SHABNAM ETEMADI
An Investigation of Best Practices and Lessons Learned from STEM Graduate Pro...
NSF Awards: 1549591
What’s keeping underrepresented minority STEM graduate students from completing their graduate degrees successfully? In this video, we discuss this inquiry using results from surveys completed by underrepresented minority graduate students and leaders from national STEM graduate programs. Students surveyed were predominantly African American (44%) and Hispanic (49%). Results indicate that time management, communication skills, motivation, and support system are all what we term as “hindrances” in students being able to successfully complete a STEM graduate degree. For example, 19% and 14% of students surveyed shared that time management and balancing social and academic life are two key hindrances in their academic success as underrepresented minority graduate STEM students, respectively. About 9% reported that lack of support was a factor that has kept them from completing their STEM graduate degree. An interesting motivational factor reported by students (49%) is a focus on their long term goal. Other students reported that self-determination (18%) and family or friend support systems (18%) helped keep them motivated while in graduate school. New findings such as these factors can help guide STEM graduate programs to improve and to advance their program practices for the success and support of underrepresented minority STEM graduate students. Reaching students and leaders in STEM graduate programs via video can help raise awareness of these obstacles that underrepresented minority STEM graduate students face in order to prepare, to support, and to help these students graduate.
An Investigation of Best Practices and Lessons Learned from STEM Graduate Pro...
NSF Awards: 1549591
What’s keeping underrepresented minority STEM graduate students from completing their graduate degrees successfully? In this video, we discuss this inquiry using results from surveys completed by underrepresented minority graduate students and leaders from national STEM graduate programs. Students surveyed were predominantly African American (44%) and Hispanic (49%). Results indicate that time management, communication skills, motivation, and support system are all what we term as “hindrances” in students being able to successfully complete a STEM graduate degree. For example, 19% and 14% of students surveyed shared that time management and balancing social and academic life are two key hindrances in their academic success as underrepresented minority graduate STEM students, respectively. About 9% reported that lack of support was a factor that has kept them from completing their STEM graduate degree. An interesting motivational factor reported by students (49%) is a focus on their long term goal. Other students reported that self-determination (18%) and family or friend support systems (18%) helped keep them motivated while in graduate school. New findings such as these factors can help guide STEM graduate programs to improve and to advance their program practices for the success and support of underrepresented minority STEM graduate students. Reaching students and leaders in STEM graduate programs via video can help raise awareness of these obstacles that underrepresented minority STEM graduate students face in order to prepare, to support, and to help these students graduate.
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Have you found effective ways to motivate or recruit underrepresented minorities to pursue advanced degrees in STEM degrees? Your video focused on retention, which is extremely valuable. However, I was also interested in what factors either encouraged or discouraged students from pursuing advanced degrees in the first place. Could you please share?
Shabnam Etemadi
Hello! Thank you for watching our video! Our review of the literature shows that students pursue the degrees often through exposure and mentoring of the specific subject area in STEM. Funding seems to be a common theme that enables students to pursue graduate degrees. From our results, we are learning that underrepresented minority students are motivated by long-term goals that help through their programs. Additionally, we have found that support systems, such as friends, peers, and family support and motivate underrepresented minority graduate students in STEM.
Jorge Solis
Assistant professor
Interesting data. Thank you for sharing. I was wondering if you’re looking at formative experiences with STEM by your participants? Say what they report feeling and knowing about STEM K-12?
Shabnam Etemadi
Hello and thank you for watching! Unfortunately, we are not collecting data on experiences in early education or experiences with STEM. That would be interesting data to connect to the long-term goal development as a form of motivation.
Jorge Solis
Assistant professor
Thank you Shabnam.
Michel DeGraff
Professor
The data reported in this work are quite challenging. Thank you for this study. As a linguist, I am particularly interested in the notion of “communication skills” as one of the hindrances preventing minority students from completing a STEM graduate degree. I’d love to hear more about these “communication skills” or lack thereof, and their impact on retention.
Shabnam Etemadi
Absolutely! We are investigating this factor in our continued research. Please let us know if you’d like to hear more about these findings. Thank you for watching!
Marcelo Worsley
Assistant Professor
Have you had the opportunity to look at the experiences that under-represented women within your sample have while pursuing STEM degrees, and the factors that encourage and discourage them?
Shabnam Etemadi
Yes a few of our questions asked about women and in particular underrepresented minority women in STEM graduate programs. Our last graph covers this question and our findings show that mentoring from faculty or students are beneficial for the success of women in STEM. Thank you for watching!
Jorge Solis
Assistant professor
Also curious Shabnam also about what “lack of support means” for participants? Would these include academic difficulties such as writing, completing assignments too?
Shabnam Etemadi
Great question. The wording of our question regarding lack of support was around advising and mentoring, but it was not exclusive. Therefore, it was open-ended for students to define lack of support. Perhaps in our next set of data collection we can better define or ask for examples to understand student experiences in what they may lack. Thank you for your inquiry!
Haleh karimi
I was very interesting dear shabnam. Thank you for sharing.
Shabnam Etemadi
Thank you for watching!
Colleen Leithren
Hi Shabnam, thank for sharing your research. It is very interesting to see the vast difference in numbers of underrepresented minority students. Do you know of any initiatives under way to narrow this gap with undergraduates to encourage them to pursue graduate school?
Shabnam Etemadi
Yes, several universities have established programs, such as mentoring and university partnerships to increase participation of undergraduates in STEM and to expose students to the possibility of graduate school. There is also the Bridge to the Doctorate program that helps students continue on to obtain their doctorate degree. Thank you for your question and for watching!
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