Communications of the ACM
Completion Rates Among Minority Ph.d. Students in STEM Fields To Be Examined
Credit: Bright Hub
Florida State is one of 21 universities that will be examining lower doctoral completion rates in the STEM fields among American Indian, Hispanic and black students.
The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) awarded grants of $30,000 each to selected institutions to tackle the issue from a new angle. All of the schools will investigate the experiences of minority doctoral students in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
"We are very excited to have been selected to participate in this study, as the lack of participation of minority students in STEM disciplines at the doctoral level remains a concern of national importance," says Nancy Marcus, the Robert O. Lawton Professor of Oceanography and the dean of The Graduate School at Florida State.
While minority Ph.D. participation rates have increased in the last decade, the actual numbers are still quite low, Marcus says.
The grants are backed by a larger, three-year, $1.5 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). They are all aimed at helping educators better understand the factors that may prevent minority students from completing doctorates in STEM areas.
"A goal of the overall study is to determine if particular support programs and strategies result in higher retention and completion rates," Marcus says.
Florida State has already gained quite a bit of insight into the issue as a result of its participation in a previous CGS doctoral retention and completion study. That study examined all graduate students in a select number of disciplines.
For the last several years, Florida State has been ranked by the Survey of Earned Doctorates as among the top 15 institutions for the number of black students graduating with Ph.D.s. In order to be eligible for the CGS/NSF study, an institution needs a minimum number of enrolled minority students to provide a reasonable sample size.
Florida State and the other awardees will:
- Collect and report completion and attrition data for all underrepresented minority students entering STEM doctoral programs in academic years 1992-1993 through 2011-2012.
- Complete and submit data on program characteristics and policies, practices and interventions that might affect completion and attrition for all STEM Ph.D. programs offered by the institution.
- Field a Web-based student survey, developed by CGS, covering a set of topics addressing completion and attrition in STEM doctoral programs.
- Host a two-day site visit for CGS project staff to conduct focus groups with students and interviews with graduate deans, faculty, and other university personnel.
- Highlight the institution's participation in this effort by taking part in national discussions on the topic of Ph.D. completion (e.g., at CGS Annual Meetings and/or Summer Workshop sessions).
The projected release date of the study's findings is June 2014.
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