Developing a National STEM Workforce Strategy A Workshop Summary (2016) / Chapter Skim
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2 The STEM Workforce Landscape
2 The STEM Workforce Landscape
Pages 9-32
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From page 9... ...
, chair of the NSB Science and Engineering Indicators Committee, and vice president for research at the University of Oklahoma, described findings from the NSB's study on the state of the STEM workforce. Irwin Kirsch, director of the Center for Global Assessment at the Educational Testing Service (ETS)
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From page 10... ...
He noted he recently visited a university science department with multiple tenure track positions in science education, and he hoped more departments would follow suit. If the goal is to model what we teach -- evidence-based thinking -- the science community should not make unsubstantiated claims about the state of affairs regarding whether there are too many or too few science majors or interdisciplinary majors.
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From page 11... ...
The lack of appreciation for the essential methods of science -- that questions can be answered empirically and verifiably -- means that every economic debate in the country, he noted, is based on ideology, not evidence, even though economics is in large part an empirical science, generating evidence an ordinary person should be able to evaluate and that all citizens should demand be the basis of any policy argument their elected officials make. Today, said Holt, science is taught as a set of known facts to be memorized, "but if we want to model what we teach, science courses should be designed around what we don't know, which is the way science is done." He recounted that the late physician and science essayist Lewis Thomas once noted that too many people do not understand the high adventure that is science.
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From page 12... ...
Second, the STEM workforce landscape is changing. At the time of NSF's founding in 1950, and even in NSB's first edition of the Science and Engineering Indicators in 1972, the STEM workforce was synonymous with scientists and engineers, often with advanced degrees, performing research and development 1 The NSF defines science and engineering fields to include the life sciences, psychology, physical sciences, environmental sciences, mathematics and computer sciences, engineering, social sciences, and other sciences not classified elsewhere, including multidisciplinary fields.
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From page 13... ...
workforce than in the past and that a broad range of STEM-capable workers, including indi viduals without a formal STEM degree, contribute to economic competitiveness and innovation. The third major factor influencing NSB's thinking, Droegemeier explained, was that the 2014 Indicators report could provide a data-driven portrait of the STEM workforce that might shed light on such longstanding and seemingly intractable policy questions as the following: • Are we producing a sufficient supply of STEM workers to meet labor demands, or is there actually a glut of STEM workers?
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From page 14... ...
"The answer to this and many related questions about the workforce is ‘it depends.' It depends on who you consider a STEM worker and which sub-workforce is being discussed." The second insight in the NSB report is that individuals with STEM knowledge and skills do not necessarily follow a linear STEM pipeline from receipt of a STEM degree to a job in the same STEM field, nor does a STEM degree indicate that an individual will have a job in a STEM field. In fact, in the United States, STEM knowledge and skills enable career pathways to STEM and non-STEM occupations alike.
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From page 15... ...
degree and occupation is somewhat loose, with individuals with STEM knowledge and skills having the flexibility to embark on numerous career paths both in and out of STEM." At the same time, these data represent a static picture of employment and do not capture the dynamic experience of workers over the course of a career and the reality that STEM jobs are changing rapidly, he noted. "The idea that one earns a STEM degree and then spends one's career in a STEM job does not reflect reality," said Droegemeier.
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From page 16... ...
"That was an important point for the NSB." In his opinion, the idea of workforce pathways triggers better questions about frequently discussed workforce issues. For example, instead of asking how many degree holders in the computer sciences are needed to fill a given number of jobs, it might be better to ask what skills and capabilities do all students need to maximize their career options, or what continuing education opportunities do incumbent workers need to thrive over the course of a career amid changing workplace conditions.
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From page 17... ...
• What other factors impact career pathways? The NSB report also discusses roadblocks preventing some individuals from obtaining the STEM skills they will need to pursue desired career pathways in today's economy.
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From page 18... ...
The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, for example, is addressing limitations in the ability to assess the state of the workforce, by • working with the federal statistical community to collect more and better longitudinal data on individuals with STEM knowledge and skills; • collecting data on factors that influence career pathways, especially for women, underrepresented minorities, veterans, and persons with disabilities; • expanding its coverage of certifications and other nondegree credentials that are important for technical workers and other professional occupations; and • partnering with NSF directorates to develop more and better indicators of K-12 STEM education and the career progression of scientists and engineers supported by NSF's funding mechanisms.
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From page 19... ...
survey ETS conducted under contract with OECD, said Kirsch. Unlike school-based surveys, which he explained focus on specific ages or grades of in-school students, PIAAC was designed as a household study of nationally representative samples of adults ages 16 to 65.
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From page 20... ...
Austria Japan Greece Colombia Belgium Korea, Rep of Indonesia Ecuador Canada Netherlands Israel Hungary Cyprus Norway Lithuania Kazakhstan Czech Republic Poland New Zealand Mexico Denmark Russian Federation Singapore Peru Estonia Slovak Republic Slovenia Finland Spain Turkey France Sweden Germany United Kingdom Ireland United States NOTE: Remade from Kirsch slide 4. SOURCE: Goodman et al., 2015.
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NOTES: "No difference" denotes no statistically significant difference. Presented in Kirsch slide 8.
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From page 22... ...
NOTES: "No difference" denotes no statistically significant difference. Presented in Kirsch slide 10.
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From page 23... ...
NOTES: "No difference" denotes no statistically significant difference. Presented in Kirsch slide 10.
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From page 24... ...
, 2012, showing the percent of millennials individuals below level 3 in numeracy and at level 4/5 for different educational attainment levels. NOTE: Presented in Kirsch slide 12.
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From page 25... ...
NOTES: "No difference" denotes no statistically significant difference. Presented in Kirsch slide 13.
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From page 26... ...
. The same relative results are seen on ACT and SAT scores, where a large percentage of students score below established benchmarks for proficiency (Figure 2-9)
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From page 27... ...
He also noted that people are more likely to marry those with the same level of educational attainment, a change that has occurred over the past 3 to 4 decades and that amplifies the differences in family income and increases income inequality. While some may doubt that this matters in the United States, the data tell a different story.
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From page 28... ...
NOTES: For both parts of figure, light blue indicates more than a bachelor's degree; orange, a bachelor's degree; green, some college; red, high school graduate; and dark blue, high school dropout. Presented in Kirsch slide 20.
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From page 29... ...
We could figure out ways to address this problem if we believed it would pass, but the data tell us just the opposite. The accumulation of advantages and disadvantages in one generation gets passed on to the next generation." To support this argument, Kirsch cited longitudinal data from an ETS colleague showing that where a student was as a teenager in 1997 in terms of family income and scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)
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From page 30... ...
F reeman noted that PIAAC skills data relates more strongly to earnings than does education, suggesting that national efforts should focus on improving skills, not education per se, and that research should examine how students gain skills outside of the school system. He also noted that the United States is distinct among countries in the wide earnings distribution seen among people with the same exact PIAAC skill scores.
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From page 31... ...
holders are too small of a cohort to produce meaningful data in any nationally representative sample, but said the United States continues to be the envy of the world for higher education and particularly graduate and medical education. Ted Childs Jr., from Ted Childs, LLC, made a number of points.
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