Dustin B. Thoman

Dimensionality of the New Ecological Paradigm: Issues of Factor Structure and Measurement

Dunlap and colleagues’ New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale is widely used and, thus, merits testing to determine whether it should be treated as one scale, a set of independent scales, or a set of correlated subscales. The authors test for all three possibilities using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and find that a second-order factor structure with five interrelated dimensions provides a better fit for the data than a single factor structure or five independent factors structure. Results show that, as Dunlap originally assumed, the NEP is best represented as correlated scales involving five facets. The authors recommend that future research with the NEP use CFA within a structural equation modeling approach to accurately represent the five interrelated facets structure, and if CFA is unavailable, treating the scale as five correlated subscales is preferred over treating the NEP as a single score reflecting environmental concern.

Feeling the Threat Stereotype Threat as a Contextual Barrier to Women’s Science Career Choice Intentions

Social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994, 2000) holds that contextual barriers inhibit self-efficacy and goal choice intentions from points both near and far from the active career development situation. The current study examined the influence of one such proximal barrier, stereotype threat, on attainment of these outcomes among women considering careers in science. Participants were female undergraduate students (N = 439) enrolled in chemistry and physics laboratory classes. As predicted, results indicated that stereotype threat exerted a significant negative indirect effect on women’s science career choice intentions in physics but not chemistry. Single-pathway models positing a chain of effects of stereotype threat via science self-efficacy and intentions to pursue undergraduate research were also shown to fit the data better than multiple-pathway models in both physics and chemistry. Implications for the career development of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are discussed.

The Grass Is Greener in Non-Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Classes Examining the Role of Competing Belonging to Undergraduate Women’s Vulnerability to Being Pulled Away From Science

When women feel pushed away by the “chilly climate” of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), they seek situations where they experience greater social belonging. We tested whether feelings of belonging to competing (non-STEM) classes were associated with women’s interest in their STEM classes using an interval contingent diary methodology. We recruited 62 undergraduate women STEM majors concurrently enrolled in STEM and Humanities/Liberal Arts (H/LA) courses. We first assessed self-competence (SC) and self-liking (SL), and then every 2 weeks during the academic semester the participants were asked to report their feelings of belonging and interest in both types of courses (resulting in eight entries). For women with low felt SC and high SL, a greater feeling of belonging to their H/LA class throughout the semester was associated with less STEM class interest, above and beyond feelings of belonging in STEM. For all women, fluctuations in STEM class belonging mapped onto their STEM class interest but not their H/LA class interest. Results suggest not only that can women feel pushed out of STEM when they feel a low sense of belonging, but also that for women with specific self-esteem contingencies, competing experiences of belonging in non-STEM can pull interest away from STEM. Thus, to promote women’s greater participation in STEM, practitioners may need to consider the role of women’s broader motivational experiences across the curriculum.

Science That Matters: The Importance of a Cultural Connection in Underrepresented Students’ Science Pursuit

A mixed-methods study demonstrates that freshman minority students who enter with a greater belief that science can be used to help their communities identified as scientists more strongly over time and had higher interest in science careers, but this effect was noted only among first-generation college students.

The Relation Between Interest and Self-Regulation in Mathematics and Science

Students’ ability to maintain motivation while learning science and math is critical to mastering material beyond the elementary level, and to persisting in the field. It requires not only keeping one’s “eyes on the prize,” but experiencing interest during the process. However, formal educational curricula typically dictate the types and sequences of materials that must be learned, regardless of how interesting a particular student might find that material. Thus, to persist, students must be able to maintain their motivation even when they do not find the experience interesting. Students are typically encouraged to engage in strategies that (re)emphasize the importance of persistence and likelihood of success, but this may not be enough to counter the pull of more interesting choices. However, students can also engage in strategies that make the experience more interesting, and they are more likely to do so when motivated to persist. Thus, students regulate their experience not just to feel better; they do so to maintain motivation to reach their goals. In this chapter, we describe the Self-Regulation of Motivation model, which outlines how the experience of interest is embedded within the overall process of regulating motivation and behavior. The model synthesizes research detailing how goal striving affects the experience of interest, along with research on whether and how individuals regulate the interest experience. The model also illustrates how the relationship between regulating interest and performance might result in trade-offs, particularly in the short term (e.g., time spent on something that makes learning more interesting might come at a cost to time spent on completing required tasks). The degree to which short-term trade-offs are acknowledged and accepted may, in turn, determine whether students persist in the long term. By exploring how the experience of interest and its regulation work within the overall process of self-regulation, the model suggests ways that educators and the educational context could unintentionally hinder interest regulation, as well as places where they could foster successful regulation. We identify some of these routes as well as some unanswered questions raised by considering interest and its regulation as integral to maintaining motivation over time.

Precision in Career Motivation Assessment: Testing the Subjective Science Attitude Change Measures

The Subjective Science Attitude Change Measures (SSACM; Stake & Mares, 2001) represent a collection of useful self-report tools for assessing change in high school students’ science attitudes as a function of a given motivational intervention. Despite the survey’s utility, little work has been done to examine this tool among other samples (i.e., college students) or to test the psychometric properties and overall construct validity of SSACM scores. Participants (N = 1,368) consisted of undergraduate students enrolled in biology, chemistry, and physics laboratory classes. Analysis of the SSACM’s factor structure using exploratory structural equation modeling indicated support for a bifactor structure consisting of one general science motivation factor and three specific factors labeled intrinsic science interest, science career identity, and science self-efficacy. This model outperformed alternative bifactor and specific two- and three-factor models. Results largely yielded evidence of concurrent validity, as three of the four scale scores were significant positive predictors of relevant outcomes over and above the contribution of gender, parental occupation type, and mastery motivation. Implications for science career counseling and assessment are discussed.

Research Microcultures as Socialization Contexts for Underrepresented Science Students

How much does scientific research potentially help people? We tested whether prosocial-affordance beliefs (PABs) about science spread among group members and contribute to individual students’ motivation for science. We tested this question within the context of research experience for undergraduates working in faculty-led laboratories, focusing on students who belong to underrepresented minority (URM) groups. Longitudinal survey data were collected from 522 research assistants in 41 labs at six institutions. We used multilevel modeling, and results supported a socialization effect for URM students: The aggregate PABs of their lab mates predicted the students’ own initial PABs, as well as their subsequent experiences of interest and their motivation to pursue a career in science, even after controlling for individual-level PABs. Results demonstrate that research labs serve as microcultures of information about the science norms and values that influence motivation. URM students are particularly sensitive to this information. Efforts to broaden participation should be informed by an understanding of the group processes that convey such prosocial values.

The Dynamic Nature of Interest: Embedding Interest Within Self-Regulation

When thinking about how people sustain motivation over the longer term, even for an important activity, their experience during the activity (not just why they started doing it) matters. Thus, we focus on the experience of interest and describe a model that embeds interest within a self-regulation framework. We review research that illustrates the implications of this model for individuals’ choices and actions when they are deciding whether to engage with an activity or domain (prior to engagement), engaged with an activity (during engagement), and evaluating their experience (after engagement). The research suggests that rather than certain activity features always being associated with greater or lesser interest, it is important to know whether those factors match or are congruent with the person’s goals. Moreover, individuals actively monitor and react to their experiences and take these anticipated or actual experiences into account when deciding whether to start, persist, or re-engage with an activity or related activities. This active role includes engaging with activities in ways that make them more congruent with goals (and thereby more interesting), as well as engaging with the activity in ways that makes the experience more interesting whether or not it advances progress toward the goal. How individuals engage with the activity has implications for performance as well as subsequent evaluations of performance and of interest by one’s self and by others upon completion. We discuss the implications of this dynamic self-regulatory model for understanding “effective” regulation, as well as how this perspective can contribute to our understanding of ostensible group-based differences in interest in certain domains (e.g., gender differences in STEM interest).

Fluctuating team science: Perceiving science as collaborative improves science motivation.

Scientific research is viewed as uncollaborative; yet little is known regarding when, and for whom, such perceptions emerge and whether these fluctuating perceptions matter. We investigated students’ development of perceiving research as a collaborative, team-based endeavor and the resulting motivational consequences. Among 522 biomedical RAs across 10 universities/colleges, longitudinal analysis showed that after only a short exposure to research, students’ social-collaborative science perceptions decreased. This is troubling given our results showing greater social-collaborative science perceptions predicted enhanced intrinsic interest in science over time, which in turn predicted greater intentions to attend a biomedical graduate program. Using an intersectionality lens, we also found ethnic minority women (compared to other groups) showed the most stability in social-collaborative science perceptions over time. Results underscore the potential impact of mentors creating an inclusive team science environment early in students’ training to discourage “opting out” of science. We discuss implications for broadening participation in the scientific workforce.

The Promotion and Development of Interest: The Importance of Perceived Values

It is tempting to consider the development of interest as an intra-individual process. That is, whether a person becomes interested in a topic can be attributed mostly to individual differences in temperament and personality characteristics. However, motivation in general, and interest development in particular, is also a social phenomenon that may be influenced by one’s interactions with people while engaging in the activity of interest. In this chapter, we first outline the role of perceived value in the development of interest. Second, we review a program of research designed to enhance interest by facilitating perceptions of value for an activity. Third, we discuss how other people in our lives both directly and indirectly influence value and, as a result, the development of interest. Although the majority of the extant research literature is focused on direct interventions to influence value, and thereby interest, we outline several indirect pathways through which the social context can also contribute to an individual’s perception of value. We encourage researchers to explore the direct and indirect influences of the social context on value through both observational and experimental studies so that we can discover additional mechanisms that help explain how interest develops.