Scaling up a life sciences college career exploration course to foster STEM confidence and career self-efficacy

ABSTRACT

Background

The role of career interventions and their impact on students’ sense of self and preparation for careers in STEM fields is an underexplored teaching and research area within STEM education.

Purpose

The purpose of our mixed-methods study was to examine how a life sciences career exploration course at a large public research university in the United States fostered undergraduates’ STEM confidence and career self-efficacy. Guided by a STEM persistence framework, we also sought to establish the analytical value of including a career exploration course to the toolbox of practices, including early research experiences, active learning, and learning communities, that drive increased STEM confidence and motivation.

Sample

Our study drew on a select sample of final course portfolios (N = 25) and pre-course and post-course survey data (N = 429).

Design and methods

We utilized a mixed-methods approach and employed both quantitative and qualitative data analysis to demonstrate how a highly-structured and deliberate pedagogical approach to STEM career exploration increased students’ satisfaction with their choice of career path, confidence in staying in their major, confidence in their ability to obtain a job and/or apply to graduate school, and their career self-efficacy.

Results

The results indicated that students benefited from exposure to diverse career pathways and opportunities to practice the skills needed for conducting career research and making career decisions.

Conclusion

We find that the structured career course we investigated in this study can serve as a model for institutions interested in offering a large-enrolment STEM career exploration course to provide students effective STEM career advice as well as aid in their development as a STEM-capable workforce.

KEYWORDS:

• STEM confidence
• career exploration
• career self-efficacy
• life sciences
• STEM career course

Developing a STEM-capable workforce

The science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational pathway plays an important role in developing a nation’s STEM workforce (NASEM 2016). As such, worries abound in the United States that the STEM degree completion rate for students entering college intending to major in a STEM field is less than 40% (PCAST 2019). While persistence in STEM continues to be an area for study and improvement (Seymour and Hunter 2019), there has also been a shift towards understanding the varying educational pathways to developing a STEM-capable workforce that expands beyond a narrow focus on degrees and credentials and recognizes the importance of developing STEM knowledge and workplace skills at all levels to support a nation’s STEM capacity (NSB 2019).

College career course interventions have been shown to have a positive impact on student persistence as measured by outcomes such as course satisfaction, selecting a major, time-to-degree, and job satisfaction (Folsom and Reardon 2003). Career courses have also been found to help students develop career self-efficacy (i.e. one’s belief in being successful at performing career-related tasks and feeling proficient in the career decision-making process) and increase their confidence and motivation to obtain career information, set goals, and plan their careers (Fouad, Cotter, and Kantamneni 2009; Reese and Miller 2006; Scott and Ciani 2008). Despite these findings, the role of career interventions and their impact on students’ sense of self and preparation for careers in STEM fields is an underexplored teaching and research area within STEM education. The purpose of our study was to examine how a life sciences career exploration course at a large public research university in the United States contributed to undergraduates’ STEM confidence and career self-efficacy. Specifically, we investigated how a course that takes a highly-structured and deliberate pedagogical approach to STEM career exploration might foster STEM confidence, a factor impacting STEM persistence (Graham et al. 2013) and an attribute needed in a STEM-capable workforce. As STEM educators, it is imperative for us to provide all of our students with the confidence, skills, and knowledge they need to be successful not only in our classrooms but once they leave the post-secondary education system and join a STEM-capable workforce.

STEM education reform

Attracting and retaining students in STEM majors is key to developing a STEM-capable workforce. In a seminal work examining why students leave STEM fields, Seymour and Hewitt (1997) used the metaphor of an ‘iceberg’ wherein the problems experienced by students who departed STEM fields were merely the tip of the iceberg of larger structural problems in STEM education that all students – leavers and persisters – experienced. They described a push-pull phenomenon in which students’ decision-making processes were influenced by varying factors that pushed them away from STEM, such as frustrations with coursework, and factors that pulled them away from STEM, such as increased interest in other fields of study. Several push factors related to classroom experiences, such as faculty pedagogy, curriculum design, and student assessment practices, affected all STEM students, including those who remained in the majors and developed coping mechanisms to manage the challenges. As a result of these findings, some STEM education reform efforts have focused on a key question: ‘How may the practices of STEM education be redesigned so that they more effectively foster interest, competence, and persistence in the sciences, and secure a growing, more diverse, population of STEM-qualified graduates’ (Seymour, Hunter, and Weston 2019, 2)?

In the past twenty years, the research on STEM attrition (i.e. the percentage of declared STEM majors switching to non-STEM fields or leaving higher education prior to earning a degree) has shifted away from student deficiencies in STEM abilities to larger problems within STEM education, such as the non-inclusive culture of STEM and lack of institutional support systems (Seymour, Hunter, and Weston 2019). Researchers have found that practices including early research experiences, student-centred teaching, active learning, and learning communities, have been shown to increase both science identity and student self-efficacy about learning science, together leading to improved STEM persistence (Cromley, Perez, and Kaplan 2016; Estrada et al. 2011; Freeman et al. 2014; Hunter, Laursen, and Seymour 2007; Laursen et al. 2010; Litzler, Samuelson, and Lorah 2014; Sithole et al. 2017).

The interrelated constructs of self-efficacy and self-confidence play important roles in STEM education (Estrada et al. 2011; Litzler, Samuelson, and Lorah 2014; Rittmayer and Beier 2008; Thiry, Laursen, and Hunter 2011). Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in one’s capabilities to perform specific tasks and assignments relevant to a desired outcome (Bandura 1997; Schunk 1991). Self-confidence is informed by the degree of self-efficacy that has been experienced and refers to an overall belief in one’s ability to achieve goals and proficiently complete tasks (Litzler, Samuelson, and Lorah 2014). Self-efficacy and self-confidence have been shown to consistently impact academic performance, goal setting, interest, and engagement in STEM (Rittmayer and Beier 2008).

In order to improve STEM education for student success and retention, cognitive and motivational characteristics of self-efficacy and self-confidence at the personal level should be paired with aid at the institutional level (Cromley, Perez, and Kaplan 2016), such as academic support and learning centres, changes in instructional policies related to course sequencing and grading practices, and early career counselling. This is particularly important during students’ first two years when they may experience decreases in self-efficacy (Cromley, Perez, and Kaplan 2016; Jones et al. 2010). Researchers evaluating the effectiveness of STEM educational interventions should consider the connections between cognitive and noncognitive factors throughout the undergraduate years.

STEM career exploration

Advising students on career possibilities in STEM fields is another component of STEM education reform efforts to nurture a STEM-capable workforce. Student services such as career counselling provide vital institutional support for STEM students (Cromley, Perez, and Kaplan 2016). Within the STEM literature, researchers have used social cognitive career theory (SCCT) as a model for better understanding factors that influence STEM career aspirations, academic achievement, and persistence (Fouad and Santana 2017; Kanny, Sax, and Riggers-Piehl 2014; Lent et al. 2018; Sheu et al. 2018). Expanding upon Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory (SCT), Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994) developed SCCT to establish a firmer link between the concept of self-efficacy and the interdependence of interest development, choice, and performance in the context of career exploration. They identified self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and goal representations as being important to career development. In a meta-analysis of self-efficacy sources and outcome expectations in STEM, Sheu et al. (2018) confirmed the predictive relationship between the two constructs and noted that interventions designed to promote STEM engagement should focus on developing skills through learning experiences (i.e. mastery experiences) as well as incorporate supportive messages (i.e. verbal persuasion), from people such as role models and mentors.

Career courses are designed to assist students with career planning and to facilitate their transition into the workforce (Folsom and Reardon 2003). Effective career courses allow students an opportunity to explore and reflect on their interests, values, skills, and personality, which can then decrease the difficulties that may be involved in career decision-making, increase students’ career self-efficacy, and improve college retention (Folsom and Reardon 2003; Fouad, Cotter, and Kantamneni 2009; Hansen and Pedersen 2012; Komarraju, Swanson, and Nadler 2014; Reese and Miller 2006; Scott and Ciani 2008). Within STEM, enrolment in career planning courses predicted retention in STEM majors and decreased negative thoughts about STEM careers (Belser et al. 2017, 2018; Prescod et al. 2018, 2019). The findings that interventions such as career courses have positive impacts on career self-efficacy, college and major retention, and career planning suggests that further research focused on these types of courses in STEM fields can contribute to a growing body of literature that will help drive the national goals of increasing STEM persistence and developing a STEM-capable workforce.

STEM persistence framework

Theoretical models such as SCT and SCCT have helped guide our understanding of the multiple cognitive and noncognitive factors that structure student performance and confidence. Furthermore, the research literature about STEM education has established the significance of investigating students’ self-efficacy and career engagement as they relate to initiatives designed to improve STEM persistence. Our study built on these efforts by examining how a career exploration course focused on life sciences careers contributed to fostering students’ STEM confidence. To guide our study, we utilized a STEM persistence framework (Graham et al. 2013) that demonstrates the relationship between confidence, motivation, and STEM persistence (see Figure 1). We chose this framework because it captures conceptual elements from SCT and SCCT, yet is presented as a streamlined model that aligns with the goals of our study. The model also incorporates practices that have emerged from STEM education research as ones that advance interest, competence, and persistence in the sciences, which are key concerns in STEM education reform efforts (Seymour and Hunter 2019).

Figure 1. STEM persistence framework adapted from Graham et al. (2013) to include a career course.

Graham et al. (2013) reasoned that to successfully increase STEM persistence, interventions should be designed to stimulate student motivation and confidence through effective pedagogical practices for increasing science learning and encouraging science identity. Self-confidence, as characterized by a belief in one’s own abilities (i.e. self-efficacy), is a driver of motivation, or the intention to take action, such as building knowledge and skills associated with STEM disciplines or self-identifying as a scientist. Early research experiences and student-centred teaching practices, such as active learning strategies (as opposed to passive lectures) and the establishment of learning communities, contribute to learning in science as well as to nurturing professional identification. The STEM persistence framework proposed by Graham and colleagues highlighted the mutually reinforcing influences of these core concepts and practices. To this model and as informed by previous research about the positive impacts of career course interventions on retention and self-efficacy (Belser et al. 2017, 2018; Folsom and Reardon 2003; Fouad, Cotter, and Kantamneni 2009; Hansen and Pedersen 2012; Komarraju, Swanson, and Nadler 2014; Prescod et al. 2018, 2019; Reese and Miller 2006), we added ‘career course’ to the centre list of constructive practices (see Figure 1). Since our study sought to examine outcomes related to the self-efficacy and self-confidence of students who completed a structured life sciences career course, this addition helped shape our analysis of data collected from the course.

Overview of a career exploration course in life sciences

Our career course, Career Exploration in the Life Sciences (course LS110), provided students with a highly-structured and systematic approach to STEM career exploration. The goals of the career course were to 1) broaden student awareness of newly emerging careers in STEM, 2) engage students in examining majors beyond a rigid pre-med track, 3) foster student discovery of best fit career pathways, and 4) motivate student persistence in STEM careers.

Designed as a learning community, rather than as a lecture class, the career course met for approximately two hours per week as a 10-week course during the academic year. Students earned two-unit pass/no pass upper-division course credit. Enrolment increased since its launch in 2015 from 24 students to a current, steady-state level of approximately 200 students per term. Students in our large-enrolment course learned the historic background of the career development process and underwent cycles of self-assessment and reflection to inform their career research and exploration process. We incorporated active learning pedagogical practices, such as think-pair-share, small group work, interactive class discussions, peer instruction facilitated by student-response systems, and worksheets, and we utilized career self-assessment tools to increase students’ awareness of their own interests, values, and skills as they relate to careers in STEM. Self-assessment results were shared with students through structured classroom activities and reflective writing assignments, and individual feedback was given by the instructor and graduate students trained to ask guiding questions, motivate and support students, and provide constructive feedback on resumes and cover letters. Based on their analysis, students hypothesized as to which career options were most aligned with their interests, values, personality preferences, and skill sets. Students also explored their career options by engaging in informational interviews, conducting strategic internet searches with recommended websites, and networking with institutional alumni and professionals from a variety of industries who were invited to participate in the course as guest speakers representing diverse STEM careers. Guest speakers shared their experiences and decisions that ultimately laid a path for many types of STEM careers. Students also practiced interviewing skills and produced and received feedback on multiple drafts of professional resumes, cover letters, and a LinkedIn profile.

Earlier we noted that some STEM education reform efforts have focused on how practices within STEM education can be redesigned to ‘more effectively foster interest, competence, and persistence in the sciences’ (Seymour, Hunter, and Weston 2019, 2). Given the goals of our course, we believed there was a valuable opportunity to examine how the pedagogical practices and learning outcomes of our course could contribute to the knowledge base of STEM education reform. Specifically, we conducted a research study to examine how this large-enrolment career exploration course that exposed undergraduate STEM students to diverse STEM careers through engagement with self-assessments, STEM professionals, and a highly-structured student-centred, pedagogical approach impacted their STEM confidence and career self-efficacy. Drawing upon data from surveys and course assignments, our study addressed the following research questions: 1) What are students’ expectations of the course? 2) What are students’ perspectives about the value of the course? 3) How did students’ self-confidence and career self-efficacy change over the duration of the course?

Materials and methods

Study population

The course was piloted in summer 2015 and began being offered at least once or twice per academic year in 2016. From 2016–2019, nearly 900 students enrolled in LS110 (Table 1). Throughout the course’s history, formative assessment data was collected to inform course improvements. Table 1 highlights the enrolment population in terms of demographics.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics for LS110 career course with distributions shown as percentages of total enrolment in 2016–19 (N = 894).

Binary Gender	%
Female	69.5
Male	30.5
Class Standing
1^st/2^nd Years	51.8
3^rd/4^th Years	48.2
Race/Ethnicity
American Indian/Alaskan Native; Black/African-American^∞	5.3
Asian or Pacific Islander	36.0
Chicanx/Latinx	23.7
White	25.4

^∞We report these categories together in order to protect student confidentiality due to the small population size.

Data sources

This study utilized two sources of data: final career portfolio assignments and self-report surveys. The portfolios were designed to allow students to apply the concepts and skills gained from the course to complete the steps necessary to apply for a job, internship, or research program in their area of interest. The assignments were collected as a normal part of the course curriculum by the instructor and were shared with the research team after each term. Survey data collection occurred electronically during the first and last week of each term. Prior to Fall 2017, surveys were administered by the course instructor (R.K., author). Starting in Fall 2017, surveys were administered by an external evaluator on the research team. This study has been approved by our university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB# 17–000924).

We developed pre- and post-course survey instruments with items intended to measure students’ self-confidence, satisfaction with their career path, likelihood to stay in STEM majors, confidence in ability to gain and use skills essential to a successful career search, and self-awareness of career interests. The survey items were also designed to capture the learning objectives for the course, which included: build a resume and cover letter, conduct an informational interview, perform labour market research on career options, effectively communicate results of career research, discover internship and research opportunities and how to access them, and apply self-assessment feedback to explore and clarify career paths. The post-course survey also allowed students to reflect on aspects of the course and what they learned during the 10-week term. The surveys utilized both closed- and open-ended questions.

Data analysis

We utilized a mixed-methods approach and employed both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. First, we ran descriptive statistics on closed-ended questions to obtain a basic understanding of students’ self-reported sense of confidence and satisfaction. Then, to assess differences between students’ satisfaction with their selected career path and their levels of confidence before and after the course, we compared means using paired samples t-tests. Since data from Fall 2016 to Spring 2017 did not have pre/post-surveys that could be linked, we excluded those terms from our quantitative analyses. Given these exclusions, the linked pre/post data included in this study were collected from five terms of LS110: Fall 2017, Winter 2018, Spring 2018, Winter 2019, Spring 2019. The total sample size for the quantitative data was 429 students, which corresponded to a 74.6% survey response rate.

Preliminary qualitative data analysis followed an inductive approach and descriptive codes were developed based on topics that emerged from the data (Merriam 2002). Subsequent iterative coding and analysis involved a multi-step process of reviewing responses, coding and recoding the data, and organizing the material into meaningful groups followed by themes as guided by the preliminary findings and the theoretical framework (Creswell and Creswell 2018; Saldaña 2009). We coded and analysed responses to five open-ended questions on the pre- and post-course surveys. Since our qualitative analysis followed a thematic approach, we did not isolate our sample to only linked pre/post data with unique identifiers. Rather, we coded open-ended data available from Winter 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Winter 2018, and Spring 2018. At the conclusion of preliminary analysis for the Spring 2018 term, we determined we had reached data saturation (Bowen 2008), and therefore limited our qualitative data sample to these five terms. The total number of responses to the open-ended questions ranged from 132 to 529 participants. We also reviewed a random subset of five final career portfolio assignments from each of the five terms (N = 25). Based on this review, we further analysed a micro-subset of portfolios from the Spring 2018 term (N = 5) and wrote impression memos (Miles and Huberman 1994). These memos focused on students’ course and career goals and what they learned about themselves and the things that would make their careers meaningful and significant.

Overall, our results from the quantitative and qualitative survey data and the course assignments triangulate each other (Creswell and Creswell 2018). Specifically, the findings from three of the open-ended questions we analysed and the impression memos from the course assignments added meaningful context to the types of outcomes we expected students to achieve from taking the course. The qualitative findings are presented here as an expository complement to the quantitative results (see Supplementary Data for numerical response rates for the qualitative survey data).

Results

We postulated that participation in a structured career exploration course would improve students’ self-awareness, self-confidence, and career self-efficacy with respect to staying in STEM majors and pursuing STEM careers. We begin with a narrative of qualitative findings regarding student anticipation and expectations prior to taking the course to demonstrate shifts in perspectives, then report data regarding ratings of career satisfaction, confidence and career self-efficacy to substantiate the impact of the course.

Course expectations and self-awareness of interests

In anticipation of the course and what they might gain from it, students were asked in the pre-course survey to describe anything they would like the instructor to know about them, their previous experiences, or their hopes for the course. Results indicated that they hoped to ‘learn more about myself’ and ‘find out what interests me’. Some students also specified a desire to find a way to balance, integrate, or leverage seemingly divergent interests in their science-related academic studies and their other academic interests or extracurricular activities in fields such as arts, business, law, and social sciences. Overall, the prospect for self-assessment, the possibility of increasing their self-confidence, and the opportunity for discovering their interests were objectives that students expected to achieve from taking the course (Supplementary Tables 1–6).

Prior to the course, students also expressed a desire for greater clarity about the career options and opportunities available to them. They wanted to keep their options ‘open’ and wanted more exposure to careers they had not considered before or did not know about. They also wanted to know what paths they could pursue with degrees in life sciences/science, as well as information about less conventional paths beyond medicine and healthcare (particularly options besides ‘becoming a doctor’). Students reported feeling ‘lost’ and ‘uncertain’ about their futures. They expressed anxiety about their potential careers, questioned their chosen paths and goals, and worried about obstacles that might impede their opportunities and plans (Supplementary Tables 1–6). Perhaps as a means of managing this anxiety, students responded they hoped the course would help specify their career path and provide them with a concrete plan to follow for their chosen occupations or for their careers in general. Students also responded that they hoped the course would provide reassurance for their career decision.

STEM career path satisfaction and self-confidence

Some of the uncertainties and anxieties felt by students prior to the course seemed to have been mitigated by the course. Paired sample t-test results indicated a statistically significant positive shift in their level of satisfaction with their choice of career path (see Table 2). This change in students’ satisfaction with their chosen career path after the course suggested that students are comfortable with their decision and feel a sense of gratification in their choice. Furthermore, when asked to rate their level of confidence about staying in their STEM major, paired sample t-test results indicated a significant positive shift in their level of confidence in staying in their major (Table 2).

Table 2. Change in satisfaction with career choice and change in confidence with staying in major, obtaining an internship/job, research experience, or applying/going to graduate/professional school (N = 427).

	Pre		Post
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Sig
If you have chosen a specific career path, how satisfied are you with that choice?	2.67	0.806	3.06	0.742	***
How confident are you that you will stay in your major?	3.12	0.981	3.30	0.914	***
How confident are you in your ability to obtain an internship, research experience, or apply to graduate/professional school?	2.06	0.840	2.69	0.783	***
How confident are you that you will be successful in obtaining a job (or going on to graduate school) after completing your degree at UCLA?	2.22	0.822	2.76	0.777	***

***p < 0.001

When students were asked to reflect on the impact of the course, 41.2% of respondents indicated that the course increased their confidence about their major and 33.5% reported the course increased their confidence to complete their Bachelor’s degree in their major (see Figure 2). Although 6–9% of students reported a decrease in confidence on either survey item, a decrease in student confidence is not necessarily a concern. One goal of the course was to help students clarify their STEM career options, which may cause some students to leave the class feeling less confident in their original STEM-related aspirations, but perhaps more confident in pursuing other options or more comfortable not yet knowing their career path. During the course, we reassured students and emphasized that this latter outcome was perfectly normal and continued career exploration is an expected part of the college experience.

Figure 2. Impact of the career course on confidence about and completion of degree in the major (N = 427).

Our qualitative findings offer additional context to the confidence data reported by students. After the course, students identified a number of lessons they learned about making one’s career or major meaningful (Supplementary Tables 7–9). Most commonly brought up was understanding the importance of career fit and factors such as values, interests, personality, and skills. Students noted the ‘eye-opening’ course provided them with the space and tools to assess themselves. In addition to becoming more self-aware, students reported feeling more confident about being proactive, taking risks and exploring interests, and setting achievable goals. Students also found comfort in knowing that being uncertain about their future was ‘normal’ and that ‘the path to individual success is not a linear path’, as supported by the increase in satisfaction with their choice of career path.

Evidence of career self-efficacy

During the career course, students engaged in a variety of activities intended to help them develop professional skills essential to the successful career exploration process; these included meeting career counsellors, completing self-assessments, conducting informational interviews, developing a resume and cover letter, and using online resources to do career research. These types of activities represented a career search mastery experience (Bandura 1986), and post-survey results demonstrated that students increased their practice of these skills by 20 to nearly 80 percentage points (see Table 3).

Table 3. Percentage of survey respondents who completed career-related skills before taking the course, after completing the course, and the percent change for each skill (N = 424).

Activities	% Pre	% Post	% Change
Used online resources to research a job or career	73.3	95.3	+22.0
Revised or developed a resume	69.3	97.7	+28.4
Revised or developed a cover letter	31.1	97.0	+65.9
Interviewed a professional to learn specifics about their job or industry	15.2	94.1	+78.9
Taken a self-assessment tool to learn about my values, skills, personality or interests	36.1	96.3	+60.2
Visited the UCLA career centre	34.4	66.7	+32.3

Our qualitative analysis also affirmed students’ reported substantive gains in professional development and job-seeking skills after the course (Supplementary Tables 7–9). Students noted that the course assignments were very effective for producing tangible materials. For example, one student responded, ‘It pushed me to create a strong resume and cover letter that I think I would not have worked on, if it wasn’t for this class!’ Students also identified the creation of a LinkedIn profile, strategies for connecting with professionals, the importance of informational interviews, and professional etiquette such as sending thank you and appreciation follow-ups as other useful tools that they learned from the class. The attainment of increased professional and practical knowledge provided students with an improved skill set for achieving short-term goals of finding internships and jobs.

In addition to the development of career research skills, paired samples t-test results indicated students also had a statistically significant positive shift on two career research-related measures: 1) ability to obtain an internship, laboratory research experience, or apply to graduate/professional school and 2) ability to be successful in obtaining a job (or going on to graduate school) after completing their degree (see Table 2). The qualitative findings also illuminated that along with an increased awareness of career possibilities, students appreciated the usefulness and practicality of the class for helping them to navigate the career exploration process as well as their intended career paths. Students also noted that the course assignments were beneficial and important for motivating them to complete career-related tasks. Students emphasized that the class encouraged constant reflection about themselves and gave them agency for how to apply that self-assessment to their career decision-making.

Discussion

Our goal was to create a large-enrolment, highly-structured career exploration course that exposes life sciences students to diverse careers in STEM, encourages them to consider broader career possibilities beyond a narrow focus on a pre-med track, and increases self-awareness about their interests, values, and skills, which they then learn to apply to a life-long process of career exploration. Our hope was that these goals would dovetail with the broader aim of motivating STEM undergraduates to better understand their options for contributing to a STEM-capable workforce. We found that shifts in students’ confidence levels suggested that they felt their preparedness to navigate their academic and professional career trajectories improved as a result of the class (see Figure 2). This resulted in increased satisfaction and self-confidence in their degree aspirations and motivation to pursue a STEM career path (see Table 2). The shifts in levels of satisfaction and confidence demonstrated by our results suggested that students felt they gained clarity in their major and were open to considering a variety of options for future career choices from taking the course.

Additionally, the qualitative results indicated that students gained insight about themselves, particularly with respect to personality, values, skills, and interests (see Supplementary Tables 7–9), such that this improved self-awareness positively impacted their career self-efficacy with respect to skills needed for successful career exploration (see Table 3). For some students the course appeared to reassure them that they were already on the right track, but they still benefited in mastering the career building skills such as interviewing, networking, and communicating professionally. Overall, the course appeared effective with the goal of increasing STEM and career self-confidence and self-efficacy, and students learned that certain career paths were more or less suited to them, in addition to appreciating the significance of persistence, effort, and experience.

Theoretical and practical implications

Our study presented data from a new, STEM-focused career exploration course. From a theoretical perspective and as guided by a STEM persistence framework (Graham et al. 2013), we demonstrated the analytical value of including a career exploration course to the list of practices, including early research experiences, active learning, and learning communities, that drive increased STEM confidence and motivation (see Figure 1). These are factors that contribute positively to science learning and professional science identity, which in turn foster STEM persistence. By integrating a career course into a STEM persistence framework, we emphasized the utility of proactively managing career expectations and career self-efficacy as a way to foster overall STEM confidence. Furthermore, because our career course included the evidence-based pedagogical practices of active learning and learning communities (Tanner 2013), our study also highlighted the interdependence of career expectations and career self-efficacy to this framework. Finally, we believe the results from our study substantiated a theory-research-practice-based approach to STEM education reform efforts and the goals of increasing STEM confidence and consequently, STEM persistence.

With respect to practical implications, our study showed that undergraduate students at any level, through their course participation, gain career exploration strategies and skills with lifelong benefits to their career development process. However, we could imagine that a structured career course modelled after what we have described here for life sciences STEM majors and that is offered early in undergraduate education can provide students effective STEM career advice as well as the tools to participate in career research and support in examining their own professional identities in the short and long term, thereby aiding their development as a STEM-capable workforce. Additionally, career exploration as an intervention to mitigate STEM attrition may be especially effective for early stage college students because it includes a focus on self-exploration, and therefore is intrinsically motivating (Blustein 1989).

While our study addresses STEM education and career exploration in the US, we believe the findings may also resonate in an international context given the global importance of developing STEM-centric workforces (Feller 2011). As nations strive to develop their science and technology capacities through educational pathways and gateway courses, which are typically large, introductory courses that students take their first or second university year (Weston et al. 2019), our research demonstrates the utility of introducing students to systematic career exploration as part of their academic study and as a learning community with peers and STEM professionals. By teaching students how to initiate a life-long career development process that incorporates the use of standardized career assessment inventories and self-reflection, they will be well-positioned in their postgraduate professional lives to engage their career-decision making models as national STEM needs ebb and flow. Moreover, the structure of our course shows that higher education institutions can leverage early career exploration to highlight local STEM industries, professionals, and career opportunities.

Study limitations and future directions

Our study of the LS110 career exploration course suggests that students benefited from exposure to diverse career pathways and the opportunity to practice the career skills needed to pursue a degree and career in STEM. Nonetheless, there are several limitations to our study that need to be addressed when planning future studies of the course and its impacts on students.

One limitation is that we did not have a direct measure of persistence (e.g. retention in STEM major or graduating with a STEM degree). The student ratings of self-confidence and satisfaction are indirect measures of persistence, meaning they are noncognitive elements that are proposed to drive persistence (see the framework proposed by Graham et al. 2013; Figure 1). Furthermore, these indirect measures were derived from student self-report data at a particular time point of their academic development; students’ perceptions of themselves may change as they transition from one grade level to the next, graduate from college, and matriculate into the next phase of their career development. Future studies will involve examining institutional data such as transfer rate, degree attainment, and time-to-degree in conjunction with our survey data, as well as tracking students who complete the career course and their career trajectories.

Additionally, there are many factors that contribute to students switching out of STEM that were not examined in this study. Seymour and Hunter (2019) highlighted several areas contributing to the loss of STEM students including, but not limited to, a competitive classroom climate, poor instruction and curriculum design, and under-preparation. Our study demonstrated the positive impact of providing instruction and practice in career development and exploration, and how this experience can potentially deter the trend toward switching out of STEM; however, without addressing other institutional and structural barriers contributing to STEM attrition (Cromley, Perez, and Kaplan 2016), a career exploration course likely is not sufficient as a sole intervention. Furthermore, although our intervention was intentionally created as a credit-bearing career course and not as a co-curricular workshop, which could be offered to students by an institution’s career centre, our study did not examine how our objective of offering a large-enrolment course contributed to the types of institutional changes needed to reduce barriers to long-term STEM persistence. We imagined that a course-based structure would help to motivate students who might also have jobs outside the university or other personal commitments to complete the career course since they could earn credit towards their degree in doing so. As this course proceeds, we are tracking and surveying students over the next 5–10 years to be able to record their career trajectories and to provide insight on the relationship between their classroom experience and long-term outcomes.

Finally, a common assumption is that in order to provide students with a meaningful, deep learning experience, particularly around exploring personal characteristics and aspirations, an essential component is the class size since traditional, large lecture classes tend to be impersonal and lack a sense of community (Monks and Schmidt 2011). By instituting evidence-based active learning strategies within the context of a career exploration course, we were able to successfully scale up enrolment and achieve a number of positive outcomes. We believe that the unique combination of attaining career skills, gaining career development experiences, and being exposed to diverse STEM careers as a part of a supportive community is a model for institutions interested in providing a large-enrolment career exploration course to support and retain STEM students. Indeed, higher education institutions with an active alumni network can benefit from this type of career course as a means of bridging institutional curricular support with practicing STEM professionals who can serve as guest speakers and mentors, as well as provide students with career connections. Our course has leveraged our institution’s alumni not only to serve as models of varied pathways towards STEM careers, but also to advocate the importance of STEM knowledge and workplace skills in contributing to the development of a STEM-capable workforce.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the pioneer of this course idea, S. Smale, the instructor for its initial implementation, S. Benko, the creator of the course materials, K. Davies, as well as alumni support from A. Penner, C. Chavez and Partnership UCLA, and counselling services from the Career Center.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/02635143.2022.2083599

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education Award [1432804].