Rosenzweig Emily Q, Hecht Cameron A, Priniski Stacy J, Canning Elizabeth A, Asher Michael W, Tibbetts Yoi, Hyde Janet S, Harackiewicz Judith M
University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA.
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
Sci Adv. 2021 Apr 30;7(18). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe0985. Print 2021 Apr.
Researchers often invoke the metaphor of a pipeline when studying participation in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), focusing on the important issue of students who "leak" from the pipeline, but largely ignoring students who persist in STEM. Using interview, survey, and institutional data over 6 years, we examined the experiences of 921 students who persisted in biomedical fields through college graduation and planned to pursue biomedical careers. Despite remaining in the biomedical pipeline, almost half of these students changed their career plans, which was almost twice the number of students who abandoned biomedical career paths altogether. Women changed plans more often and were more likely than men to change to a career requiring fewer years of post-graduate education. Results highlight the importance of studying within-pipeline patterns rather than focusing only on why students leave STEM fields.
研究人员在研究科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的职业参与情况时，经常援引管道的比喻，关注从管道中“流失”的学生这一重要问题，但很大程度上忽略了坚持从事STEM领域的学生。我们利用6年多的访谈、调查和机构数据，研究了921名坚持读完大学并计划从事生物医学职业的学生的经历。尽管这些学生仍在生物医学领域发展，但几乎一半的学生改变了他们的职业规划——这一人数几乎是完全放弃生物医学职业道路的学生人数的两倍。女性改变规划的频率更高且比男性更有可能转向需要较少研究生教育年限的职业。研究结果凸显了研究管道内模式的重要性而非仅关注学生离开STEM领域的原因。
