Gail Hackett - US grants

The Lucile B. Kaufman Scholars program is designed to encourage undergraduate women in engineering to pursue graduate degrees in engineering. The program will include 20 nominees and 8 alternates with junior status in engineering. The program builds on two components: professional development and community building. The professional development component includes an 8 - week summer research experience, culminating in a formal research symposia. The community building component includes mentoring and networking events designed to create a supportive community environment for participants. Mentors will also participate in diversity training workshops. Students completing academic year activities in the program are awarded the title Lucile B. Kaufman Scholar," receive a $500.00 scholarship, and participate in the summer research experience, for which they receive a $1500 stipend. Participant scholars achievements will be compared to a comparative cadre of non-participant, but similarly motivated students

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Arizona State University are collaborating in a study that will address: a) What barriers and supports can be identified at various developmental stages (middle school and late high school and sophomore in college) as being salient for women's selection of a STEM related career? b) How do these barriers and supports fit into a comprehensive, intervention-focused theory of achievement and career choice? And c) How do these barriers and supports directly relate to interventions for girls and women interested in STEM careers?

Data collection will be conducted at two different metropolitan sites (Milwaukee, WI and Phoenix, AZ), across three different educational levels (middle, high school and early college), in three discrete studies (interviews and taxonomy development; instrument development and testing; and comprehensive model testing). Organizations involved include the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Schools, Shorewood Public Schools, Arizona State University and Deer Valley School District (Arizona).

Intellectual Merit: The analogy of a leaky pipeline has been used frequently to describe the progressive developmental decrease of women's interest and participation in science, technological, engineering, and math (STEM) preparation. Something happens along the way that prompts women to think and believe that they cannot or do not want to continue in STEM courses, majors, or careers. There is no obvious reason why this would disproportionately occur for women than men since innate abilities do not differ between men and women (NSF, 2003). Although theoretical models include external influences on achievement and choice behavior, past research examining such models has more often focused on the internal aspects of a woman's choice, rather than on how the internal beliefs and perceptions interact with external factors. It is important, also to understand barriers and supports that may differ at various stages.

The research study is developing a taxonomy of barriers, including those related to the learning environment, and identifying those that appear to be differentially salient in the career choice process at various developmental points, and then testing the validity of the social cognitive career model containing measures of those supports and barriers. Finally, the investigators will link the taxonomy directly to interventions designed to promote resilience for women pursuing STEM careers.

The study increases the applications of the social cognitive career theory to understanding achievement related choices (Betz & Hackett, 1983; Hackett & Betz, 1981; 1989; Lent, Brown & Hackett, 2002) by incorporating elements of Eccles (1994) model of achievement to increase its predictive utility.

Broader Impact: It will identify developmentally appropriate environmental barriers and supports that affect women's retention in the path to STEM careers and translate those directly to interventions designed to promote resilience for women pursuing STEM careers.

This project will apply research discoveries by launching the development of a first-of-its-kind, economical, and rapidly scaleable new web-based tool for schools, universities, and families to use in encouraging young women to 1) persevere in studying science, mathematics, and engineering, and 2) hold fast in their ambition to build careers in these fields. The project will disseminate both research and the tool that makes it useable for practitioners by allying with activities sponsored by CRESMET--Arizona State University's Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology. A previously developed taxonomy--Women in STEM Studies and Careers (WISSC) Taxonomy--will be used as a basis for the web tool. The tool will contain links from the issues listed in the taxonomy of barriers and supports, to information in written, audio, and video formats that will illustrate context, enhance the understanding of each issue, and provide extensive intervention information for educators, parents and family, peers, and girls and women themselves. The WISSC web tool will be developed as a part of the Virtual Counseling Center now housed in CRESMET and disseminated to all educators in Arizona as well as nationwide.

Intellectual merit-- The development of the proposed web tool will facilitate broad dissemination of major findings from the results of NSF-sponsored research focusing on young women and STEM careers. It will educate professionals, parents, and girls on some of the challenges facing girls and women pursuing STEM careers, and organize this information so that it can be easily accessed and used by providing direct connections from information to interventions. The web tool will provide a useful bridge between practitioners and the research literature that will enhance the abilities of educators, parents and young women to access and make use of information and interventions informed by research.

Broader impacts-- Through existing networks at ASU, 60,000+ teachers, counselors, and school leaders in the state of Arizona will be reached. Allying with CRESMET and the national network of collaborators the center leverages through currently operating MSP and TPC funded projects will enable the national dissemination of the WISSC tool, its foundational taxonomy, and the new knowledge created by researching and evaluating its impact on young women and those who advise and mentor them.