Issue 1, 2022

Undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry majors' perceptions of careers in chemistry

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increased emphasis on recruiting and retaining STEM students in order for the United States to retain its position as a leader in STEM fields (President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, (2012), Report to the president, engage to excel: Producing one million additional college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; Chen, X. (2013), STEM attrition: College students’ paths into and out of STEM fields). Knowing that choice of major and choice of career are closely related (Negru-Subtirica O. and Pop E. I., (2018), Reciprocal associations between educational identity and vocational identity in adolescence: a three-wave longitudinal investigation, J. Youth Adolesc., 47, 703–716; Negru-Subtirica et al. (2018), Good omens? The intricate relations between educational and vocational identity in adolescence, Eur. J. Dev. Psychol., 15(1), 83–98), it is important that we understand what students know about careers available in the field of chemistry as well as what they know about what those careers are like. In this study, qualitative methodology was utilized using narrative inquiry and case study analysis methods in order to capture the lived experiences of six senior-status chemistry and biochemistry majors at a mid-sized, Midwestern university. Participants were interviewed, narratives were constructed from their interview transcripts, and the narratives were used as case studies that were compared to one another. It was found that students are not fully aware of the careers available to them with a degree in chemistry or biochemistry or what the career options they did identify were like on a day-to-day basis. It was also noted that resources are not distributed evenly to all students and that there were resources that were missing that students would have liked to have access to. Suggestions for improvement in chemistry career education are discussed along with limitations of the study and ideas for future work.

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Jun 2021
Accepted
03 Oct 2021
First published
18 Oct 2021

Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2022,23, 113-123

Undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry majors' perceptions of careers in chemistry

J. M. Ribble and M. Grunert Kowalske, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2022, 23, 113 DOI: 10.1039/D1RP00165E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements