CAREER TRAJECTORIES OF STEM DOCTORAL STUDENTS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF LATENT GROUPS USING CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE MEASURES AND METHODS

本研究项目的重点是了解STEM领域边缘群体的经验和观点。三个目标构成了项目组的研究计划。首先，根据STEM博士生和毕业生的职业动机和抱负，研究影响和预测其职业轨迹的因素。第二是开发和整合学生文化响应和情境层面的措施，以调查STEM博士生的职业道路。三是验证针对STEM边缘化群体的调查措施。因此，该项目提供了实质性和方法上的贡献。在第一种情况下，该项目有望提供新的经验证据，以了解STEM学生的职业轨迹、影响他们的机制和因素，以及不同子群体之间的可变性。在第二种情况下，该项目寻求开发与社会认知职业理论（SCCT）相关的新测量和量表，评估其心理测量特性，并评估其在不同人群中的操作和效用。此外，研究结果可以解决当前STEM毕业生培训和职业发展定量分析中的主要缺陷。该项目的主要研究人员将采用混合方法的研究设计来回答三组研究问题：(1)根据STEM博士生和应届毕业生的职业动机和目标，可以确定哪些谨慎的亚群体？每个亚群的特征是什么？(2)在每个亚群体中，哪些个体近端和更广泛的社会因素影响STEM博士生和应届毕业生的职业轨迹？为什么?(3)有证据支持为本研究改编和开发的调查结构的结构和跨组效度吗？研究人员将从北卡罗莱纳州三所大学的在读和在读博士生中收集调查数据，并使用回归混合模型分析数据集。研究结果可以为政策和实践提供信息，以扩大不同STEM博士生的渠道。该项目由EHR核心研究（ECR）项目资助。ECR支持基础STEM教育研究项目，解决与STEM学习和学习环境相关的问题，扩大STEM领域的参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research project focuses on understanding the experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups in STEM fields. Three aims frame the project team's research plan. First is to examine factors that influence and predict career trajectories of subgroups of STEM doctoral students and graduates based on their career motivations and aspirations. Second is to develop and integrate culturally responsive student and context-level measures to investigate the career pathways of STEM PhD students. Third is to validate survey measures for marginalized groups in STEM. Thus framed, the project offers both substantive and methodological contributions. In the first case, the project holds promise to provide novel empirical evidence to understand STEM students’ career trajectories, the mechanisms and factors that influence them, and variability across diverse subgroups. In the second case, the project seeks to develop new measures and scales associated with Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), evaluating their psychometric properties and evaluating their operation and utility across diverse populations. Moreover, the study results could address key shortcomings in current quantitative analyses of STEM graduate training and career development.The project's principal investigators will employ a mixed-methods research design to answer three sets of research questions: (1) What discreet sub-populations can be identified based on the career motivations and objectives of STEM PhD students and recent graduates? What are the characteristics of each sub-population? (2) What individual proximal and broader social factors influence the career trajectories of STEM Ph.D. students and recent graduates within each sub-population? Why? (3) Does evidence support the construct and cross-group validity of the survey constructs adapted and developed for this study? The investigators will collect survey data from current and recent doctoral students of three North Carolina institutions and analyze the data set using regression mixture modeling. The study results could inform policies and practices to expand the pipeline for diverse STEM doctoral students. The project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. ECR supports fundamental STEM education research projects that address issues relevant to STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM fields, and STEM workforce development.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.