Collaborative Research: Impacts of Hard/Soft Skills on STEM Workforce Trajectories

该研究将评估个人在获得博士学位时所拥有的技能，以及这些技能可能对个人职业轨迹产生的可衡量的影响。调查人员将进行一项纵向研究，将个人层面的数据、学术课程数据、专业成就数据和雇主概况数据联系起来。这些数据将使沟通，领导和管理技能在塑造博士学位获得者的职业轨迹中发挥的作用进行实证评估，同时考虑到研究团队层面的博士培训环境的特点。研究结果将通过提供数据来指导资源的投资，从而为博士教育提供循证实践。研究人员将整合心理学，社会学和经济学镜头，以确定科学贡献的关键认知，经验和职业转化预测因素及其现实世界的影响，并与五个研究问题保持一致。研究的第一条线需要在学位完成的大致时间评估博士毕业生，以确定（1）他们可能或可能不精通所确定的软技能的程度，（2）他们报告的这些技能的培训可能预测他们的熟练程度的程度，以及（3）这些技能的熟练程度在多大程度上可以预测学院内外的职业轨迹。调查人员将把个人的评估表现和经验培训数据与创新与科学研究所（IRIS）维护的大学衡量研究对创新，竞争力和科学的影响（UMETRICS）数据集联系起来。该数据基础设施将使项目团队能够了解研究生培训的效果和软技能的特征以及随后的职业成果，从而对他们进入学术和非学术职业生涯产生有价值的见解。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。

The study will assess the skills held by individuals at the time of PhD attainment and the measurable impacts that such skills may have on individual career trajectory. Investigators will conduct a longitudinal study that links individual-level data, academic program data, professional attainment data, and employer profile data. These data will enable an empirical assessment of the role that communication, leadership, and management skills play in shaping the career trajectories of PhD recipients across both academic and non-academic employment sectors, while accounting for characteristics of doctoral training environments at the research team level. Findings will inform evidence-based practice for PhD education by providing data that can guide the investment of resources to best prepare doctoral recipients for the workforce.Theinvestigators will integrate psychological, sociological, and economic lenses to identify key cognitive, experiential, and career translational predictors of scientific contributions and their real-world impacts in line with five research questions. The first line of research entails assessing PhD graduates at the approximate time of degree completion to determine (1) the extent to which they may or may not be proficient in the identified soft skills, (2) the extent to which their reported training in these skills might predict their proficiency, and (3) the extent to which measured proficiency for these skills might predict professional trajectories within or outside the academy. Investigators will link individuals’ assessment performance and experiential training data to the Universities Measuring the Effects of Research on Innovation, Competitiveness and Science (UMETRICS) data set maintained by the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS). This data infrastructure will enable the project team to understand the effects of graduate student training and characteristics of soft skills and subsequent career outcomes, generating valuable insights about their entry into academic and non-academic careers.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.