All downhill from the PhD? The typical impact trajectory of US academic careers

© 2020 The Authors. Published by MIT Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00072.Within academia, mature researchers tend to be more senior, but do they also tend to write higher impact articles? This article assesses long-term publishing (16+ years) United States (US) researchers, contrasting them with shorter-term publishing researchers (1, 6 or 10 years). A long-term US researcher is operationalised as having a first Scopus-indexed journal article in exactly 2001 and one in 2016-2019, with US main affiliations in their first and last articles. Researchers publishing in large teams (11+ authors) were excluded. The average field and year normalised citation impact of long- and shorter-term US researchers’ journal articles decreases over time relative to the national average, with especially large falls to the last articles published that may be at least partly due to a decline in self-citations. In many cases researchers start by publishing above US average citation impact research and end by publishing below US average citation impact research. Thus, research managers should not assume that senior researchers will usually write the highest impact papers

Counting stars: contribution of early career scientists to marine and fisheries sciences

Scientific careers and publishing have radically changed in recent decades creating an increasingly competitive environment for early career scientists (ECS). The lack of quantitative data available on ECS in marine and fisheries sciences prevents direct assessment of the consequences of increased competitiveness. We assessed the contributions of ECS (up to 6 years post first publication) to the field using an indirect approach by investigating the authorships of peer-reviewed articles. We analysed 118461 papers published by 184561 authors in the top 20 marine and fisheries sciences journals over the years 1991–2020. We identified a positive long-term trend in the proportion of scientific articles (co-)authored by ECS. This suggests a growing contribution by ECS to publications in the field. However, the mean proportion of ECS (co-)authors within one publication declined significantly over the study period. Subsequent tests demonstrated that articles with ECS (co-)authors receive fewer citations and that the proportion of ECS (co-)authors on an article has a significant negative effect on the number of citations. We discuss the potential causes of these inequalities and urge systematic support to ECS to achieve more balanced opportunities for funding and publishing between ECS and senior scientists

Domestic researchers with longer careers generate higher average citation impact but it does not increase over time

© The Authors. Published by MIT Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00132Information about the relative strengths of scholars is needed for the efficient running of knowledge systems. Since academic research requires many skills, more experienced researchers might produce better research and attract more citations. This article assesses career citation impact changes 2001-2016 for domestic researchers (definition: first and last Scopus journal article in the same country) from the twelve nations with most Scopus documents. Careers are analysed longitudinally, so that changes are not due to personnel evolution, such as researchers leaving or entering a country. The results show that long term domestic researchers do not tend to improve their citation impact over time but tend to achieve their average citation impact by their first or second Scopus journal article. In some countries, this citation impact subsequently declines. These longer-term domestic researchers have higher citation impact than the national average in all countries, however, whereas scholars publishing only one journal article have substantially lower citation impact in all countries. The results are consistent with an efficiently functioning researcher selection system but cast slight doubt on the long-term citation impact potential of long-term domestic researchers. Research and funding policies may need to accommodate these patterns when citation impact is a relevant indicator

Political scientists? : the UK knowledge economy and young scientists

This thesis is an exploration of the UK knowledge economy, and its implications for the present and future lives of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) doctoral students at a research-intensive UK university. The research methodology included a critical literature review, focus groups, a large scale survey, and depth interviews. The thesis reports that the UK knowledge economy is a known phenomenon to young scientists and, across the population of young scientists, five distinct moral positions towards the knowledge economy are discerned. These five moral positions form a spectrum, ranging from ‘anti’ to ‘pro’ knowledge economy. Young scientists’ moral positions on the knowledge economy are revealed to be a key aspect of their scientific identity. That the scientific identities of young scientists are in part moral contradicts dominant images of the scientist who, in Steven Pinker’s words, is often construed as an ‘amoral nerd’ (Pinker in Shapin, 2008: xv). Young scientists’ conceptions of identity are however, notable for their narrowness. Young scientists continue to rely upon the paradigm of modernity when forming their moral position on the knowledge economy, and constructing their identity. Accordingly, they view scientific identity as solid and stable. A game theory informed analysis illuminates how young scientists strategically tailor their scientific life in order to construct and sustain a stable identity; the achievement of which, they believe, is the best preparation for a scientific career. The irony of this finding is that contemporary science is shaped by postmodern forces: the knowledge economy and liquid modernity. These forces generate diversity, contradiction and perpetual change. It is argued that young scientists must develop a liquid scientific identity, fit for these conditions. Three reforms of the STEM PhD are proposed to enable universities to support young scientists to ‘avoid fixation and keep the options open’ (Bauman, 1995: 20)

Factors for Success of International Female Doctoral Students in Science in the United States

Factors for Success of International Female Doctoral Students in Science in the United States Many international doctoral female students in the sciences in the United States do not obtain a degree despite their large investment in time, effort, and financial resources. The loss of highly prepared and credentialed international female doctoral students, who have a genuine interest in science but who choose not to pursue their studies to graduation or switch careers due to real or perceived barriers, signifies such a loss not just for the women themselves and their families but for their countries of origin, their hosts universities, the scientific professions, and society in general (Castillo et al., 2014). The purpose of this qualitative transcendental descriptive phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of international female doctoral students who succeeded in their doctoral programs in the United States in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), or completed a professional program in the health sciences. I utilized a transcendental descriptive phenomenological approach to explore, describe, and understand how international female doctoral students succeeded in their doctoral programs in the United States in the sciences. To improve the methodological validity of the study, triangulation of data sources and data methods were used. Through multiple methods and multiple sources, I gathered data which provided a rich description of the phenomenon investigated (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2016). I utilized Arts Based Research and testimonios to arrive at key findings. Key findings explained the what, the why, and how these participants overcame insurmountable barriers and succeeded in their doctoral science programs in the United States. Families provided what was needed in terms of finances, resources, and support. Regardless of specific traditional religions or spirituality, faith gave strength and provided endurance to all participants during crisis. Support from academic advisors, research supervisors, faculty, and mentors were the number one factor for retention and student success for female international STEM and doctoral health science students in the United States. The role of peers was important. Balance also played an important role in the success of international doctoral females in the sciences. The most resilient group was high risk students. The participants persevered due to personal, social, and institutional factors. Participants underwent a process of transformation to create their new doctoral and scientific identities. Findings from Testimonios revealed that participants contributed human capital, and suffered cultural dissonance, discrimination, sexual harassment, and gender, cultural, and class microaggressions. Universities in the United States can provide “safe spaces” on their campuses to serve as refuge centers that deliver a sense of belonging and support for those international female doctoral science students who suffer from discrimination, alienation, and/or microaggressions. Universities must provide safe methods, formal and informal, to report sexual harassment and provide fair and equitable access to resources for all employees and doctoral students. They must create policies that support faculty and doctoral students during times when family and personal life demands are overwhelming, specifically for raising young children, taking care of an ill or disabled family member, caring for elderly parents, or when in a personal crisis

Why chemistry teaching? A narrative approach

The narrative approach used in this study is a complement to larger scale quantitative studies into teacher recruitment and suggests that chemistry teachers’ relationship with the subject and prior teaching experience can have a large part to play in them entering the profession, whilst the influence of their own teachers is more nuanced than the wider literature suggests. There have been recent international concerns over teacher recruitment and attrition rates, especially in mathematics and the physical sciences. Much has been written about the recruitment of student teachers and the reasons people give for going into teaching, but little on the broader context of these people’s lives and the complex influences on their career decisions. This study concerns eight current UK chemistry teachers and their stories of becoming teachers. These are told through interviews and examine twin research areas: namely, the key influences on becoming a teacher, and what can be learned about teacher recruitment from considering the narratives of teachers at different points in their careers. Two analytic lenses were used for these eight narratives: a broadly inductive thematic analysis and a broadly deductive analysis, using the psychoanalytical idea of the defended participant and attempting to ‘read between the lines’. These lenses were used to both exemplify and challenge each other, providing triangulation of interpretation. Results align with that of the broader literature that family background and interest in, and utility of, studying chemistry influence career life decisions, but that some people experience moments where their career trajectory changes towards teaching whereas others followed a smooth path towards this end. Particularly influential appears to be prior teaching experience which led to changes of trajectory for some of the participants in this study. The narrative approach used complements current perspectives on teaching recruitment as it seeks to consider the wider picture of a person’s life and, through a defended participant perspective, exposes influences that may not have been obvious to the participants themselves

Dimensions of belonging : rethinking retention for mature part-time undergraduates in english higher education

This thesis critiques and re-imagines a dominant narrative of contemporary English higher education: that belonging is critical to student retention and success (Thomas 2012). It does so through a qualitative multiple case study of four English higher education institutions, and in relation to mature part-time undergraduates, peripherally positioned in the sector. Institution-centric definitions and measurements of retention are incompatible with the complex lives of a diverse part-time student cohort, as are uniform concepts of belonging which rely on a common understanding of what belonging is (Mee and Wright 2009), and which are modelled on a ‘typical’ young, full-time undergraduate. Drawing on spatial, psychosocial and psychogeographical ideas, the thesis maps a wider and more nuanced territory of retention and belonging in English higher education, rethinking retention and belonging as contested and dimensional. Belonging in higher education is theorised through concepts of space and power, and within the framework of a borderland analysis (Abes, 2009) which thrives on complexity, and which values both synergies and productive tensions in the interdisciplinary spaces between distinct theoretical approaches. Bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’: habitus, capital and field; Brah’s concepts of diaspora and diaspora space and Massey’s spatial concepts are combined to conceptualise each case study institution as a site of power and knowledge in which dominant identities are constructed and construct ‘the other, resulting in different experiences of belonging in the space of HE. Bespoke research methods enable the researcher to practise spatiality in a highly active manner (Massey, 2005) and the findings disrupt the dominant narrative of belonging and retention, emphasising instead a rich territory of the in between: of persistence and shared ownership, and of belonging for mature part-time undergraduates as a complex, negotiated process in the contested space of higher education

Placing the Academy: Essays on Landscape, Work, and Identity

Twenty-one writers answer the call for literature that addresses who we are by understanding where we are--where, for each of them, being in some way part of academia. In personal essays, they imaginatively delineate and engage the diverse, occasionally unexpected play of place in shaping them, writers and teachers in varied environments, with unique experiences and distinctive world views, and reconfiguring for them conjunctions of identity and setting, here, there, everywhere, and in between.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1019/thumbnail.jp