While it is well known that female and nonbinary chemists make up a disproportionately low fraction of chemistry research faculty, less is known about what factors cause those groups, and chemistry graduate students in general, to choose careers in academia. Driven by this lack of representation, notable representational disparities within our own chemistry department, and a desire to improve professional development offerings in the department, we designed a survey to explore what factors and experiences contribute to graduate student career choices. We also sought to determine whether there were any differences in the factors that affected the career choices of each gender. The survey is based in Social Cognitive Career Theory, which incorporates students’ personal inputs (such as feelings of belonging) and their learning experiences as factors that affect self-efficacy and outcome expectations, which in turn affect career intentions. This talk will discuss broad descriptions of graduate student perceptions regarding R1 and PUI faculty positions, as well as several themes for further exploration that arose from comparisons of respondents with high and low interest in academic careers within each gender.

Exploring factors affecting the career choices of graduate students of different genders using social cognitive career theory

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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