Leadership in STEM — Challenges and Trajectories

Session Submission Type: Panel Discussion

Short Description

Those with jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields play vital roles in conducting research, designing and implementing technologies, and recommending global-reaching policies. STEM fields play an important role in a future characterized by disruptive technologies and increasing globalization. STEM workers will need to be equipped with leadership skills while working with such uncertainty, turbulence, and change. How can those who are concerned about leadership challenges within STEM, aim our leadership research in ways that assist in addressing them? Researchers grappling with these questions will share their current and planned research, and probing questions related to these challenges.

Detailed Abstract

Those with jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) fields play vital roles in conducting research, designing and implementing technologies, and recommending global-reaching policies. STEM fields will play an increasingly important role in a future characterized by disruptive technologies, automation, increasing globalization and the emergence of new job roles (World Economic Forum, 2016) Some may argue that in these disruptive times STEM workers will need to be equipped with leadership skills while working with such uncertainty, turbulence and change.

For some time now there have been calls suggesting that practitioners in STEM fields require leadership skills in conjunction with their discipline expertise. For example, over a decade ago in the U. S., the National Academy of Engineering (2004) argued for the importance for all engineers to understand and employ leadership principles. More recently, the National Academy of Sciences (2014) echoed similar concerns in acknowledging that traditional structures and incentives in U. S. academia (i.e, hierarchical and directorial approaches rather than the compendium of theories, skills, techniques, and approaches espoused commonly in leadership programs) are insufficient for sustaining vibrant science and engineering programs that are necessary to produce the STEM workforces needed around the globe. In the area of math within the U. S., the dependency of all the STEM disciplines on fundamental math knowledge and skills was recognized as crucial and was identified as one of the underlying challenges preventing an adequate pipeline of college students in STEM fields (The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012). Lastly, leadership skills were also recognized by the thought leaders from around the world who were asked “what is the biggest missing piece in how we educate scientists?” (Nurse, et al., 2015, p. 371).

Recent studies have concluded that there is still a great deal of work to be done to incorporate leadership education into all STEM education programs. Graham, Crawley, and Mendelsohn (2009) conduced a review of 40 international engineering leadership education programs concluding that a “surprising dearth of resources, expertise and formal networks [were] currently available in the field of engineering leadership education” (p. i). More recently, another team (Klassen, et al., 2016) conducted an examination of 15 North American university engineering leadership programs and found only three were “distinguished by their tight integration of leadership into core (technical) engineering courses” (p. 13) and only three of the programs fully conceptualized leadership as a social process rather than as an organizational position. These studies suggest that providing leadership skills in combination with an engineering education will build the capacity of forthcoming professionals to meet future challenges.

Further leadership research provides suggestions for framing leadership research in STEM education moving forward. Osbeck, Nersessian, Malone, and Newstetter (2011) detailed the ways that individual scientists working in labs formulated, maintained, and presented their intertwined identities and what comprises those identities as scientists through discourse. They found that the words “leader” and “leadership” were noticeably absent from the scientist’ identity descriptions. Similarly, while researching leadership with junior and senior engineers employed in four Canadian engineering firms Rottmann, Sacks, and Reeve (2014) found that they actively resisted discourses focused on “leadership.” One of their resulting arguments was that engineering leadership has not yet been accepted and implemented by a critical mass of practicing engineers because engineers resist traditional notions of leadership.

The multidisciplinary nature and complexity of global problems demands that those in STEM, in all nations, also possess and practice leadership skills. How can those who are concerned about these challenges within STEM, aim our leadership research in ways that assists in addressing these challenges? This panel includes researchers grappling with these challenges of leadership in STEM fields. They will share their current and planned research that is probing questions related to these challenges.

One panelist has recently examined the motivations of science students who undertook leadership education along with their science degrees. The findings indicated that the science students were primarily motivated to complete leadership education to enhance their job prospects following graduation. Leadership education was understood as a way to broaden their transferable skills beyond the technical skills developed in science. The majority of students believed that leadership education would give them greater options in an uncertain future workforce.

Another panelist’s recent study employed a distributed leadership model to examine the leadership structures, understandings, and practices within a U. S. National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored Engineering Research Center (ERC). These centers are required to employ entrepreneurial strategies to propel basic science research to generate sustainable solutions for engineering challenges. This research endeavor sought to explicate existing leadership practices, even though the participants did not often view themselves as participating in leadership processes.

Another panelist’s research in math education in the U. S., Ireland, the U.K., and South Korea focuses on the need for administrative support for secondary and post-secondary school teachers which argues that leadership development must be integrated into problem-solving approaches as students engage in the conceptual understandings that undergird future mathematics studies. This change would be a significant departure from the academic approach experienced by the majority of current mathematics teachers and their students.

The final panelist’s work is in the area of technology, which is the youngest discipline in the STEM group. The technology discipline also differs from the others because technological advances have always relied on and integrated discoveries from each of the other disciplines. Within the area of educational technology, an acceptance of and embracing the need for leadership learning seems to have been intentional at the outset. Some examples will be presented and explored. Perhaps the technology field can provide lessons learned that can benefit the other STEM areas.

Sub Unit

• Leadership Scholarship

Chair

• Jennifer L. S. Chandler, Arizona State University

Presenters

• Rowan Brookes, Monash University

• Lorne Oke, Indiana Wesleyan University

• Jim Freemyer, Indiana Wesleyan University