Explore the vast range of titles available.

In order for the United States to maintain the global leadership and competitiveness in science and technology that are critical to achieving national goals, we must invest in research, encourage innovation, and grow a strong and talented science and technology workforce. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation explores the role of diversity in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce and its value in keeping America innovative and competitive. According to the book, the U.S. labor market is projected to grow faster in science and engineering than in any other sector in the coming years, making minority participation in STEM education at all levels a national priority. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation analyzes the rate of change and the challenges the nation currently faces in developing a strong and diverse workforce. Although minorities are the fastest growing segment of the population, they are underrepresented in the fields of science and engineering. Historically, there has been a strong connection between increasing educational attainment in the United States and the growth in and global leadership of the economy. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation suggests that the federal government, industry, and post-secondary institutions work collaboratively with K-12 schools and school systems to increase minority access to and demand for post-secondary STEM education and technical training. The book also identifies best practices and offers a comprehensive road map for increasing involvement of underrepresented minorities and improving the quality of their education. It offers recommendations that focus on academic and social support, institutional roles, teacher preparation, affordability and program development.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

The United States economy relies on the productivity, entrepreneurship, and creativity of its people. To maintain its scientific and engineering leadership amid increasing economic and educational globalization, the United States must aggressively pursue the innovative capacity of all its people-women and men. However, women face barriers to success in every field of science and engineering; obstacles that deprive the country of an important source of talent. Without a transformation of academic institutions to tackle such barriers, the future vitality of the U.S. research base and economy are in jeopardy. Beyond Bias and Barriers explains that eliminating gender bias in academia requires immediate overarching reform, including decisive action by university administrators, professional societies, federal funding agencies and foundations, government agencies, and Congress. If implemented and coordinated across public, private, and government sectors, the recommended actions will help to improve workplace environments for all employees while strengthening the foundations of America's competitiveness.

Background Coaching is increasingly recognized as a valuable tool to amplify learning in undergraduate medical education (UME), yet national data on its implementation, particularly in the context of clinical skills education, remain limited. Previous survey studies on coaching in medical education have focused on select institutions with established coaching programs, leaving a gap in understanding the broader landscape of coaching in UME. This study aims to address three critical gaps: current descriptions of coaching programs across U.S. medical schools, the nature of support provided to faculty coaches in these programs, and understanding how coaching is integrated into clinical skills development. Methods A national survey was distributed to members of the Directors of Clinical Skills (DOCS) organization, targeting clinical skills educators at U.S. allopathic medical schools. The 29-item survey included multiple-choice, ranked, and open-ended questions. Responses were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, combining descriptive statistics with content and thematic analysis to explore coaching program structure, goals, clinical skills impact, evaluation practices, and faculty development. Results Of the 44 respondents, 38 completed the majority of the survey. Nearly half (47%) reported having an active coaching program, with an additional 14% planning to implement a program. Coaching commonly begins in the pre-clerkship phase (93%) and emphasizes longitudinal relationships (87%). Key priorities included professional identity formation and clinical skills development, with history-taking, presentation skills, and clinical reasoning identified as skills most amenable to coaching. Respondents highlighted coaching’s role in fostering constructive learning environments, promoting skill development, and increasing student confidence. However, variations persist in program structure, oversight, and evaluation practices between institutions. Faculty development is widely implemented, with 94% of programs offering ongoing training and 79% compensating their coaches. Communication skills were ranked as the most critical competency for coach development. Evaluation practices were varied, with most programs relying on student satisfaction surveys (69%) and formative feedback (73%). Conclusion This study provides a current national snapshot of coaching in UME through the lens of clinical skills educators. It underscores the growing recognition of coaching’s value in clinical skills development and professional identity formation. While coaching programs are increasingly supported by faculty development and compensation, variability in structure, oversight, and evaluation remains.

This book is the first comprehensive history of the development of child study during the early part of the twentieth century. Most nineteenth-century scientists deemed children unsuitable subjects for study, and parents were hostile to the idea. But by 1935, the study of the child was a thriving scientific and professional field. Here, Alice Boardman Smuts shows how interrelated movements-social and scientific-combined to transform the study of the child. Drawing on nationwide archives and extensive interviews with child study pioneers, Smuts recounts the role of social reformers, philanthropists, and progressive scientists who established new institutions with new ways of studying children. Part history of science and part social history, this book describes a fascinating era when the normal child was studied for the first time, a child guidance movement emerged, and the newly created federal Children's Bureau conducted pathbreaking sociological studies of children.

Background For many U.S. academic physicians, direct patient care is the primary focus of daily work and the most important professional responsibility. Concurrently, some degree of scholarly activity is often required for career advancement. Junior clinical faculty often face challenges that limit their success in this area such as heavy clinical workloads or other time constraints, a lack of personal expertise or experience, mentorship, and institutional infrastructure. Support systems and faculty development interventions may mitigate these challenges and contribute to increased academic productivity and promotion. The objective of this study was to perform a scoping review of literature on strategies which increase scholarly activity among junior clinical faculty in the United States to determine the extent to which this topic has been scientifically investigated, the form of the employed strategies for supporting junior clinical faculty scholarly activity, the types of scholarly activity measured, and the research methods used. Methods An online search of PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, ERIC and APA PsycINFO databases was conducted and supplemented by a manual search of references and citations. Articles published between January 1, 2012, and February 7, 2025, that described faculty development interventions designed to increase scholarly productivity of junior clinical faculty in the United States were included. We employed a structured data extraction algorithm, extracted data in dyads, and resolved any inconsistencies using a third extractor. Included publications were categorized by the primary intervention strategy they employed. Results Eighteen publications are included in this scoping review. The most common primary strategies for supporting scholarly activity were peer-mentoring (5/18, 28%) and traditional mentoring (5/18, 28%). Other strategies included grants and funding (4/18, 22%), faculty development and training (2/18, 11%), and protected time (1/18, 6%). Two of the 18 publications included a control group. Conclusions Mentoring was the most common strategy to support scholarly activity of junior clinical faculty followed by faculty development programs. Scholarly activity is often measured by publications, grant funding, and presentations. A major gap in the current literature is the absence of any high-quality research demonstrating a beneficial effect on the scholarly activity of junior clinical faculty.

Background Despite the growth of coaching in medical education, many questions remain about the process of becoming a coach for medical students. We sought to understand the process through which faculty acclimated to this new role, and what benefits and challenges they experienced. Methods A multi-phase qualitative focus group study was conducted with 20 faculty at one medical school in the United States during the initial year coaching was implemented. Focus group transcripts were analyzed using the constant comparative approach to inductively identify themes from the data. Results Four main benefits were reported by faculty: student guidance, identifying student issues early, helping students develop work-life balance, and fostering clinician connectivity, which was seen as benefitting both students and faculty. The two main challenges were uncertainty regarding how adaptive the coaching sessions should be, and difficulty engaging in some of the roles simultaneously, like mentoring and supervision. Conclusions Schools that develop academic medical student coaching programs should design faculty support around coaching and recognize that the process of becoming a coach may not be or feel straightforward for faculty. Overall, faculty found coaching to be rewarding despite challenges they experienced.

To better understand disparities between Latino and White children with autism or other developmental disabilities (ASD/DD), we examined whether Latino ethnicity predicted the number of specialty care services received by children with severe functional limitations depending on medical providers' responses to parents' initial concerns about their child's development. Through linkage of the Pathways and NS-CSHCN datasets, we found ethnic disparities in the receipt of specialty services associated with providers' responsiveness to parent-reported concerns among children with ASD/DD. Among children with significant functional limitations, Latino children whose parents received passive/reassuring responses from their providers were less likely to receive specialty services than White children with ASD/DD. Providers' guidance to parents may be a promising point of intervention for future disparity reduction efforts.

A sample of 43 Mississippi school counselors was surveyed regarding resources they use in career counseling, as well as resources they believe are effective in informing students about STEM careers, particularly the geosciences. Participants were asked a number of questions about their knowledge and perceptions about STEM majors and careers. The purpose of these questions was to determine what differences, if any, exist between perceptions about geoscience careers or majors (including geology, meteorology, and geoscience) and other STEM fields (including biology and engineering). As in previous studies, significant gaps were detected in participants' perceptions about geology and meteorology careers compared to biology and engineering careers. These included perceptions about whether a career offers opportunities to help people, help the environment, or make a lot of money, and whether it is easy to find a job in that field. Participants' self-assessed knowledge of geoscience careers was also lower than their self-assessed knowledge about biology and engineering careers. The results suggest that greater efforts are required to increase awareness of the geosciences at the high school level. Finally, participants indicated the best way to provide them information about geoscience careers was through guest speakers, followed by websites. To help determine how school counselors could help further efforts to enhance diversity in the geosciences, responses were explored based on the percentage of minority students at the participants' schools. The results indicated few differences could be explained by school demographics.