Objective: The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of historically
underrepresented graduate students, more than half of whom were enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This focus group study represents an initial stage in developing an intervention for historically underrepresented graduate students and their families.
Background: Underrepresentation of graduate students of color in STEM has been attributed to a myriad of factors, including a lack of support systems. Familial support is an endorsed reason for persisting in graduate school. It is unclear what historically underrepresented graduate students’ experiences are during uncertain times, such as a pandemic.
Method: Focus groups were conducted online using a videoconferencing platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. Five focus groups included: historically underrepresented doctoral students (n =5), historically underrepresented master’s students (n = 6),
academic faculty (n = 7), administrator, administrative faculty, and academic faculty (n = 6), and families of historically underrepresented doctoral students (n = 6). Data were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results: Historically underrepresented graduate students experienced difficulties in accessing resources, adjustments to home and family life, amplification of existing nonfinancial issues, and expressed both fears of and hopes for the future.
Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities in access to resources as well as nonfinancial family support.
Implications: This study may help normalize historically underrepresented graduate
students’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings include ideas for
informing families about graduate school that can enlighten family support efforts for historically underrepresented graduate students and their families.
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Individual Development Plan, Mentoring Support, and Career Optimism among STEM Graduate Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 outbreak has severely affected graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. It disrupted the learning and career development including in-person laboratory research activities and mentoring meetings. Since early 2000s, STEM graduate schools have been promoting the use of individual development plans (IDPs), which provide formalized mentorship, to support graduate students' academic and career success. It is unclear whether and to what extent the IDPs play a role in promoting mentoring and career-relevant outcomes among students during the crisis. This study presents some of the first evidence on the interrelationships of IDP status, mentoring support and satisfaction, and career attitudes with a diverse nationwide sample of STEM graduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2031069
- PAR ID:
- 10221704
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2021 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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An Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a personal action plan. IDPs can be used to set academic goals, explore career opportunities, and develop skills. During the 2022-23 academic year, we implemented IDPs with two groups in university settings: (1) graduate students and post-docs in the NASA-funded ICE-Five-O project; and (2) undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Hawai‘i. Twenty-four participants and their mentors rated various aspects of the IDP program on a scale of 1 (negative) to 5 (positive). Results were strongly positive, with means ranging from 4.1 to 4.8 for participants and from 4.2 to 4.6 for mentors. Overall, 92% of participants reported that they would recommend IDPs to their peers, and 94% of mentors reported that they would recommend IDPs as a mentoring tool. Although relatively few people (15%, or 31 of 207 eligible trainees) opted to participate, results of the pilot clearly show that those who created an IDP found the experience valuable. Future efforts will focus on maximizing participation.
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The importance of diversifying the national STEM workforce is well-established in the literature (Marrongelle, 2018). This need extends to graduate education in the STEM fields, leading N.C. A&T to invest considerably in graduate education and wraparound support initiatives that help graduate students build science identity and competencies for careers both within and beyond academia. The NSF-funded Bridges to the Doctorate project will integrate culturally reflective mentoring and professional development specifically designed for Black, Latinx, and Native American Ph.D. students. This holistic, graduate student development model includes academic and professional skill-building for STEM careers alongside targeted support for pursuing fellowship opportunities. This paper discusses the planned mentoring approach for the aforementioned program and previous approaches to mentoring graduate students used at N.C. A&T. The BD Fellows program will support formal and informal mentoring relationships, as mentoring contributes towards retention in STEM graduate programs (Ragins, 2007). BD Fellows will participate in monthly one-hour seminars on how to identify, establish, and maintain informal mentoring relationships (Schwartz et al., 2018; Parnes et al., 2020), while STEM faculty will attend seminars on leveraging their social networks as vital sources of mentorship for the BD Fellows. Using a multi-pronged collaborative approach, this model integrates the evidence-based domains of self-efficacy (Laurencelle & Scanlan, 2018; Lent et al., 1994; Lent et al., 2008), science/research identity (Lent et al., 2015; Zimmerman, 2000), and social cognitive career theory (Lent et al., 2005; Lent and Brown, 2006) to recruit, enroll, and graduate LSAMP Fellows with STEM doctoral degrees. Guided by the theories, the following questions will be addressed: (1) To what extent is culturally reflective mentoring identified as a critical driver of B2D Fellows’ success? (2) To what extent are the program’s training components fostering increases in B2D Fellow’s self-efficacy, competency, and science identity? (3) What is the strength of the correlation between participation in the program training components, mentoring activities, and persistence in graduate school? (4) To what extent does the perceived importance of self-efficacy, competency, and science identity differ by race/ethnicity and gender? These data will be analyzed using both formative and summative assessments of program outcomes. Quantitative data will include pre-, post-, and exit surveys. Qualitative data will assess the impact of mentoring and program support. This study will be guided by established protocols that have been approved by the N.C. A&T IRB. It is anticipated that our BD Fellows program will significantly impact the retention and graduation rates of underrepresented minority STEM graduate students in our doctoral programs, thus producing a diverse workforce of STEM professionals. Materials from the program recruiting cycle, mentoring workshops, and the structured fellowship application process will be disseminated freely to other LSAMP and minority-serving institutions across the country. Strategies and outcomes of this project will be published in peer-reviewed journals and shared in conference proceedings.more » « less
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null (Ed.)To address the need for more structured, diverse, inclusive, equitable, holistic, and ongoing career planning, Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are used widely by academic institutions. Although IDPs have an enormous capacity to contribute to a wide scope of student outcomes including equitable training, mentorship, wellness, and career planning, assessment is complicated by the different IDP ideologies, frameworks, and tools that exist, as well as the different ways IDP creation process is facilitated. The goal of the NSF-funded Impact Indicators and Instruments for Individual Development Plans (I3IDP) project is to develop instruments to measure the outcomes and impact of IDPs on the development of graduate students in STEM. The development of these assessment instruments will facilitate the generation of comparable data within and across institutions to enhance the understanding of best practices in IDP use for PhD career planning. Of particular note is how IDPs may help lower the career and training barriers that exist for diverse and underrepresented groups. Partners behind this NSF funded project include GCC and creators from well-known IDP tools (myIDP.org, ChemIDP.org, ImaginePhD). In this interactive session we will present the indicators and outcomes of the IDP process as determined from stakeholder interviews and literature review, give participants a preview of the survey instruments, and discuss how IDP intervention can be used to provide more equitable training to graduate students and postdocs across multiple identity differences and intersectionality.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Individual Development Plans (IDPs) have been used to support the career and professional development of graduate students across disciplines. This interactive session focuses on how IDPs can help you build your skills, form your professional identity, and take control of your career through an iterative process of self‐assessment, career exploration, decision making and goal setting. To provide an introduction to the IDP process attendees will be able to take a self‐assessment to learn about their particular strengths and begin to target their strengths toward their professional goals. Additionally a co‐developer and researcher of IDP platforms will highlight the aspects that can help your IDP be more effective than others.more » « less
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