Collaborative Research: New Insights into STEM Pathways: The Role of Peers, Networks, and Demand.

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

The project is a collaborative effort involving researchers from New York University, Ohio State University, and University of Michigan Ann Arbor who are extending work on a previous project that links multiple data sets to conduct longitudinal analyses of STEM student outcomes. The current project leverages the research infrastructure that was supported by prior awards to examine how peer effects, network connections, and employer demand shape career outcomes for doctoral students. It integrates comprehensive administrative data for 113,000 doctoral students, UMETRICS research data, Proquest data on dissertations with information on fields of study and research, and restricted Census Bureau data on earnings and employment outcomes. Dara integration will occur under the umbrella of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS). The project will contribute new knowledge by articulating and testing key aspects of a novel conceptual model of STEM career choices. This theoretical and empirical work will establish basic facts about how demand and training conditions shape early STEM career choices that can be determine only through the integration of separate datasets. The project is supported by the Education and Human Resources Core Research Program, which funds fundamental research in STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The research design integrates three approaches - peer-based, network-based, and demand. In their peer-based approach, the researchers propose to take the composition of peers in entering graduate cohorts to be quasi-random and estimate how the composition of peers interacts with their own characteristics. A second set of analyses involves identifying labs from the data and estimating how the composition of the persons in a lab relate to outcomes. The network-based approach will be used to examine how individual differences in social capital shape doctoral student outcomes. The demand will answer the analytical question of the effect of actual and perceived labor market demand on the choice of careers. The analysis will begin with a description of the early career outcomes of students from undergraduate dropouts to college graduates, from master's students to Ph.D. dropouts to doctoral recipients. In addition to enhancing the infrastructure to conduct robust workforce development research, the project will provide a more comprehensive analysis of the role and impact of peer networks on STEM workforce development 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.