RL2023-2
Access to and Use of the Trajectories into Early Career Research Data Set: An 8-Year Longitudinal Mixed Methods Data Set of Biological Sciences Ph.D. Students
Thursday, June 15, 2023  

David Feldon, Utah State University 

Kaylee Litson, Utah State University

The Trajectories into Early Career Research dataset contains 8 years of surveys (biweekly and annual), interviews, and performance-based data from a national cohort of 336 Ph.D. students who matriculated into U.S. biological sciences programs in Fall, 2014. These deidentified data will be publicly released on the Open Science Framework data repository in 2023. This course will (1) teach participants how to access data and documentation, (2) introduce the instruments, interview protocols, and data formats, (3) provide instruction and code to prepare data for analysis, and (4) facilitate discussions of participant-identified research questions and analytic techniques.  

The course consists of an overview lecture introducing the data set and major study findings to date, live demonstrations and hands-on practice accessing and structuring data. We recommend (but do not require) participants have data analysis software readily available. Participants will leave the course with downloaded, pre-processed data appropriate to their research questions/methods, reference materials to support future data access and analysis, and copies of literature reporting key methods and findings from the data set.

The course is geared toward graduate students and early-mid career scholars—especially those whose access to data was disrupted by the pandemic—with interests in postsecondary education, transitions into STEM careers, adult learning and motivation, research training, and/or longitudinal or mixed methods analytic techniques.