Understanding Obstacles in the STEM Career Pipeline through System Dynamics Modeling

The importance of student achievement in STEM fields remains a key aspect of academic and career success affecting society. Understanding the obstacles and setbacks which affect students is a key aspect to minimizing attrition losses observed in STEM career pathways for underrepresented student demo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2022 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC) pp. 221 - 231
Main Authors Appel, Daniel C., Winsor, Carla, Tillinghast, Ralph, Mansouri, Mo
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 26.03.2022
Subjects
Analytical models
Career Pipeline
Diversity reception
Education Policy
Engineering
Engineering profession
Equity and Diversity
Logic gates
Math
Modeling
Operations Research
Outreach
Pipelines
Science
Sensitivity
Simulation
Stakeholder
STEM
STEM-H
System dynamics
Systems Science
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Summary:The importance of student achievement in STEM fields remains a key aspect of academic and career success affecting society. Understanding the obstacles and setbacks which affect students is a key aspect to minimizing attrition losses observed in STEM career pathways for underrepresented student demographics. Through developing a system dynamics modeling and simulation framework and evaluating survey responses specifically related to offsetting events in the careerization pipeline, insights can be gained into mitigation strategies. Analysis of system dynamics modeling outputs demonstrates the detrimental effects of obstacles to student achievement; however, elucidating mechanisms present in counterexamples suggests that bolstering student resilience is achievable. Implementing active learning and project-based learning strategies with the specific goal of enabling failure and student development to overcome initial failures can foster development of key individual student traits and behaviors. This approach can be combined with events such as family STEM nights, focus on gateway curriculum that enables student self-efficacy, and implementing near-peer mentoring strategies. The modeling and simulation framework results show that promising improvements can be achieved with resources available across the education and outreach ecosystem, providing substantial benefits to all students with STEM aspirations and to society as a whole.
DOI:10.1109/ISEC54952.2022.10025044