的学科兴趣。这个项目的智力价值是把兴趣发展理论，并首次，职业发展理论，以表征生物学兴趣和职业目标的明确性，在推进学生的生物学职业道路的进步的作用。与医学和生物学研究生的回顾性访谈将描述学生的兴趣和职业目标发展以及他们在本科生涯中追求关键学科经验的时间和关系。一个大样本的纵向研究进入生物学专业的生物学兴趣的不同层次，并在不同阶段的职业目标的发展将补充这种分析，通过跟踪当学生获得关键学科的经验，在大学的前三年。总之，这些研究将提供以下方面的证据：1）进入医学和研究生院的学生多久获得关键经验，2）学科兴趣和职业目标的发展是否会影响对关键经验的追求和生物学职业目标的维持，以及3）来自历史上服务不足群体的学生是否不太可能进入具有发达生物学兴趣和/或职业目标的大学。此外，该项目将增加对生物学职业途径的重要性的理解，作为传统的持久性措施的替代：保留在生物学专业。

Many efforts are underway to meet the science and technology workforce needs in the United States. Although students enter college with interests in STEM fields, many do not persist in these majors. This project will investigate two fundamental, yet understudied factors that may limit participation of students, including those from underrepresented groups in biology careers: the strength of students' interest in the discipline they are pursuing and the clarity of their career goals throughout their studies. This proposal lays the groundwork for investigating the influence of these two factors on post-college preparedness by documenting the current range of interest and career goals in entering undergraduate biology majors at two institutions and investigating whether these factors predict the critical experiences students pursue during their undergraduate career. Students without clear career goals and interests may not recognize which experiences are important to pursue during their undergraduate career, may have trouble choosing among different beneficial experiences, or may not be motivated to persist when things get difficult. This project will also advance our understanding about how early students need to develop these goals and interests to become competitive during college. These findings will inform the design and deployment of effective interventions to help students develop career goals and stronger disciplinary interests before they lose opportunities to access critical experiences. The intellectual merit of this project is to bring interest development theory and, for the first time, vocational development theory to characterize the roles of biology interest and career goal clarity in advancing students' progress in biology career paths. Retrospective interviews with medical and graduate students in biology will characterize the timing of and relationships between students' interest and career goal development and their pursuit of critical disciplinary experiences during their undergraduate career. A longitudinal study of a large sample of entering biology majors with different levels of biology interest and at different stages of career goal development will complement this analysis by tracking when students acquire critical disciplinary experiences over the first three years of college. Together, these studies will provide evidence on 1) how early and how often students who matriculate to medical and graduate school access critical experiences, 2) whether disciplinary interest and career goal development impact pursuit of critical experiences and maintenance of biology career goals, and 3) whether students from historically underserved groups are less likely to enter college with developed biology interests and/or career goals. In addition, the project will increase understanding the importance of biology career pathways as an alternative to the traditional measure of persistence: retention in the biology major.