J. Waiters? While personal income is positively linked to emotional and cognitive well-being, research has shown that there is satiation point, beyond which limited gain or even lower life evaluation is reported (Jebb et al., 2018). Multiple regression was used to examine the influence of major choice and interest fit on each well-being outcome, while controlling for demographic and individual characteristics. She aims to do just that while staying true to the specific purpose of STEM education. doi: 10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00501001.x. The rise of STEM majors and the decline of the humanities, then, could be a sign that colleges, schools, parents, a… Psychol. Humanities Report Card. But he also mastered Latin, dove into the mechanical philosophy of French philosopher René Descartes and even devoted his later years to interpretation of religious prophecies. A merger in vocational interest research: applying Holland's theory to strong's data. We propose that perception of interest fit is more important than the domain itself per se. *Correspondence: Hoda Vaziri, hoda.vaziri@unt.edu, Front. Statistics published by Eurostat in June 2017 show similar trends in subjects studied by male and female students in higher education across the EU. University of Houston. J. Vocat. First, the data used in this research is single-source and cross-sectional in nature, which limits our ability to draw causal conclusions. Behav. doi: 10.1016/0001-8791(89)90042-0. Furthermore, according to the US Department of Commerce’s Economics & Statistics Administration, women who work in STEM make 35 percent more than women in non-STEM occupations. The struggle for dominance between the two different types of educational and occupational tracks, however, misses out on the broader question of whether individuals themselves are fundamentally interested in the material at hand. Accordingly, as a society, we need to encourage adolescents and youths to make career decision not solely from an economic perspective, but from a broader, and long-term, well-being perspective, so that they can thrive and flourish. Single-source and self-report nature of the data poses some limitations as it increases the possibility of common method variance. Behav. doi: 10.1126/science.1177067, PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar. Meta-analysis of the relationship between congruence and well-being measures. (2003). But these are only temporary fixes on a small scale. Acad. Though some argue humanities are better defined not by the encompassing subjects but rather by how the field shapes those who take up its study. Even controlling for ability-related variables and personality, interest fit accounted for more variance in work satisfaction and life satisfaction, an equivalent amount of variance in financial satisfaction, and less variance in personal income. More of STEM vs STEM + Liberal Arts vs Liberal Arts, and I would clearly choose the middle option. Hypothesis 2: Interest fit is a more important predictor of well-being outcomes (i.e., work satisfaction, life satisfaction, and financial satisfaction) than educational track. 31, 319–332. As with any study, our research has some limitations that should be considered. Governors have talked about or taken steps to defund college programs that don’t lead to jobs. What is surprising, however, is that despite the recognition of the importance of fit in prior research, as a society, we are moving toward a climate in which studying in STEM majors are overemphasized, humanities majors are undervalued, and more competent individuals are channeled and pressured into STEM careers. Our research also found that perception of fit is still the most important predictor of well-being outcomes, even after controlling for the individual's personality and ability. doi: 10.1177/1745691612449021, Nye, C. D., Su, R., Rounds, J., and Drasgow, F. (2017). According to a Pew Research Center study about newsroom employee salaries, the median earning for a college graduate with an arts and humanities bachelor’s degree is about $50,000 compared to the approximate $68,000 earned by STEM majors. doi: 10.1007/s10869-014-9351-z, Tsabari, O., Tziner, A., and Meir, E. I. The emphasis on STEM programs and jobs has permeated politics, education, and the workforce system. The New York Times. Why Do the Humanities Matter? In the 1960s, Alan Ginsberg bemoaned what he saw as the dominant culture oppressing artistic creativity. The Stanford Humanities Center (2017) also asserts that “through exploration of the humanities, we learn how to think creatively and critically, to reason, and to ask questions.” In doing so, they also rely on recent studies indicating that the majority of hiring managers believe candidates' soft skills (e.g., communication skills, critical thinking, and intercultural skills), which are considered inherent in a humanities education at the highest level, are more important than their major (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2013) and as important as their technical skills (Bentley University, 2014). While regression analysis is a powerful tool to examine whether a variable predicts the outcome, it does not inform us about the relative contribution of a variable in predicting the outcome compared to the other variables in the model. Kiley, K. (2013, January 30). Available online at: https://www.humanitiescommission.org/_pdf/Hum_Report_Card.pdf (accessed October 17, 2017). The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Burning Glass Technologies. Sir Isaac Newton, for example, is known to most as the mathematician and physicist who developed the three laws of motion and law of universal gravitation. The main difference between STEM and STEAM is STEM explicitly focuses on scientific concepts. Gender gaps in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) college majors receive considerable attention, and it is increasingly recognized that not all STEM majors are equal in terms of gender disparities ([ 1 ][1]–[ 4 ][2]). Nat. I chose to frame the arts more widely to include the humanities, and asked the attendees: How do we identify the challenges we wish to work on? Whether this is attributed to career prospects, financial security or job availability, STEM fields seem to be gaining a perception of superiority compared to other majors. Behav. Weighing in at 555,545 U.S. graduates in 2016, STEM is a fierce opponent whose curriculum seeks proficiency in traditionally hard sciences, which rely on testable predictions, controlled experiments, mathematical models, quantifiable data and objectivity. Beyond money: progress on an economy of well-being. Accordingly, such a person-centered approach suggests that the perception of fit between individuals' interests and their major or occupation is a more important indicator of future gains than the rewards promised by their major field of study. STEM represents science, technology, engineering and maths. In the opposing corner, weighing in at 373,507 U.S. graduates in 2016, humanities are fast falling from their fan-favorite pedestal. Introduction 2. J. Vocat. “Knowing science kind of stands in for smartness in a way that knowing Shakespeare used to stand in for that,” Deborah Fitzgerald, a history of technology professor at MIT, told C&EN. On the other hand, perception of interest fit was a significant and positive predictor of all well-being and financial outcomes, suggesting that those who experienced more fit between their job and their interests not only reported higher levels of work satisfaction (b = 0.62, p < 0.001), but also higher levels of life satisfaction (b = 0.57, p < 0.001), financial satisfaction (b = 0.04, p < 0.001), and personal income (b = 0.29, p < 0.001). These findings are in line with the data reporting that STEM careers offer a considerable salary premium over non-STEM jobs (BurningGlass, 2013). Their chosen field of study, or hopefully multiple fields of study, should expand both their academic knowledge and understanding of who they are as a person. Facts & Figures The debate over the role of the humanities in higher education and American life reached new fervor this summer with the publication of several high profile reports and articles. They are forced to exist in a world without individualism, dialogue or conflict. Campbell, D. P., and Holland, J. L. (1972). Humanities majors encourage analysis, critical-thinking, and a vast knowledge of various topics. Matt Bevin wants state colleges and universities to produce more electrical engineers and less french literature scholars. Association of American Colleges Universities (2013). The rhetoric from proponents of each field reinforces the idea that either STEM or humanities careers would provide higher values to individuals and societies when compared to the other. We propose that perception of interest fit is more important than the domain itself per se. There is also an element of prestige associated with STEM degrees, making pride a motivating factor for choosing the field as well. Available online at: http://www.aacu.org/leap/presidentstrust/compact/2013SurveySummary (accessed October 17, 2017). More important than careers and job success, however, is the interest of students. These results provide partial support for hypotheses 1 and 2. doi: 10.1177/0963721414522812, Spokane, A. R., Meir, E. I., and Catalano, M. (2000). Psychol. The implications of radically favoring STEM and discouraging humanities is detrimental both to society and individual students. They remain underrepresented in engineering The data are, however, available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission from Gallup. Bivariate correlations among the study variables are reported in Supplementary Table 2. Bellwether institutions such as Harvard have also noted the decline in the number of undergraduate humanities majors — the percentage fell there from about 24% in 1964 to 17% in 2012. Behav. The development, evolution, and status of holland's theory of vocational personalities: reflections and future directions for counseling psychology. Although these finding should be treated with caution for a couple of reasons. A., and Jehn, K. A. Educ., 17 December 2019 Available online at: https://www.burning-glass.com/research-project/stem/ (accessed July 14, 2017). Integrative elaboration of the congruence theory. doi: 10.1006/jvbe.2000.1771, Stanford Humanities Center (2017). Society artificially designed the feud, meaning student must not let the STEM versus humanities fight influence their academic path. The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00143/full#supplementary-material. At the same time, I don’t believe we have any systematic way of imagining or hypothesizing other than the humanities.”. A rising call to promote STEM education and cut liberal arts funding. Keywords and phrases: STEM, humanities, liberal arts, education, incentives, budget cuts, education majors iv Table of Contents 1. Accordingly, we argue that the person-centric perspective in major and occupational choice may be more important than a top-down directive of channeling students to STEM careers or conversely to careers in the humanities. Available online at: https://www.bentley.edu/files/prepared/1.29.2013_BentleyU_Whitepaper_Shareable.pdf (accessed October 17, 2017). Society continually degrades these professions and yet fundamentally relies on them. Parents and academic counselors encouraged STEM studies as they thought it increased the likelihood of (1989). classes than the number of hard science classes taken by English / History / Sociology / etc majors. STEM provides job specific training but, in isolation, fails to offer a broad foundation for further career development, leaving students at risk when jobs in their designated STEM fields are unavailable — which is a looming possibility. The degree of unity between STEM and humanities is apparent even in ancient Greek philosophy. The results of the regression analysis (Table 2) suggested that even after controlling for cognitive ability and ability/motivation, perception of interest fit was a significant predictor of work satisfaction (b = 0.53, p < 0.001), life satisfaction (b = 0.35, p < 0.001), and financial satisfaction (b = 0.07, p < 0.05), but not personal income (b = 0.05, p > 0.05). True change will occur only when society ceases belittling humanities as a “dead-end major.” Lana Del Rey, an award-winning musician, studied philosophy. These plots indicated that these assumptions were met for both samples. Context and methodology in brief 13 1.1 Context and research questions 13 1.1.1 Evidence to explore further and hypotheses to test 14 1.2 Available online at: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2016-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2016-BUD.pdf (accessed November 6, 2017). Analysis of a national data set of college graduates (N = 8,151) shows that interest fit accounted for more variance in well-being outcomes (work satisfaction, life satisfaction, and financial satisfaction) as compared to STEM or humanities education, and an equivalent amount of variance was found in personal income. (1987). 7, 384–403. “Within the social sciences, one can learn about how resources are used by people and companies, which can lead to an understanding of how the economy might develop. It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success. Manage. Table 1. They’ve instead taken to fabricating artificial environments in which STEM and humanities are not only partitioned, but made perpetual adversaries. Sci. 57, 11–22. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). Humanities perspective is needed in all global challenges The second conviction around which the debate swirls is that the world desperately needs the insights of the humanities. What matters is what they learn, and how they learn, throughout the educational process. Diener, E., and Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Public Interest 5, 1–31. BurningGlass (2013). In line with this research, our results point to the important role of the match between individuals' interests and their career to their future well-being. Finally, another limitation of our study is the generalizability of the results. NB and JP provided critical feedback. That is, for individuals to flourish, the decision to pursue a major (e.g., STEM vs. Humanities) is best to be based on their interests rather than the major's income potential. Available online at: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2016-01-29/in-kentucky-a-push-for-engineers-over-french-lit-scholars (accessed October 17, 2017). Available online at: http://nscresearchcenter.org/snapshotreport-degreeattainment3/#more-2111, Tonidandel, S., and LeBreton, J. M. (2015). Between 2009 and 2015, the number of STEM major in bachelors-and-above programs grew by 43%, while humanities declined negative 0.4%. Multiple regression is appropriate for this study as it examines whether a set of independent variables significantly predicts the outcome of interest. Research with a more diverse sample can establish the generalizability of these results. Given that we are interested in exploring the most important predictors of well-being outcomes, we also conducted relative weight analysis (RWA; Johnson and Lebreton, 2004; Tonidandel and LeBreton, 2015). The data that support the findings of this study are available from Gallup, but restrictions apply to their availability. Today’s classrooms seldom foster true self-discovery, or encourage broad intellectual inquiry, or adequately prepare students for a world beyond pearly white campus gates. No significant interaction between interest fit and the major field was found. Explore our catalog of online degrees, certificates, Specializations, & MOOCs in data science, computer science, business, health, and dozens of other topics. J. Vocat. |, Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2013, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00143/full#supplementary-material, https://www.humanitiescommission.org/_pdf/Hum_Report_Card.pdf, http://www.aacu.org/leap/presidentstrust/compact/2013SurveySummary, https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2016-01-29/in-kentucky-a-push-for-engineers-over-french-lit-scholars, https://www.bentley.edu/files/prepared/1.29.2013_BentleyU_Whitepaper_Shareable.pdf, https://www.burning-glass.com/research-project/stem/, https://www.humanitiesindicators.org/content/indicatordoc.aspx?i=34, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/30/north-carolina-governor-joins-chorus-republicans-critical-liberal-arts, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2016-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2016-BUD.pdf, http://shc.stanford.edu/why-do-humanities-matter, http://nscresearchcenter.org/snapshotreport-degreeattainment3/#more-2111, Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). Accordingly, longitudinal research is needed to better understand how interest fit during college would affect future well-being outcomes. 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