Impacts of Hard/Soft Skills on STEM Workforce Trajectories
Jana Stone
Mon, Apr 01, 2024
Tue, Apr 30, 2024
IRIS is a national consortium of universities anchored on an IRB-approved data repository that share administrative data to support research and reporting with the goal of understandin g, explaining, and improving the public value of investments in research and higher education. Together with Dr. David Feldon (Utah State University), IRIS is conducting an NSF-funded study, entitled “Impacts of Hard/Soft Skills on STEM Workforce Trajectories,” that is designed to identify predictors of professional success across employment sectors for graduating PhDs in STEM and related fields. We are specifically testing hypotheses based on recent National Academies reports that identify “soft skills” as a critical component of post-doctoral job market success.
We write now to request your help in recruiting doctoral students from your institution to participate in an online survey scheduled to be fielded in April, 2024. We ask that you share with us directory information (student name, email, and CIP code of their primary program) for doctoral students who have applied to graduate in Spring 2024. We will contact them directly using that information to ask for their consent to participate in the survey. As directory information, FERPA does not restrict access to this data provided that students have not explicitly requested that their information be withheld. Students who agree to participate will receive a $25 incentive to complete one web-based survey that will take approximately 15-20 minutes.
This project has received enthusiastic endorsement from the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), as it aligns with their priorities. We have completed three years of data collection and have identified three groups of individuals with different sets of soft skills: a high-skills group, a low-skills group, and a high-skills group that is lacking networking skills. With more data, we’ll be able to make generalizable claims about these three groups, which will help us better evaluate skills and predictors of career attainment as PhD students transition into the workforce. Ultimately, we hope to inform graduate education practices that may improve graduates’ employment outcomes.
We’ve attached a table with some of our initial findings. We plan to continue sharing similar data with universities that assist with data collection. We are able to extend data collection this year and request that you continue to participate.
Because your institution is an IRIS member, your help would be particularly valuable, as the restricted administrative data your university shares with IRIS can be linked (with individual student consent) to the results of these surveys, allowing us to analyze the larger research context for STEM graduate training and its relationship to professional outcomes for your campus. IRIS’ primary contact at your institution is Katie Crawford (katie.crawford@edm.gatech.edu) if you would like more information about our work with Georgia Tech or the MOU between IRIS and your institution.
We write now to request your help in recruiting doctoral students from your institution to participate in an online survey scheduled to be fielded in April, 2024. We ask that you share with us directory information (student name, email, and CIP code of their primary program) for doctoral students who have applied to graduate in Spring 2024. We will contact them directly using that information to ask for their consent to participate in the survey. As directory information, FERPA does not restrict access to this data provided that students have not explicitly requested that their information be withheld. Students who agree to participate will receive a $25 incentive to complete one web-based survey that will take approximately 15-20 minutes.
This project has received enthusiastic endorsement from the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), as it aligns with their priorities. We have completed three years of data collection and have identified three groups of individuals with different sets of soft skills: a high-skills group, a low-skills group, and a high-skills group that is lacking networking skills. With more data, we’ll be able to make generalizable claims about these three groups, which will help us better evaluate skills and predictors of career attainment as PhD students transition into the workforce. Ultimately, we hope to inform graduate education practices that may improve graduates’ employment outcomes.
We’ve attached a table with some of our initial findings. We plan to continue sharing similar data with universities that assist with data collection. We are able to extend data collection this year and request that you continue to participate.
Because your institution is an IRIS member, your help would be particularly valuable, as the restricted administrative data your university shares with IRIS can be linked (with individual student consent) to the results of these surveys, allowing us to analyze the larger research context for STEM graduate training and its relationship to professional outcomes for your campus. IRIS’ primary contact at your institution is Katie Crawford (katie.crawford@edm.gatech.edu) if you would like more information about our work with Georgia Tech or the MOU between IRIS and your institution.
Linking survey data to rich administrative data and career outcomes information developed by IRIS promises to address important research questions and to offer valuable insights into the needs of doctoral students and the features of STEM graduate training that prepare them to successfully seek employment within and outside of academia.
To thank you for your help, IRIS will return an aggregate report to you based on surveys completed by your students and data your institution submits to our repository. IRIS reports are widely used by our member institutions for government relations, communications and research development. We hope this project will inform a new report for universities that examines graduate outcomes and provides information of use to graduate deans.
To thank you for your help, IRIS will return an aggregate report to you based on surveys completed by your students and data your institution submits to our repository. IRIS reports are widely used by our member institutions for government relations, communications and research development. We hope this project will inform a new report for universities that examines graduate outcomes and provides information of use to graduate deans.
Doctoral students who have applied to graduate in Spring 2024.
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Survey team asks that GT share directory information (student name, emai l, and CIP code of their primary program) for doctoral students who have applied to graduate in Spring 2024. We will contact them directly using that information to ask for their consent to participate in the survey. As directory information, FERPA does not restrict access to this data provided that students have not explicitly requested that their information be withheld. Students who agree to participate will receive a $25 incentive to complete one web-based survey that will take approximately 15-20 minutes.