Fixing STEM Workforce and Teacher Shortages: How Goal Congruity Can Inform Individuals and Institutions

Abstract

As demands increase for individuals with expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), educational institutions and workplaces seek to identify strategies to recruit and retain talented individuals in STEM pathways. We investigate recruitment and retention into the STEM workforce and into primary and secondary STEM education careers by analyzing whether a particular role allows an individual to fulfill goals. The two occupational pathways reviewed here pose different goal congruity challenges: The STEM workforce seems to lack communal (other-oriented) goal opportunities, but math and science K-12 teaching seems to lack agentic (self-oriented) goal opportunities. Restructuring educational and occupational roles to maximize the pursuit of valued goals can encourage STEM recruitment and retention.

Keywords

gender goals social roles science engineering education

Supporting both other-oriented and self-oriented goals can help solve STEM workforce and teacher shortages

Key Points

STEM and STEM education are both facing shortages in qualified workers

Both of these shortages can be understood in terms of incongruity between valued goals and what these roles offer

STEM workforce would benefit from increased value and visibility of opportunities to connect to or help others

STEM teaching would benefit from increased autonomy and respect

Policies aimed at increasing STEM-focused workers can improve perceptions and reality of goal fulfillment opportunities

Introduction

As demands increase for individuals with expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), educational institutions and workplaces seek to recruit and retain talented individuals in STEM pathways. We investigate recruitment and retention into the STEM workforce (i.e., careers within the STEM sector) as well as in primary and secondary STEM education (i.e., teaching K-12 math and science). Shortages in both roles can be redressed through greater participation by underrepresented groups—that is, women in the STEM workforce and men in K-12 STEM teaching. Motivating their participation depends on understanding gender roles and how people perceive occupational roles to fulfill valued goals. In short, individuals seek out roles that let them pursue their goals, and if this effort is thwarted, they will opt for roles that do provide such goal fulfillment.

The goals that matter differ across individuals, group memberships, and culture: Even so, certain types of goals emerge as important, and these often cluster along two dimensions (Bakan, 1966; Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, 2005). One dimension focuses on self-oriented or agentic motives, including autonomy, independence, and power; another dimension focus on other-oriented or communal motives, including belonging, relatedness, and altruism. In different frameworks, optimal functioning is proposed to result from the balanced fulfillment of both agentic and communal goals (Bakan, 1966; Helgeson, 1994). Men and women also pursue these goals differently: Agency is associated with the traditional male role and communion associated with the traditional female role (Diekman & Eagly, 2008; Wood & Eagly, 2010). In contemporary data, the gender gap persists in communality but has converged in agency (Donnelly & Twenge, 2016; Twenge, 1997). Yet both motivational dimensions continue to matter for both men and women.

The importance of fulfilling both agentic and communal goals means that individuals will persist in social roles that fulfill these respective goals. Our analysis thus focuses on perceived opportunities that roles offer—Does a particular role allow an individual to fulfill a goal? Perceived goal congruity motivates people throughout educational and occupational pathways. At recruitment, individuals tend to enter roles that they perceive as fitting their goals. Once in the role, the actually experienced opportunities determine who is likely to stay (those who are meeting their goals or expect they will do so) and who is likely to leave (those who are not meeting their goals and do not expect that they will). Many benefits result when roles facilitate goals: Intrinsic motivation fosters well-being, persistence, and engagement in the role (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Both institutions and individuals can benefit from improving goal congruity.

What Is the Problem?

The demand for STEM specialists is growing, and the supply lags behind. We review recent data to understand the patterning of who earns degrees in STEM, who enters and stays in the STEM workforce, and who enters and stays in primary and secondary STEM education.

STEM Workforce Pathways

Recent data from the National Science Board (2016) reveal the specific challenges of increasing the supply of individuals earning STEM degrees. First, variability exists across STEM fields: Degree completion is lower in engineering and the natural sciences than in the social and life sciences. Second, shortages are most pronounced among domestic U.S. students: The United States lags far behind other countries, particularly China, in granting bachelor’s level science and engineering degrees, and the rates of doctoral degrees granted in STEM have increased for international students but not domestic students. Quite simply, more students are needed to fulfill needs in basic science and engineering pathways if the United States wants to retain its position at the forefront of science and technology. One route to meet this need is through greater recruitment and retention among underrepresented students—in particular, among women in the physical sciences and engineering. Men are overrepresented in physics and engineering, whereas women are overrepresented in the social sciences. Other STEM fields, such as the life sciences, hover around gender equality in terms of degrees granted (National Science Board, 2016).

Recent data suggest larger gender gaps in STEM recruitment than in retention. Female students are less likely than male students to intend to major in engineering or natural sciences (National Science Board, 2016). Rates of degree completion are lower than intention for everyone, and the decline is only slightly larger among women. For engineering, 13.7% of men intended and 8.9% completed; among women, 2.6% intended and 1.6% completed. For natural sciences, 15.5% of men intended, and 16.0% completed; 12.8% of women intended, and 9.9% completed (data compare 2007 intentions to 2013 completions; National Science Board, 2016). A longitudinal analysis (Chen & Soldner, 2013) followed a cohort of students entering college in 2003-2004 to understand patterns of attrition from STEM (by changing to a non-STEM major or by leaving college altogether). Controlling for other factors, women were no more likely than men to switch into a non-STEM major, and men were more likely than women to leave college without a degree or certificate. Moreover, when women progress into advanced degrees, they do not show greater attrition than their male counterparts. For example, once enrolled in graduate programs, men and women complete STEM doctoral degrees at similar rates (45% of women and 42% of men within 7 years; Sowell, Allum, & Okahana, 2015). The 7-year attrition rate actually favored women: 33% of women versus 40% of men left their doctoral programs within 7 years.

Pronounced gender gaps persist in the STEM workforce, and are not entirely explained by a lack of women with necessary aptitude or training. For example, women who have earned science and engineering degrees are more likely to enter careers in health care or education than in science and engineering (Beede et al., 2011). Upon completing degrees in STEM, women are less likely than men to enter into the academic marketplace (National Research Council, 2010). Those women who do enter the academic marketplace tend to be tenured and promoted at rates similar to men. For example, an analysis of tenure and promotion rates found that female faculty tended to be tenured and promoted at rates equivalent to their representation in the field (Kaminski & Geisler, 2012). The lone exception was mathematics, where rates of tenure were lower than would be expected given the percentage of women entering.

Even when women and men enter the same occupational role, their experience in that role can be quite different. These gender differences can arise both because of internalized motives and interests, as well as from external expectations, rewards, and punishments (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000). For example, the awards earned by male and female scientists show a gendered pattern: According to international data, female scientists are overrepresented (relative to their base rates in the fields) in teaching and service awards, whereas male scientists are overrepresented in scholarly awards (Koster, 2016).

STEM Teachers

Another shortage that is gaining attention is the lack of qualified teachers, particularly in STEM subjects. Calls to better prepare students in STEM require that teachers are themselves prepared to teach science and mathematics (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2010). Yet over time, the pipeline of those interested in teaching has decreased; students stating an intention to major in education has decreased from 9.2% in 2007 to 4.2% in 2014 (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016). Moreover, current data show that teacher shortages are largest in the areas of science and math (Dee & Goldhaber, 2017). According to recent data, 40 states as well as Washington D.C. report shortages in science teachers, and 42 states plus Washington D.C. report shortages in mathematics teachers (Sutcher et al., 2016).

Challenges to the supply of qualified STEM teachers appear both in recruitment and in retention. In recruitment, 53% of secondary schools reported openings for math teachers, and two-thirds of those reported having difficulty filling them (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). A detailed analysis of teacher attrition (Sutcher et al., 2016) reported that attrition rates in the United States are approximately 8%, which exceeds attrition rates of 3% to 4% in other high-achieving countries (e.g., Finland, Singapore). The report also includes analysis of teachers who left their jobs: 55% reported that their departure stemmed from dissatisfaction, and 28% reported that they left to pursue other careers. Many specific reasons for dissatisfaction relate directly to lack of agency: lack of opportunity for leadership or professional advancement (9%), lack of autonomy in the classroom (14%), intrusions on teaching time (18%), lack of influence over school policies and practices (13%), and dissatisfaction because of assessments and accountability measures (25%). K-12 STEM teaching, relative to other subjects, may be particularly vulnerable to teachers changing career paths: Teachers with science and math undergraduate degrees are twice as likely to leave teaching as those with other undergraduate backgrounds (Borman & Dowling, 2008; see also Guarino, Santibañez, & Daley, 2006). Retention of STEM teachers may be especially challenging because they may have other attractive employment opportunities.

Large gender gaps also emerge in who enters K-12 teaching (Guarino et al., 2006). Men’s lower participation in education, along with other communally focused roles like health care and domestic work, reflects internalized and societal gender roles (Croft, Schmader, & Block, 2015). Indeed, men make up only 24% of public school teachers (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics, 2016). Even STEM subjects are primarily taught by women: Mathematics and computer science teachers are 64.6% women, and natural science teachers are 62.4% women (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012). An opportunity parallels what emerges in STEM workforce patterns: Increasing participation of men in K-12 STEM teaching can expand the supply for this workforce. Further broadening the appeal of each set of roles to both genders can increase the supply of potential scientists, engineers, and teachers.

A Goal Congruity Perspective

Framework

Throughout their lives, individuals occupy a range of social roles—whether by virtue of their occupation, family, gender, ethnicity, or community. Each of these roles offers opportunities as well as constraints, and individuals navigate this opportunity structure by behaving in ways that fulfill different goals.

The goal congruity framework applies this logic to understand how individuals make decisions relevant to STEM pathways. People seek out careers that they anticipate will fulfill valued goals (Diekman & Steinberg, 2013; Diekman, Steinberg, Brown, Belanger, & Clark, 2017). For example, people who highly value communal goals (e.g., helping others) or agentic goals (e.g., autonomy) prefer roles that satisfy these motives. Individuals may thus be in a state of readiness that facilitates action when their motives align with opportunities in the environment (Kruglanski, Chernikova, Rosenzweig, & Kopetz, 2014). Although communal motives are highly valued as fundamental drives, communal goals and affordances are especially valued by women and other underrepresented minorities (Diekman, Brown, Johnston, & Clark, 2010; Harackiewicz, Canning, Tibbetts, Priniski, & Hyde, 2015; Smith, Cech, Metz, Huntoon, & Moyer, 2014).

Beliefs that STEM fields lack communal affordances are pervasive and consensual. Indeed, both men and women view STEM careers as providing fewer opportunities to fulfill communal goals, even as compared with other male-stereotypic careers (e.g., law, medicine), as well as female-stereotypic careers (e.g., social work, teaching; Diekman et al., 2010; Diekman, Clark, Johnston, Brown, & Steinberg, 2011). These stereotypic perceptions manifest themselves in different ways: For example, children and teachers tend to draw scientists as working alone rather than with others (Finson, 2002). In addition, scientists are viewed as possessing fewer communal traits than either men or women (Carli, Alawa, Lee, Zhao, & Kim, 2016). Because of beliefs that science and engineering do not afford communal goals, individuals who value these other-oriented goals report lower interest in physical sciences, engineering, or mathematics (Diekman et al., 2010; Morgan, Isaac, & Sansone, 2001).

This challenge can also provide an opportunity: Perceiving communal opportunities in STEM fields is associated with greater interest and motivation in STEM (see Diekman, Weisgram, & Belanger, 2015, for a review). Individuals who view STEM as promoting communal motives report greater interest in these careers (Brown, Thoman, Smith, & Diekman, 2015; Thoman, Brown, Mason, Harmsen, & Smith, 2015; Weisgram & Bigler, 2006). Contexts that emphasize collaboration or altruism as part of science or engineering can thus foster enthusiasm toward pursuing STEM (Steinberg & Diekman, 2017). For example, reading about a scientist whose work included collaborative activities (vs. independent activities) led participants to report greater positivity toward entering a science career themselves (Diekman et al., 2011). Likewise, learning about the altruistic aspects of biomedical science increased student motivation (Brown, Smith, Thoman, Allen, & Muragishi, 2015).

Simple exposure or immersion in STEM may not be adequate to increase STEM interest. To disrupt stereotypic expectations, communal experiences are necessary. Although students report engaging in both communal STEM activities (e.g., group projects) and independent STEM activities (e.g., independent research), communal experiences uniquely shaped beliefs that STEM affords communal goals and, in turn, positivity toward STEM (Steinberg & Diekman, 2017). Among underrepresented minority students participating in research groups, intent to continue in science was uniquely predicted by how much their peers held beliefs that research afforded prosocial goals (Thoman, Muragishi, & Smith, 2017). Finally, although U.S. students report less science and math instruction than do Chinese or Indian students, this quantity gap alone does not explain U.S.–India/China gaps in STEM interest. Instead, the United States also lags behind in communal engagement in math and science (Brown, Steinberg, Lu, & Diekman, 2017); these communal opportunity beliefs more strongly relate to interest in pursuing STEM careers. In these examples, including communal engagement in STEM enhanced interest, but more exposure to STEM did not.

Implications of Goal (In)congruity for STEM Workforce and Teaching Shortages

STEM workforce

The perceived lack of communality in STEM can especially deter individuals who highly endorse communal goals—and women endorse these goals more than do men. Indeed, STEM fields, and particularly physical sciences and engineering, continue to show lower rates of participation and advancement by women than other formerly male-dominated fields such as medicine or law (Diekman et al., 2010). One explanation for this gender gap in STEM is the discrepancy between the communal goals that girls and women endorse, and the perception that STEM roles do not fulfill these goals (Diekman et al., 2017).

Specific initiatives can disrupt the stereotypes that STEM fields lack communal opportunities. For example, collaborative descriptions particularly elevated the interest in pursuing science careers for women and communally oriented individuals, because the scientist role was viewed as more likely to offer valued communal opportunities (Diekman et al., 2011).

Both men and women in STEM can convey cues that their occupations afford communal goals (Clark, Fuesting, & Diekman, 2016; Fuesting & Diekman, 2017). Indeed, collaborative behaviors enacted by scientists can override the scientist’s gender in cueing opportunities for other-oriented goals. One way to disrupt stereotypes may be through shifting the emphasis from group membership (e.g., gender) to goal opportunities (e.g., communal behaviors).

STEM K-12 teaching

Understanding the goal affordances within K-12 STEM teaching can provide a useful framework to understand STEM teacher shortages. The role of K-12 STEM educator may allow occupants to engage in STEM in a way that directly provides communal opportunities but may not provide agentic opportunities. Overall, teaching (along with other female-dominated occupations such as nursing or social work) is perceived as fulfilling fewer agentic goals (e.g., independence, autonomy, and financial rewards) than other careers (Diekman et al., 2010). Understanding whether teaching attracts high-quality workers thus takes into account not only financial considerations, such as salary and benefits, but also social and motivational consideration, such as working conditions and personal satisfaction (Guarino et al., 2006).

Contributors to teacher attrition echo perceptions that teaching provides communal but not agentic opportunities (e.g., Sutcher et al., 2016). Because people value agentic goals as a fundamental dimension of human experience (Bakan, 1966), the perceived lack of agentic opportunities in teaching offers a potential explanation for lower recruitment and retention in teaching. Individuals who are agentically motivated may select out of teaching and into other occupations, particularly when they qualify for a range of paths.

A review of factors influencing teacher recruitment and retention found converging evidence that compensation policies can improve teacher recruitment and retention (Guarino et al., 2006). One analysis estimated that a loan forgiveness fellowship program that incentivized teaching in low-performance schools resulted in a 28% higher probability of entering such positions than without the fellowship (Steele, Murnane, & Willett, 2010). Similarly, a US$1,200 bonus to science and math teachers in high-poverty or low-achieving schools reduced attrition from 30% to 25% (Clotfelter, Glennie, Ladd, & Vigdor, 2008). Performance-based pay can increase recruitment of high-quality teachers (e.g., Figlio, 2002), but these policies can also attract teachers away from low-performing schools to high-performing schools; overall, this pattern could decrease retaining high-quality teachers where they are most needed (Guarino, Brown, & Wyse, 2011). Overall, although teachers frequently report prosocial reasons for entering teaching, their decisions also reflect their financial compensation (Guarino et al., 2006).

The perceived lack of agentic opportunities in K-12 teaching may particularly deter men because agency is central to the male gender role (Eagly et al., 2000; Moss-Racusin, 2014). Lower salaries can also deter men more than women because of the traditional emphasis on men’s roles as breadwinners. Moreover, gender role incongruity may be a larger factor for men’s K-12 teaching entry than women’s STEM workforce entry because of greater resistance to and stigmatization of men entering female-dominated roles (Croft et al., 2015). Efforts to increase STEM teacher recruitment and retention, then, may be more successful by increasing perceived and actual agentic possibilities within these roles, thereby encouraging participation by a wider range of people.

Policy Recommendations

A fundamental point of this analysis is that both agentic and communal goals contribute to optimal experience, consistent with what Bakan (1966) argued decades ago. If a particular role is perceived to lack opportunities for either agency or communion, that role may lose attraction—and especially so among people who highly value that particular motivational dimension. The two occupational pathways reviewed here pose different goal congruity challenges: In STEM, communal goal opportunities are perceived as lacking, and in math and science K-12 teaching, agentic goals may be perceived as lacking. Here, we provide specific policy recommendations to address these perceived (and actual) affordance disparities.

Understand Constraints and Opportunities of Specific Roles

Occupations can vary in the behaviors that they actually allow or prohibit, and occupations can vary in the behaviors that they are perceived to allow or prohibit. It is essential to understand these constraints and opportunities both from the perspective of leadership and the perspective of role occupants. Below, we delineate recommendations for integrating communal opportunities in STEM and agentic opportunities in STEM teaching. Here, we focus first on identifying and eliminating constraints that prohibit goal pursuit.

Each of these roles is demanding, and it is unrealistic to pursue more goals if individuals do not have support to meet existing requirements. In challenging roles, there simply is not time or energy to enact “extra” goal pursuit. At its core, then, this set of recommendations focuses on restructuring roles to redefine new goal opportunities as integral to motivation and persistence, rather than asking workers to do more with less. Any individual has some power to align roles with valued goals, although the ease of doing so and the strategies enacted will certainly vary across individuals and contexts. We thus offer recommendations that might reduce potential obstacles to reconstructing roles to align with goals.

Reduce burdens to allow goal pursuit. Leadership can identify ways to streamline or omit tasks that are not core to the organization’s mission; to share or automate work and materials where possible; and to provide additional staffing or resources at particularly demanding times. Reducing external pressures can allow individuals to shape their roles to fulfill their internally motivated goals.

Provide strategic supports. Institutions can provide centralized expertise to facilitate goal pursuit. For example, some school systems have adopted models of a particular specialist (a co-teacher or coordinator) developing curriculum and fostering teacher professional development (e.g., Whitworth, Maeng, Wheeler, & Chiu, 2017). This strategy can reduce burden on individual teachers’ ability to learn new advances, and it can demonstrate the passion and enthusiasm of a specialist for both students and teachers. Likewise, STEM departments might facilitate faculty outreach about their work to community groups by providing support to initiate such relationships or training in public communication.

Highlight opportunities to meet multiple goals. Many tasks can incorporate elements of both agency and communion; leaders can highlight these opportunities. For example, study groups can both meet agentic goals of completing coursework as well as social goals of connecting to others (Cantor, 1994). Likewise, doctoral students who engage in teaching (who can be viewed as “wasting” time otherwise dedicated to research) actually show improved research skills compared with doctoral students who do not engage in teaching (Feldon et al., 2011).

Ensure That STEM Roles Fit Communal Goals

A clear message from the evidence reviewed here is that simply providing more STEM exposure to students may not change student and worker choices, unless these experiences challenge stereotypes about STEM. Opportunities can highlight communal aspects of science and engineering throughout educational levels and occupational pathways. For example, an engineering activity aimed at first graders introduces basic concepts of structural engineering and design, while communicating that structural engineers build houses for people who live in communities with specific needs (Bautista & Peters, 2010). A workshop for middle-school girls framed engineering in terms of humanitarian impact (Colvin, Lyden, & León de la Barra, 2013). At the college level, a computing and engineering service-learning program was designed to enhance communal goal congruity in two ways: (a) Students were selected based on their service experience and vision, and (b) introductory computing was taught in a service-learning format along with collaborative, community-oriented programming. This initiative led to greater gender diversity in applications, admissions, and matriculation relative to local and national baselines (Brinkman & Diekman, 2016).

The power of stereotypes comes from their self-perpetuating nature: To change perceptions that STEM does not afford communal goals, institutions will need to clearly highlight and reward communal activities and purpose. For example, academic institutions can communicate the value of mentoring or community outreach in STEM fields. Majority group members in particular can play a prominent role in communicating communal affordances, because they both make up the numeric majority and frequently hold leadership positions.

Model communal activities. Leadership can model communal integration in STEM by highlighting their mentorship, community outreach, or activities related to other-oriented purpose. Modeling of communal opportunities in STEM is not limited to women; both male and female exemplars who highlight communal aspects of STEM elicit greater positivity (Clark et al., 2016; Fuesting & Diekman, 2017). Indeed, communal integration may be more powerful when modeled by individuals in positions of authority.

Formal recognition of value of communal activities. Such value is communicated not solely by praising communal activities, but by including communal activities such as mentoring, collaboration, or community outreach in performance metrics, evaluations, and promotion and tenure decisions.

Ensure That Teaching Affords Agentic Goals

Agentic goals can take several forms, including autonomy, power, or financial reward. A key step is for leadership to develop a clear understanding of what aspects of agency teachers most value. Compensation packages can make a difference to whether teachers enter and stay in demanding teaching roles (Guarino et al., 2006). Other agentic goals, including autonomy or achievement, also matter: As noted above, the most frequent sources of dissatisfaction among those who had left teaching included administration problems, intrusions on teaching time, and perceived lack of autonomy (Sutcher et al., 2016).

Provide room for autonomy. Local, state, and national leadership need to provide teachers with the flexibility to practice their professional skills and to make their own decisions. Even the ability to make small decisions throughout the day might contribute to the sense of autonomy that is reported as lacking currently. Understanding how to “nudge” individuals toward more effective outcomes might allow the balance of top–down direction with the preservation of autonomy (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009).

Accord status and respect. Status and respect can be signaled in a range of ways. Although teachers may not be primarily motivated by financial concerns, providing financial compensation for work well done signals that the work is valued. Leadership can respect teachers by providing support for professional development, working on individualized plans and strategies, trusting their professional opinions, and working with school communities.

Conclusion

Restructuring educational and occupational roles to maximize the pursuit of valued goals can reap a range of benefits. When individuals have the autonomy to pursue their valued goals, greater intrinsic motivation, engagement, and well-being result (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Understanding how particular institutions can highlight and harness these motivations yields benefits for both the institution and the individuals.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This writing of this article was partially supported by NSF/GSE award 1232364 to the first author.

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Fixing STEM Workforce and Teacher Shortages: How Goal Congruity Can Inform Individuals and Institutions

Abstract

Keywords

Tweet

Key Points

Introduction

What Is the Problem?

STEM Workforce Pathways

STEM Teachers

A Goal Congruity Perspective

Framework

Implications of Goal (In)congruity for STEM Workforce and Teaching Shortages

STEM workforce

STEM K-12 teaching

Policy Recommendations

Understand Constraints and Opportunities of Specific Roles

Ensure That STEM Roles Fit Communal Goals

Ensure That Teaching Affords Agentic Goals

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

References