CAREER: Examining the Supply, Qualifications, and Career Paths of STEM Teachers

STEM teachers play instrumental roles in shaping students' STEM learning experiences and aspirations. This CAREER research has several broad impacts: national policy, national and local recruitment strategies, and student access to educational opportunities. In the course of this CAREER award the principal investigator (PI) will carefully investigate the STEM teacher pipeline, and examine qualifications from teacher candidates who express interest in teaching STEM through to the eventual career paths of teachers in the workforce. In doing so, the project examines how the supply of STEM teachers has changed over time, whether the supply is adequate in meeting the needs of a changing nation, the qualifications and credentials of STEM teachers, and the implications of the STEM teacher career paths for equity and serving high needs contexts and students. The PI will use multiple extant data sets at the national level as well as data from the State of Kansas to support both national and local inferences.

The project contributes to the STEM pipeline research by examining STEM teachers in several novel and important ways. Using regression and multi-level regression analyses, the PI will examine the early STEM teacher pipeline: undergraduate and graduate students who express an interest in STEM teaching. Second, the PI will provide the most current investigation into STEM teacher qualifications, credentials, turnover intentions, and actual turnover using up-to-date nationally representative data. Third, the PI will explore how STEM teacher qualifications, credentials, turnover intentions, and actual turnover have changed at the national level due to the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. Fourth, using longitudinal administrative data from Kansas, the PI will examine STEM teachers in often-neglected contexts, a state from the Midwest and a state with large rural areas. Fifth, the PI will consider the career paths or mobility of STEM teachers who switch from one school to another and the characteristics of the schools where STEM teachers move to.