Students often change majors during college, and most workers change jobs throughout their careers. Yet the diverse opportunities for entering natural science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are often overlooked during college and beyond. This dissertation therefore analyzed four large nationally representative datasets to characterize the pathways for joining STEM among college students and workers from non-STEM backgrounds. My theoretical framework contrasts sharply with the popular “leaky pipeline†metaphor, which has often pervaded debates about STEM talent in the United States. Since the 1980s, this metaphor has focused attention on plugging “leaks†in the pipeline (i.e., increasing STEM persistence) but away from more comprehensive strategies for addressing workforce needs. I argue that educators, employers, and policymakers should instead think of a network of pathways along which students and workers can take different routes to STEM competence. This pathways metaphor provides novel ways for thinking about developing STEM talent. For instance, late entry points into STEM offer new opportunities for recruiting women, especially given the large pool of women who start college as a non-STEM major and graduate with non-STEM degrees. Across two studies, my dissertation studied pathways for joining STEM in the transitions from (a) beginning of college to graduation and (b) college graduation to the workforce. Nearly one fifth of STEM graduates started college as a non-STEM major, and one fifth of college-educated STEM workers had no bachelor’s degree or higher in any STEM field. Analyses described joiners’ educational history and job characteristics, identified predictors of STEM joining, and estimated the national impact of further widening joining pathways. Study 1 found that joiners had similar high school STEM preparation compared to so-called “leaks†in the STEM pipeline (i.e., students who went from STEM to non-STEM majors) but had weaker preparation than persisters (i.e., STEM graduates who started college in STEM). Nevertheless, compared to persisters, joiners achieved similar undergraduate success in terms of STEM course grades and rates of graduating college on time (i.e., within four years). Grades in introductory STEM courses strongly predicted STEM attrition but not STEM joining, indicating asymmetric pathways for leaving versus joining STEM. In contrast to grades, taking STEM courses early in college strongly predicted later earning of STEM bachelor’s degrees among initial non-STEM majors, even after controlling for many theoretically relevant covariates. Impact analyses also found that, compared to “plugging the leaky pipeline†for female STEM majors, closing gender gaps in STEM joining would more potently increase women’s representation among STEM graduates. Study 2 studied pathways for joining the computing and engineering workforce among non-STEM college graduates. Results suggested that joiners used their non-STEM educational training by working on non-STEM job tasks such as finance and management at higher rates than persisters. Overall, pathways were far more open for joining the computing than engineering workforce. Careers in both these fields appeared to be unattractive to non-STEM graduates who valued benefitting society, consistent with common perceptions that STEM jobs lack career opportunities to help others. Impact analyses found that an additional 820,000 college graduates would have been computer scientists in 2015 if communally oriented workers had joined computing as often as other non-STEM graduates. Most of these additional computer scientists would have been women. These results suggest new strategies for broadening participation in STEM. Based on Study 1, postsecondary educators and policymakers should evaluate how to facilitate STEM joining pathways by increasing the quality and quantity of STEM courses that non-STEM majors take early in college. Based on Study 2, employers should consider how to communicate to potential applicants, especially non-STEM graduates, that STEM careers offer ways to help others.

Last modified

• 11/24/2019

Creator

• David Isaac Miller

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-1wsd-n514

Subject

• Psychology

Keyword

• Psychology

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright