Career Construction Theory (CCT) posits that an individual’s vocational development occurs as a product of their readiness, resources, and responses to the environment in which they are situated. Thus, an individual’s ability to adapt to environmental demands is predicated on a number of complex and interwoven inter- and intrapersonal factors. This is particularly relevant to the community college student population who, relative to their 4-year university counterparts, experience disparate rates of educational barriers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to use CCT as a theoretical framework for investigating the relations among agentic characteristics (personal growth initiative and grit), barriers (perceptions of academic and educational barriers and coping with barriers), and career adaptability in a sample of diverse community college students. Data from a sample of 309 community college students indicated that perceptions of barriers significantly predicted career adaptability through coping with barriers, grit, and personal growth initiative. Serial mediation was supported for the effect of perceptions of barriers on career adaptability through personal growth initiative and coping with barriers. Results also indicated that the proposed model accounted for 55% of the variance in career adaptability. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.

This paper highlighted the diverse voices of 84 female-identifying professors in STEM fields who responded to a series of open-ended questions regarding work, family, and tenure experiences in the context of the current global pandemic. The current paper is part of a longitudinal study of the vocational experiences of tenure-track women in STEM that has examined the “leaky pipeline” in women’s academic careers. Consensual Qualitative Research-Modified (CQR-M; ) was implemented to analyze the data. The findings suggested that participants perceived the precarious balance between work and family to have increased in difficulty in the face of COVID-19. Among untenured female faculty with children, an added layer of challenge was noted related to loss of childcare in the wake of the pandemic. The pre-existing, pervasive barriers (i.e., institutional, systemic, and psychological) were further exacerbated by familial barriers for female STEM faculty seeking tenure during COVID-19. Overall, the results indicated missed opportunities within higher education to implement supportive policies for untenured female faculty in STEM. Clinical implications, future research directions, and social advocacy interventions in the context of COVID-19 are discussed.

This study used social cognitive career theory to predict the career aspirations and tenure expectations of untenured female science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) assistant professors. We hypothesized that contextual variables (perceived career barriers and institutional support for work–life balance) would directly predict career aspirations and tenure expectations. We also expected that these contextual variables would be indirectly related to career aspirations and tenure expectations through our self-efficacy variables (faculty task-specific self-efficacy and impostor beliefs). Data were collected from 214 untenured female faculty in STEM departments. Path analyses indicated that the hypothesized model was a good fit for the data. Institutional support for work–life balance produced direct and indirect pathways to career aspirations through faculty task-specific self-efficacy and an indirect pathway to tenure expectations through impostor beliefs, whereas perceived career barriers produced a direct pathway to career aspirations. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The current study set out to highlight the voices and stories of 129 female-identifying assistant professors in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) who responded to open-ended questions regarding their perceived barriers, supports, and experiences on their journey toward tenure. The current study utilized Consensual Qualitative Research-Modified (CQR-M; Spangler et al., 2012 ) for the methodology and data analysis, as the current study included a relatively large number of women and brief qualitative data. Responses fell into four domains: barriers, supports, needed resources, and miscellaneous responses. Additionally, responses were compared between women in STEM fields with higher percentages of female faculty versus STEM fields with lower percentages of female faculty, with results indicating that women in STEM fields with lower gender equality reported more gender discrimination, more difficult colleagues, and less institutional or administrative supports and policies. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.