A Competitive System: Graduate Student Recruitment in STEM and Why Money May Not Be the Answer

Autor/inn/en	Wall Bortz, Whitney E.; Knight, David B.; Lyles, Chelsea H.; Kinoshita, Timothy; Choe, Nathan H.; Denton, Maya; Borrego, Maura
Titel	A Competitive System: Graduate Student Recruitment in STEM and Why Money May Not Be the Answer
Quelle	In: Journal of Higher Education, 91 (2020) 6, S.927-952 (26 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Wall Bortz, Whitney E.) ORCID (Knight, David B.) ORCID (Choe, Nathan H.) ORCID (Borrego, Maura)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0022-1546
DOI	10.1080/00221546.2019.1706017
Schlagwörter	Competition; Graduate Students; STEM Education; Student Recruitment; Educational Finance; Doctoral Programs; Decision Making; Evidence Based Practice; Barriers; Peer Influence; Student Attitudes + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Wettkampf; Graduate Study; Student; Students; Aufbaustudium; Graduiertenstudium; Hauptstudium; Studentin; STEM; Bildungsfonds; Doktorandenprogramm; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Schülerverhalten
Abstract	Doctoral student recruitment is a dynamic, complex, and under-researched phenomenon. There is steep competition between programs for recruiting students with large amounts of resources at stake, especially within the STEM fields, and programs do not operate in isolation within such environments. In this paper, we explore how graduate programs position themselves relative to other programs as they recruit STEM doctoral students. Drawing from 47 interviews with graduate program leaders, 49 interviews with graduate students, and 63 questionnaire responses from graduate program staff and administrators, this research analyzes common recruitment practices of STEM doctoral programs alongside student perspectives about their decision processes. We reveal how competitive forces may lead programs to adopt non-evidence-based recruitment strategies that may not align with either program leaders' stated values or students' priorities. Although program leaders expressed the importance of students prioritizing academic factors in their decisions, our data revealed that programs commonly utilize financial resources as their main recruitment mechanism in practice. By demonstrating this incongruence, our paper aims to illuminate a potential blind spot so programs might choose to change seemingly institutionalized processes that may be out of alignment with their own stated values and those of the students they are seeking to recruit. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01