Doctoral Dissertation Research: Shaping Future Scientists: Student Labor and Training in the Knowledge Economy

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

Graduate and undergraduate students are training to be the next generation of scientists while performing much of the daily work in scientific knowledge production. This doctoral dissertation research improvement project investigates how changes in the knowledge economy influence these training and work dynamics. The extent of collaboration between faculty scientists and industry scientists has grown in recent decades. Together, academic and industry scientists have made breakthroughs that have improved human health, technology, and production processes. This project investigates how graduate student training in science and engineering is changing in response to these closer connections between academia and industry. Through understanding changes in the knowledge economy and how graduate student training supports knowledge production, this project addresses the need to integrate graduate students more effectively into the US science and engineering workforce. The project also has implications for broadening participation in science and engineering, as the results will bring out the ways female and male graduate students are recruited and retained in science and engineering fields. This dissertation project employs two qualitative research methods: ethnography and interviews. The detailed ethnographic observations chart physical scientists' daily practices surrounding research, collaboration, and the training of students. Observations are conducted at a research center and with a training grant program. In addition, observations at professional scientific meetings will expand the scope for understanding the complex role students play in knowledge production. These data reveal how graduate students are trained to disseminate their scientific knowledge, and collaborate with colleagues in academic and industry settings outside of their own campus. Interviews with students, faculty, and research support personnel provide data on the experiences and perceptions that scientists have of wider changes in the knowledge economy, and of their own collaborations. Observations and interviews will be supplemented with content analysis of documents and written materials from each site and from professional scientific associations. This project aims to understand not only the dynamics of work and professionalization for students training to become scientists, but also to uncover student perceptions of broader changes in the knowledge economy. The research will generate new knowledge on how relationships between academic and industry science shape student work, training, and professional development. The findings from this dissertation project will inform policy discussions about the future development of the U.S. scientific workforce. 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.