The Roles Parents, Educators, Industry, Community, and Government Play in Growing and Sustaining the STEM Workforce

Abstract

This study was conducted to shed light on the perspectives of business leaders regarding the roles that various stakeholder groups (parents, educators and schools, industry and community partners, and government) should play in establishing and maintaining the supply of skilled STEM workers. A field survey methodology was employed to survey over 1,000 business executives and managers located throughout the southeastern United States. Their responses to open-ended survey questions were analyzed using textual analysis with topic modeling to reveal probabilistic thematic coverage, explore factors that may lead to more STEM-capable graduates, and ultimately a sustained STEM workforce. Results indicate that business leaders envision roles for all key stakeholder groups and that finding a successful solution will require interaction among the stakeholder groups if we are to be successful in creating a sustained pipeline of STEM talent.