In academic year 2001, more than 25,000 students graduated from U.S. colleges and universities with bachelor's degrees in sociology (NSF 2003). Are these majors able to enter the science workforce as a result of the concepts, skills, non-classroom activities, and career advice that they gain as majors in the discipline? The PI proposed a two-phase survey to answer these questions. In the now-completed Phase I of the study, the PI learned that the 2005 cohort of graduating seniors strongly agreed that they had learned those hard skills that are conceptually oriented. The were less sanguine that they had obtained those hard skills that are technically oriented, those soft skills that taught them to work in diverse groups, and those mentoring relations that increased the likelihood that they could successful participate in the science work force. The PI is currently developing indicators of specific kinds of human and social capital from the array of skills questions we asked.
In the second phase of the survey of students who graduated in 2005, the PI will investigate the relationship between the hard and soft skills gained from the undergraduate major and those used in early career positions and in graduate school, relative to other factors (including race, ethnicity, gender, parent's human capital, prestige of school, and job search strategies). This 18-month project has four additional purposes. These are: (1) continue to update, make operational, and test the validity of concepts and indicators of human and social capital; (2) analyze the factors increase the likelihood of entering the science (including the social science) workforce and graduate programs: (3) provide assessment tools that sociology departments can use to measure their own students and improve career outcomes for them, especially those belonging to racial and ethnic minorities; and (4) disseminate the study results widely, build departmental capacity to conduct assessments, and to provide building blocks for future research. We expect to find that soft skills combined with social capital are equally important to hard skills, controlling for other factors.
As a result of Phase I the PI created a data set that allows for the comparison of peer sociology programs. In Phase II the PI will add to this data set to determine the factors that increase student's likelihood of science careers. These data can be used to measure and compare departmental success, to compare sociology with other disciplines, and with new bachelor's degree holders as a group (using data from the National Center for Educational Statistics' survey Bachelors and Beyond). Phase I and Phase II instruments, measures, and data will be made available to chairs for comparative purposes, to build their department's research and assessment capacity and departmental accountability to students and other stakeholders.
