AAU PhD Program and Career Outcome Data Workshop

Association Of American Universities, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The need to reform doctoral education in the United States has been the subject of a number of national studies over the past 25 years. One particular challenge that has been noted focuses on career pathways. Graduate students generally are not exposed to the breadth of career pathways that are open to Ph.D. recipients, thereby hampering students from making informed decisions about their educational paths and professional preparation. Accurate and transparent program and career outcomes data are necessary to enable students to identify and direct their studies toward their desired career goals. This National Science Foundation award to the Association of American Universities (AAU) will support a workshop that will bring together representatives from a number of institutions currently engaged in efforts to document and make publicly available data on doctoral program admission, completion, and career outcome measures; scholars conducting research on doctoral career pathways; and university administrators charged with overseeing graduate education. The goal of the workshop is to survey the existing landscape for understanding doctoral education outcomes, foster synergies among participants, and determine next directions. The one-and-a-half-day workshop will support discussions among participants regarding methodologies used in data collection, how collected data is intended or not intended to be used, and what efforts can be undertaken to increase communication across existing efforts, standardize approaches, and improve documentation and availability of data on doctoral education and career outcomes. Representatives from a number of major efforts to collect and analyze doctoral educational outcomes data, administrative leaders at doctoral-granting institutions, and leaders of efforts on broadening career pathways for students will be invited to participate. The workshop will include panel presentations and facilitated discussions. Access to reliable, accurate, and transparent data is an essential starting point for discussions that can lead to effective decision making. The immediate goal of this workshop is to determine direct steps that can make such data standardized and available to the community and stakeholders. Ultimately, the expectation is that this will lead to work that will identify and mitigate institutional, cultural, and disciplinary barriers that may prevent doctoral students from identifying, exploring, and preparing for a wide range of career pathways. This proposal is co-funded by the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) Core Research (ECR) program and the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program. The ECR program (NSF 15-509) focuses on fundamental research in STEM education by providing funds in critical research areas that are essential, broad and enduring. The NRT Program (17-585/18-507) is designed to encourage the development and implementation of new, potentially transformative models or approaches for STEM graduate education training that address changing workforce and research needs. 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.