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A growing body of research explores the experiences of students in graduate education and more-particularly, students of color pursuing advanced degrees. However, little research provides information about Black students' aspirations to pursue graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Even less is known about Black males' aspirations to pursue graduate education in STEM. Knowing why Black males aspire to pursue graduate education would assist stakeholders (e.g., administrators, faculty, advisors, family members, and peers) in better supporting and motivating students while they are in graduate school, or earlier in their educational trajectories. This retrospective study of 50 Black males' aspirations for graduate school aimed tobetter understand the factors that influenced their aspirations to pursue graduate degrees in engineering.Four themes were most influential: (a) Black male students received messages implying that a bachelor's degree was insufficient, (b) earning a graduate degree in engineering was regarded as a sign of community influence and respect, (c) students' professorial career goals necessitated anadvanced degree, and (d) mothers functioned as support systems and role models for earning an advanced degree. Finally, we offer implications for future research and practice. These new findings about aspirations regarding graduate education will assist stakeholders in identifying critical moments and experiences necessary to encourage talented individuals to pursue advanced degrees in STEM fields.
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Factors impacting advanced degree attainment in engineering for Black males.
Black males are severely underrepresented in undergraduate and graduate engineering programs. While postsecondary interventions have shown to be effective, they are few and far between. Representation of Black males in all segments of the engineering pipeline continues to lag. There also remains a dearth of research that has sought to uncover and understand the factors that influence Black males to pursue engineering graduate degrees and further use these perspectives for more informed intervention design. As a part of a larger study, the authors used interpretive phenomenological analysis to understand the factors that influenced 15 Black male engineers to pursue engineering graduate degrees and to elucidate factors that led to their degree attainment. As the data was analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis, the authors were guided by cultural capital theory to uncover the assets possessed by participants to attain an advanced degree. Three major themes emerged from this study: benefits of advanced degrees (motivation for why they pursued advanced degrees), social supports (motivation for attainment), and hurdles and obstacles experienced (possible barriers to attainment). Two minor themes (advisor and mentor challenges and negative racial experiences) emerged from the major theme of hurdles and obstacles experienced. Finally, the authors provide recommendations for improving the educational pipeline to in-crease the number of Black males attaining advanced degrees in engineering. The findings of this study may impact intervention design and efforts aimed at recruiting and retaining Black males in engineering graduate programs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2001914
- PAR ID:
- 10353506
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering
- Volume:
- 28
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1072-8325
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-24
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.2021036005
