Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century (2018) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
5 The Doctoral Degree
5 The Doctoral Degree
Pages 105-126
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 105... ...
experiences are identical, the Ph.D. programs typical of many STEM disciplines include 1 to 2 years of discipline-specific coursework; perhaps 1 or more years serving as a teaching assistant; the search for a dissertation advisor, which may or may not involve a formal system of rotating through several laboratories; comprehensive subject matter examinations; formulation and defense of a dissertation project; 3 to 7 years of mentored research supported by a combination of research assistantships and fellowships; writing the dissertation; and a final defense of the dissertation (O'Leary, 2016)
|
From page 106... ...
education. Acquiring the skills that these core elements provide will serve as fundamentals underpinning future success in whatever career paths students choose: Develop Scientific and Technological Literacy and Conduct Original 1.
|
From page 107... ...
• Graduate departments should publicly post how their programs reflect the core competencies for doctoral students, including the milestones and metrics the departments and individual faculty use in evaluation and assessment. • Federal and state funding agencies should adapt funding criteria for in stitutions to ensure that all doctoral students they support -- regardless of mechanism of support -- are in programs that ensure that they develop, measure, and report these scientific and professional competencies.
|
From page 108... ...
In a comparison of tenure status of STEM doctorate holders between 1995 and 2015, the percentage of individuals with tenured positions declined in every age category except the 35-39 group, while those in tenure track positions declined to a lesser degree (Table 5-1)
|
From page 109... ...
doctorate holders employed at 2- or 4-year colleges or universities, medical schools, and university research institutes. Percentages may not add to 100% because of rounding.
|
From page 110... ...
. The authors of that analysis concluded that there was an oversupply of Ph.D.'s desiring academic careers relative to the paucity of tenure track faculty positions (Bowen and Rudenstein, 1992; Golde and Dore, 2001)
|
From page 111... ...
mathematics Biological, agricultural, and 272,000 45.2 2.9 29.4 2.9 8.5 7.7 2.9 environmental life sciences Physical and related sciences 171,000 40.9 3.5 38.6 2.3 5.8 8.2 0.6 Social and related sciences 278,000 42.8 6.8 20.9 11.5 10.1 5.0 2.9 Engineering 183,000 23.5 0.5 63.9 3.3 2.7 4.9 1.1 NOTES: All science and engineering highest degree holders include professional degree holders not reported separately. The 2-year and precollege institutions include 2-year colleges and community colleges or technical institutes.
|
From page 112... ...
. Moreover, students who submitted entries to NSF's Innovation in Graduate Education Challenge,4 which was initiated to capture the graduate student voice and solicit student ideas about how to improve graduate education, identified a lack of exposure to transferable professional skills as one of the main problems they wanted to see addressed.
|
From page 113... ...
As described in Chapter 6, providing the ideal graduate education involves changing the culture of academia to encourage faculty, administrators, career counselors, and other staff who support graduate education by providing them the time, training, and other resources needed to refer and support students within their career goals. A central issue relating to career preparation facing STEM Ph.D.
|
From page 114... ...
• Industry, nonprofit, government, and other employers should provide guidance and financial support for relevant course offerings at institutions and provide internships and other forms of professional experiences to students and recent graduates. • Federal and state agencies and private foundations that support gradu ate education should require STEM graduate programs to include career exploration urricular offerings and require STEM doctoral students to c create and to update annually individual development plans in consulta tion with faculty advisors to map educational goals, career exploration, and professional development.
|
From page 115... ...
graduate programs have begun to incorporate courses that impart highly valued, nonacademic professional skills, such as professional communication, leadership, and management skills, into their core curricula (Loshbaugh et al., 2011)
|
From page 116... ...
Some programs do allow for research done in teams to be included; however, the end product remains the creation of one student. The opportunity for team or group dissertations may appeal to students, better reflect the nature of work in contemporary science and engineering, and allow students to navigate issues of authorship, research ethics, and scholarly communication practices that they will encounter as STEM professionals (Hakkarainen et al., 2016)
|
From page 117... ...
research advisor is to focus more on the academic progress of a student, serve as an information resource regarding courses and university policies, help students develop core capacities as an independent researcher, and help students gain broad scientific
|
From page 118... ...
Institutions should require faculty and postdoctoral researchers who have extensive contact with • graduate students to learn and demonstrate evidence-based and inclusive teaching and mentoring practices. Graduate programs should facilitate mentor relationships between the graduate student and the • primary research advisors, as well as opportunities for students to develop additional mentor
|
From page 119... ...
. While there is much discussion about the form of this financial support and the balance in prevalence and use of research and/or teaching assistantships versus traineeships or fellowships, overall there is little definitive information available on how student experiences and outcomes differ based on mechanisms for funding their education, how mechanisms affect students at different points in their education, whether different mechanisms have differential effects on subsets of the student population, and the requirements of funders.
|
From page 120... ...
Recommendation 3.3 on Comprehensive National and Institutional Data on Students and Graduates includes specific suggestions for additional data collection, and Recommendation 3.4 on Funding for Research on Graduate STEM Education, include details on researching the effect of different funding mechanisms on STEM Ph.D. students educational and career outcomes.11 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion While the changing demographics of the pool of potential students are detailed in Chapter 2 and issues related to cultivating talent and preparing students from all backgrounds in graduate-level education is reviewed in Enhancing 10 The NSF GK-12's last solicitation deadline was in 2010.
|
From page 121... ...
NSF has funded programs and initiatives focused on addressing these issues and is also funding research to understand the efficacy of interventions. One program, ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers, seeks to fund projects that address the fact that women are significantly underrepresented as faculty, particularly in upper ranks, and in academic administrative positions, in almost all STEM fields.12 The program looks at challenges in recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in STEM and focuses funding to projects developing systemic approaches to increase women's representation and advancement in academic careers, promoting gender equity strategies for all members of the academic workforce, and contributing to the field of equity research.
|
From page 122... ...
Creating solutions within a local context at the department and program levels will be relevant for how graduate students approach career decisions and the overall graduate education experience. Best practices exist to guide the development of local solutions (Bhopal, 2017; Field et al., 2007)
|
From page 123... ...
2015. Why STEM doctoral students participate in teaching development programs.
|
From page 124... ...
2001. At cross purposes: What the experiences of today's doctoral students reveal about doctoral education.
|
From page 125... ...
Available: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes. htm (accessed January 22, 2018)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.