“I Need A Break or I Might Quit”: STEM Academics’ Pandemic Experiences

Abstract

This research highlights the voices of 103 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) women in academia who responded to a series of open-ended questions regarding the impact of COVID-19 on their work and tenure. The current study also sought to compare these responses to similar questions that were collected a year prior ( n = 84) during the earliest months of the pandemic (Dunn et al., 2022). Consensual qualitative research-modified (CQR-M; Spangler et al., 2011) was utilized to analyze the data. The main findings reveal substantial concerns about the pandemic’s negative impact on academic work, highlighting research disruptions, difficulty balancing demands on time (e.g., extra responsibilities at work, navigating work and family conflicts), impacts on mental health and burnout for women faculty in STEM, and an increase in negative effects from 2020 to 2021. Clinical implications, future research directions, and social advocacy interventions in the context of COVID-19 will be discussed.