Who's Motivated to Pursue Math and Science? Testing Replications of Processes from Grade School to Occupations in Multiple Datasets

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

The road to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers is composed of a series of choices and achievements that begin in childhood and continue throughout life (i.e., the STEM pipeline). To understand the STEM pipeline, the field needs studies that examine educational experiences from grade school to college/occupational choices and that document what processes support or undermine the STEM pipeline during multiple developmental periods. Moreover, historical changes in STEM (e.g., maker spaces, and women’s growing representation in science and mathematics) have prompted questions about whether STEM historical movements have shifted the opportunity structures supporting students’ STEM motivation. Through this project, the researchers take advantage of seven extant datasets to test the following five aims among demographically diverse students across historical time: (1) examining changes and patterns in students’ 1st to 12th grade mathematics and science motivational beliefs; (2) testing the extent to which the changes in students’ motivation predict their mathematics and science achievement and coursework, and STEM college/career choices; (3) determining the extent to which parent STEM experience and support predict students’ motivation; (4) examining intersectionality among gender, race/ethnicity, and college generation in Aims 1-3; and (5) testing conceptual replication across datasets and historical time for Aims 1-4. The datasets include large, local longitudinal datasets and nationally representative datasets, which cover the 1980’s to present day. Analyses focus on evidence of conceptual replications across datasets for each aim. This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This project will address the role of affective dimensions of learning, parenting, and intersectionality on persistent disparities in STEM. One of the most immediate determinants of individuals’ STEM outcomes is their motivational beliefs. Using seven existing data sets, this research will explore who is motivated to pursue mathematics and science, what sustains students’ motivation, and if those processes vary across development and historical time. The project focuses on broadening participation of underrepresented individuals by investigating their mathematics and science motivational beliefs, STEM outcomes, and parental correlates. Testing these processes across multiple datasets provides a more comprehensive understanding of group differences in terms of measurement, mean-level differences, and process-level differences. This information is fundamental for rigorous research and helps identify groups that might benefit from interventions and which supports might be most beneficial for whom. The current project extends prior work to focus on equity, diversifying the STEM workforce, and providing more concrete insight into the specific pathways toward promoting and enhancing STEM participation for underrepresented groups. Moreover, the strategy to conceptually replicate findings across multiple large-scale datasets is a strong test of theory and provides insights into the universality of processes across distinct groups of intersecting identities and developmental periods. Using datasets that vary historically allows the researchers to test whether participation in STEM has broadened over past decades and if the processes supporting participation have changed. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.