Search

An abundance of literature has examined barriers to women’s equitable representation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, with many studies demonstrating that STEM fields are not perceived to afford communal goals, a key component of women’s interest in future careers. Using Goal Congruity Theory as a framework, we tested the longitudinal impact of perceptions of STEM career goal affordances, personal communal and agentic goal endorsements, and their congruity on persistence in science from the second through fourth years of college among women in STEM majors in the United States. We found that women’s intent to persist in science were highest in the fall of their second year, that persistence intentions exhibited a sharp decline, and eventually leveled off by their fourth year of college. This pattern was moderated by perceptions of agentic affordances in STEM, such that women who believe that STEM careers afford the opportunity for achievement and individualism experienced smaller declines. We found that higher perceptions of communal goal affordances in STEM consistently predicted higher persistence intentions indicating women may benefit from perceptions that STEM affords communal goals. Finally, we found women with higher agentic affordances in STEM also had greater intentions to persist, and this relationship was stronger for women with higher agentic goals. We conclude that because STEM fields are stereotyped as affording agentic goals, women who identify interest in a STEM major during their first years of college may be drawn to these fields for this reason and may benefit from perceptions that STEM affords agentic goals.

Mentorship can be part of the solution to developing a more diverse global scientific workforce, but robust longitudinal evidence is limited. Developmental mentor network theory can advance our understanding of the impact of a wide range of mentors across social contexts by distinguishing between the content of mentorship support (eg career support) and the structural characteristics of an individual’s mentor network (eg density of connections among mentors). We tested the influence of mentor network characteristics on longitudinal social integration into earth and environmental sciences, as indicated by science identity development (a key indicator of social integration) and STEM graduate school applications, in a sample of 233 undergraduate women at 9 universities in the U.S. Findings indicate that belonging to close-knit, larger, and skill-focused mentorship networks creates a “sticky web” of social connections, providing information and resources that increase retention of college women in the earth and environmental sciences.

Diversity in the geosciences is low despite efforts to improve the representation of different groups in society, for example in terms of gender. Specifically, women are underrepresented in recruitment and retention at every stage of the academic to professional pipeline. Mentoring programs can improve women’s motivation and persistence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) career pathways. However, mentorship programs consist of multiple components that vary in complexity and cost, which can limit scalability. Here we present results from a randomized experiment with 158 undergraduate women majoring in a geoscience field to identify the critical elements of a successful mentorship program. The combination of three factors was necessary to increase mentoring, motivation, and persistence: inspiration through exposure to geoscience careers via female role models, inoculation through training on how to grow their mentor network and overcome obstacles, and an introduction to a local female geoscientist mentor. To retain women in geoscience careers, exposure to role models, training on network growth and introduction to mentors in combination improve outcomes for undergraduates, according to a randomized intervention experiment.

Individuals with substance use disorders are besieged by stigma, within their community and also the broader social context. This stigma may also pervade interactions with health care professionals, preventing individuals with SUD from seeking treatment for medical and/or psychiatric conditions. Given the current opioid crisis, providers must be equipped with the skills to diagnose and treat individuals with SUD, as well as the ability to communicate in an empathic, nonjudgmental manner. While training in addictions has often been absent from medical school curriculum, increasing numbers of programs are incorporating such training. Simulation methods have been underutilized in mental health and addiction training. The present study sought to examine learner knowledge, perceptions, and confidence in treating patients with SUD and build upon existing findings regarding the utility of simulations in addictions. Although research in this area is scant, the existing evidence supports the value of simulations to enhance clinical skills, learner confidence, and perceptions of individuals with SUD. Results of the present pilot study appear to support previous findings. Simulation training methods appear to be a viable option to train providers to identify and treat individuals with SUD, while potentially combating stigma and increasing provider confidence and empathy.

Background and objectives Current methods of classifying individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) result in vast heterogeneity among persons within a given diagnosis. These approaches, while clinically allowing for distinctions between patient groups, are less than ideal when attempting to recruit a neurobehaviorally defined subset of subjects into clinical trials. To address this gap, alternative strategies have been proposed, including behavioral phenotyping. The NIDA Phenotyping Assessment Battery (PhAB) is a modular package of assessments and neurocognitive tasks that was developed for use in clinical trials. The goal of the present study is to assess the feasibility of the NIDA PhAB with regard to ease of administration and time burden. Methods Healthy controls, persons with cocaine use disorder (CocUD), opioid use disorder (OUD), cannabis use disorder (CanUD), and combined opioid and cocaine use disorder (OCUD) were recruited from various sources (N = 595). Participants completed screening and one to three assessment visits. Time to complete the measures was recorded and a satisfaction interview was administered. Results Of the participants enrolled, 381 were deemed eligible. The majority of eligible participants (83%) completed all assessments. The average completion time was 3 hours. High participant satisfaction ratings were noted, with over 90% of participants endorsing a willingness to participate in a similar study and recommend the study to others. CONCLUSION AND SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE: These findings corroborate the ease with which the PhAB may be easily incorporated into a study assessment visit without undue participant burden. The PhAB is an efficient method for behavioral phenotyping in addiction clinical trials. (Am J Addict 2021;00:00-00).

Women are a growing percentage of undergraduate and graduate students in the atmospheric sciences, yet they remain a minority in senior positions. One approach for the retention of women is increased mentoring, which is linked to successful promotions, higher incomes, and greater career satisfaction. Informal peer networking is a form of mentoring that may be effective for underrepresented groups. The Earth Science Women’s Network (ESWN) was established in 2002 with the mission to promote career development, build community, provide informal mentoring and support, and facilitate professional collaborations for early career women in the Earth sciences. Over time, ESWN has developed a mentoring philosophy that has reduced some barriers and challenges that women face in traditional mentoring relationships. The five main principles of the ESWN’s mentoring philosophy have evolved to include community-driven mentoring, diverse mentoring approaches for diverse individuals, mentoring across career phases, combined personal and professional mentoring, and effective mentoring in a safe space. Surveys of ESWN members report gains in areas that are often considered barriers to career advancement, including recognition that they are not alone, new understanding of obstacles faced by women in science, and access to professional resources. These gains have been accomplished through online and in-person ESWN activities guided by the ESWN’s mentoring philosophy. Understanding the success of the ESWN, as well as its limitations, has the potential to inform the larger atmospheric science community of additional strategies to improve mentoring and retention of women in the atmospheric sciences.

Early results of a program to foster the careers of women entering the geosciences demonstrate the effectiveness of several specific factors.

Women are underrepresented in a number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Limited diversity in the development of the STEM workforce has negative implications for scientific innovation, creativity, and social relevance. The current study reports the first-year results of the PROmoting Geoscience Research, Education, and SuccesS (PROGRESS) program, a novel theory-driven informal mentoring program aimed at supporting first- and second-year female STEM majors. Using a prospective, longitudinal, multi-site (i.e., 7 universities in Colorado/Wyoming Front Range & Carolinas), propensity score matched design, we compare mentoring and persistence outcomes for women in and out of PROGRESS (N = 116). Women in PROGRESS attended an off-site weekend workshop and gained access to a network of volunteer female scientific mentors from on- and off-campus (i.e., university faculty, graduate students, and outside scientific professionals). The results indicate that women in PROGRESS had larger networks of developmental mentoring relationships and were more likely to be mentored by faculty members and peers than matched controls. Mentoring support from a faculty member benefited early-undergraduate women by strengthening their scientific identity and their interest in earth and environmental science career pathways. Further, support from a faculty mentor had a positive indirect impact on women's scientific persistence intentions, through strengthened scientific identity development. These results imply that first- and second- year undergraduate women's mentoring support networks can be enhanced through provision of protégé training and access to more senior women in the sciences willing to provide mentoring support.

Estimates of the global wind power resource over land range from 56 to 400 TW. Most estimates have implicitly assumed that extraction of wind energy does not alter large-scale winds enough to significantly limit wind power production. Estimates that ignore the effect of wind turbine drag on local winds have assumed that wind power production of 2‐4 W m 2 can be sustained over large areas. New results from a mesoscale model suggest that wind power production is limited to about 1 W m 2 at wind farm scales larger than about 100 km 2 . We find that the mesoscale model results are quantitatively consistent with results from global models that simulated the climate response to much larger wind power capacities. Wind resource estimates that ignore the effect of wind turbines in slowing large-scale winds may therefore substantially overestimate the wind power resource.