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1. Family formation and the career trajectories of women engineering PhDs

   https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-05-2020-0026  

   Main, Joyce B. ( August 2022 , Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education)

   Purpose The underrepresentation of women in engineering has important consequences for meeting the need for a larger, talented scientific and technological labor force. Increasing the proportion of women faculty in engineering will help increase the persistence probabilities of women undergraduate and graduate students in engineering, as well as contribute to the range and diversity of ideas toward innovations and solutions to the greatest engineering challenges. This study aims to examine the association among gender, family formation and post-PhD employment patterns of a cohort of engineering doctorates. Design/methodology/approach Using the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctorate Recipients data, 2001–2010, descriptive and multinomial logit regression analyses are conducted to illustrate the career trajectories of engineering PhDs over a ten-year period. Findings The career trajectories of engineering PhDs are nonlinear, and transitions between employment sectors commonly occur over the ten-year time period studied. Although women engineering PhDs with young dependents are less likely to be employed initially after PhD completion, they tend to enter the workforce in the academic sector as time progresses. Early post-PhD employment as a postdoctoral researcher or in the academic sector contributes to the pursuit of the professoriate downstream. Originality/value While previous studies tend to focus on the early career outcomes of science and engineering students, this study contributes to the literature by focusing on the long-term career outcomes of engineering doctorates. Research findings provide engineering PhD students and PhDs with more information regarding potential post-PhD career trajectories, highlighting the multitude of career options and transitions that occur over time. Research findings also provide higher education administrators and doctoral program stakeholders with foundational information toward designing and revitalizing professional development programs to help PhD students prepare for the workforce. The findings have the potential to be applied toward helping increase diversity by shaping policies and programs to encourage multiple alternative career pathways to the professoriate. 

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2. Is postdoctoral training linked to faculty careers and higher salaries in engineering fields?

   Main, J.B. ; Wang, Y. ( January 2019 , American Society for Engineering Education)

   The number of engineering PhDs obtaining postdoctoral research scholar employment has increased over the last 20 years. This study examines the factors associated with obtaining postdoc positions, and the early career outcomes associated with postdoc training. Descriptive and regression analyses, and propensity score matching are conducted using a nationally representative sample of engineering PhDs from the 1993-2013 National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients matched with the 1985-2013 Survey of Earned Doctorates. Findings show that engineering PhDs with greater research experience, research ability, or who graduated from doctoral programs with more prevalent postdoc employment among previous PhD cohorts, tend to be more likely to obtain postdoc positions. Compared to PhDs who obtain non-academic positions, postdoc training is associated with greater likelihood of attaining tenure track faculty positions and remaining in academia 7-9 years after PhD graduation. In terms of early career salary, postdoc training may delay salary growth among engineering PhDs who are eventually employed in the private sector, but not among those who are eventually employed in the academic sector. Research findings provide critical information regarding the outlook for postdoctoral employment and its role in the long-term career paths of engineering PhDs. 

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3. Postdoctoral research training and the attainment of faculty careers in social science and STEM fields in the United States

   https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-04-2020-0025  

   Wang, Yanbing ; Main, Joyce B. ( August 2021 , Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education)

   Purpose While postdoctoral research (postdoc) training is a common step toward academic careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the role of postdoc training in social sciences is less clear. An increasing number of social science PhDs are pursuing postdocs. This paper aims to identify factors associated with participation in postdoc training and examines the relationship between postdoc training and subsequent career outcomes, including attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and early career salaries. Design/methodology/approach Using data from the National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients, this study applies propensity score matching, regression and decomposition analyses to identify the role of postdoc training on the employment outcomes of PhDs in the social science and STEM fields. Findings Results from the regression analyses indicate that participation in postdoc training is associated with greater PhD research experience, higher departmental research ranking and departmental job placement norms. When the postdocs and non-postdocs groups are balanced on observable characteristics, postdoc training is associated with a higher likelihood of attaining tenure-track faculty positions 7 to 9 years after PhD completion. The salaries of social science tenure-track faculty with postdoc experience eventually surpass the salaries of non-postdoc PhDs, primarily via placement at institutions that offer relatively higher salaries. This pattern, however, does not apply to STEM PhDs. Originality/value This study leverages comprehensive, nationally representative data to investigate the role of postdoc training in the career outcomes of social sciences PhDs, in comparison to STEM PhDs. Research findings suggest that for social sciences PhDs interested in academic careers, postdoc training can contribute to the attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and toward earning relatively higher salaries over time. Research findings provide prospective and current PhDs with information helpful in career planning and decision-making. Academic institutions, administrators, faculty and stakeholders can apply these research findings toward developing programs and interventions to provide doctoral students with career guidance and greater career transparency. 

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4. Out-of-school time STEM program: Students’ attitudes toward and career interests in mathematics and science

   https://doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v8i2.18702  

   Saw, Guan ; Swagerty, Brendan ; Brewington, Shon ; Chang, Chi-Ning ; Culbertson, Ryan ( February 2019 , International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE))

   Internationally, out-of-school time (OST) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs abound. However, rigorous evidence of their impacts on student outcomes is scarce. This study evaluated the relationships between OST STEM program participation and student motivational factors in math and science by analyzing survey and administrative data of 1.017 middle school students who participated in the seven-week, STEM-focused Prefreshman Engineering Program (PREP) in San Antonio, Texas, from 2015 to 2017. Multiple regression results indicated that the PREP participation was positively associated with students’ attitudes toward math and interests in math-related careers, whereas the effects on students’ attitudes toward science and career interests in science were negligible. No evidence was found to suggest that the associations between PREP participation and student motivational factors in math and science differed by gender, race/ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. 

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5. Toward an Understanding of the Relationship Between Race/Ethnicity, Gender, First-generation Student Status, and Engineering Identity at Hispanic-serving Institutions

   Arnett, Stephanie M. ; Way, Sandra M. ; Ortiz, David G. ; Humble, Lorissa B.B. ; Martinez, Analyssa D. ( July 2021 , ASEE annual conference proceedings)

   This research paper investigates the relationship between race/ ethnicity, gender, first-generation college student status, and engineering identity using cross-sectional data from early-career engineering majors. Measures of engineering identity are increasingly used in models of engineering education to evaluate how identity contributes to success and persistence of engineering students. Engineering identity is generally assumed to contribute to educational success, with stronger engineering identity leading to persistence. At the same time, data clearly shows that persistence of engineering students varies by race/ethnicity and gender. Given these previous findings, we would expect to find that engineering identity will vary by race/ ethnicity, gender, and first generation status. Yet, relatively little work has quantitatively compared how engineering identity differs across racial/ ethnic groups and gender. While researchers are increasingly trying to gain a better understanding of engineering identity among Latina students, for example, the literature has not yet adequately accounted for how Latina students differ from their non-Hispanic white peers. This works seeks to address that gap in the literature with an exploration of the ways that race/ethnicity, gender, and first generation status work together to impact engineering identity among early-career engineering students at four public Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the Southwestern United States. We conducted surveys as part of a longitudinal study on STEM education. Data discussed here comes from baseline surveys of three cohorts of engineering students (N=475). Approximately two-thirds of the respondents were attending a traditional 4-year university while the remainder (N=159) were attending community college at the time of the survey. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents identified as Latinx, 27% identified as female, and 26.5% reported that they were first-generation college students. While expectations were that engineering identity would vary by race/ethnicity and gender, preliminary analyses of our data unexpectedly reveal no significant differences between Latinx and White students in terms of their engineering identity and no significant differences in engineering identity between male and female students. Interactions between race/ethnicity and gender were also tested and yielded no significant differences between early-career Latinx and White students in terms of their engineering identity. Finally, students who reported that they will be the first in their family to get a college degree had significantly lower engineering identity scores (=-.422; p=.001). These results lead us to conclude that first generation status at HSIs may be more important than gender and race/ ethnicity in the development of engineering identity for early career students. 

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