Career metaphors from Australian geoscientists

Description

This dataset is used in the following paper: Tiddy, C., Perera, S., Sardeshmukh, S. R. & Andrahannadi, U. (in review). The influence of career perceptions on gender diversity in the geosciences. This dataset contains visual metaphors (e.g., an image, picture, movie, movie role, or cartoon character) provided by Australian geoscientists describing 1. their own career (Supplementary Data Table S1 - SELF perception metaphors) and 2. the career of the opposite gender (Supplementary Table S2 - OTHERS perception metaphors). Metaphors are used as they can give structure and provide organization to our perceptions of complex topics and have previously been successfully used to conceptualize career perceptions (e.g., Inkson, 2004; 2006; Mignot, 2004; Smith-Ruig, 2008). Data was collected via semi-structured interviews of 68 (40 women, 28 men) Australian geoscientists from a range of career stages and with roughly equal representation from the sectors of academia, government, and industry (Table 4). Interviewees were selected through expert purposive sampling (Etikan et al., 2016) to ensure diversity of career paths, career stages and geoscience fields of expertise. A range of organizations of various sizes and types were targeted. Interviews were based on a set series of questions and probes aimed at exploring participants’ career from undergraduate studies to their current position. An additional 16 responses (14 women, 2 men) related to career metaphors were collected through an online questionnaire that included target questions with the same wording as used in interviews (see Table 4). The questionnaire was set up in association with a conference presentation, which provided an opportunity to collect additional responses to the specific metaphor aspect of the broader study. Audience members who had not been involved in an interview were invited to fill out a survey. The responses were filtered to include only Australian-based working geoscientists and have been used here to compliment the data collected in the interview process. Participants were recruited between 1st May 2019 and 31st May 2021. In total, 94% of women and 80% of men provided metaphors for their own careers. 78% of women and 83% of men provided metaphors for the career of the opposite gender. It is noted that all participants in this study identified as either a cisgender man or cisgender woman, therefore the study only considers these two genders. Gender is used here in the context of gender identity (as opposed to biological sex). Most interview and all survey respondents identified as white/Caucasian.

Steps to reproduce

Detail on interview and online survey methods and protocols used to collect this data are provided in the paper the dataset is associated with. This paper also provides details of ethics approvals.

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