| Two waves of data from the 2006 and 2008 Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients were used in this study to investigate time to doctorate (TTD) and time to career (TTC) for science and engineering PhDs. Three-way factorial ANOVAs were conducted, and TTD results indicated main effects for gender, US citizenship, and Biglan classification, and interaction effects for gender and US citizenship. US citizen PhDs progressed to their career approximately one mean year faster than foreign PhDs. For TTC, PhDs who held postdocs progressed to their careers in 14 and 15 years for females and males respectively compared to 19 years for those without postdoctoral appointments. PhDs working in academe also had shorter TTC rates than those working in industry or government settings. TTC rates were lowest for PhDs from engineering fields and highest for those from health sciences.;A multiple linear regression based upon the 2006 data was also used to determine the best predictors of TTC based upon individual, academic, and employer characteristics, and the model was cross-validated with an independent sample from the 2008 data. The regression solution was significant, F (20, 11000) = 97.06, p < .001, and significant predictors were gender, US citizen, children ages 2-5, married or married-like relationship, TTD, teaching assistantship, research assistantship, student loans, salary, postdoc, government employer, and business/industry employer. The regression solution for predicting TTC had a medium effect size (R2 = .14), and the cross-validated model had a slightly higher effect (R2 = .28). |
