CAREER: Bridging the STEM Skills and Employment Gap for the Future of Work

人工智能（AI）预计将扰乱许多人的工作方式，特别是没有大学学位的成年人。另一方面，人工智能预计将创造新的就业机会，主要是在科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）领域。该项目探讨了如何让更多没有大学学位的成年人获得人工智能和新技术创造的高薪STEM工作。因为就业是美国人获得社会和经济流动性的主要途径，其目标是发展新的，全面的理解，这些因素将帮助没有大学学位的成年人克服劳动力市场的障碍，获得，参与和完成STEM教育和培训，以获得新技术创造的高薪工作。研究结果将有助于为机构、组织和政策制定者制定有基础的解决方案，以确保未来的工作将产生更公平的社会成果，特别是对于那些在过去几十年中随着工作的转变而在很大程度上被抛在后面的群体。该项目以三种方式实现这一目标。首先，该项目使用人种学方法，对没有大学学位的成年人在试图获得新的STEM技能和工作时所面临的组织，社会和行为因素进行深入，有根据的假设。其次，该项目使用的见解，从第一部分采用实地实验测试接地的假设导致更好的组织，个人和就业成果。第三，这些成果有助于创建基于证据的课程和战略，组织和大学可以使用这些课程和战略来帮助没有大学学位的人获得人工智能和新技术创造的高薪工作。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而被认为值得支持。

Artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to disrupt the way many people work, especially adults without a college degree. On the other hand, AI is predicted to create new job opportunities, primarily in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). This project explores how more adults without college degrees can obtain these higher-paying STEM jobs created by AI and new technologies. Because employment is the primary way people gain social and economic mobility in the U.S.A., the goal is to develop new, holistic understanding about the factors that will help adults without college degrees to overcome labor market barriers to access, participate in, and complete STEM education and training for higher-paying jobs created by new technologies. The results will help develop grounded solutions for institutions, organizations, and policy makers to ensure the future of work will have more equitable societal outcomes, particularly for groups who have largely been left behind as jobs have transformed in the past few decades. The project pursues this objective in three ways. First, the project uses ethnographic methods to develop in-depth, grounded hypotheses about the organizational, social, and behavioral factors that adults without a college degree face when trying to obtain new STEM skills and jobs. Second, the project uses the insights from the first part to employ field experiments testing which grounded hypotheses lead to better organizational, individual, and employment outcomes. Third, these results contribute to creating evidence-based curriculum and strategies that organizations and universities can use to help people without a college degree obtain higher-paying jobs created by AI and new technologies.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.