Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Many students enter college with an interest in studying science and even contemplate careers in biomedical and behavioral sciences. However, after enrolling in a few college-level science courses, these students often decide to pursue other majors. This issue, which is particularly salient for underrepresented minorities (URMs), is often termed the 'leaky pipeline.'Research on the 'leaky pipeline'indicates that early undergraduate research experiences and enriched curricular opportunities are important factors in enhancing students'interest in science and their perceived confidence in science (e.g., motivational beliefs). The current application builds on this prior work to examine the effectiveness of an intervention specifically targeting motivational self- beliefs for increasing college students'(especially URMs) pursuit of biomedical/behavioral research careers. The proposed intervention is based on our previously successful high school program called "Launch into Education About Pharmacology" (LEAP), which includes a summer enrichment course and a self-generated research experience. Our intervention also addresses 'stereotype threat'by including an incremental ability component to buoy perceived competence, interest, and achievement of URMs. The overall goal of our research is to identify the specific features and associated underlying psychological processes that are critical in creating effective interventions to encourage college students'pursuit of biomedical and behavioral science research careers. To achieve this goal, we have four specific aims: (1) evaluate the effect of participating in the LEAP summer course on science-related motivational beliefs, achievement, and career-related beliefs/choices, (2) evaluate the added benefit of the LEAP self-generated research experience for supporting science-related motivational beliefs, achievement, and career-related beliefs/choices, (3) evaluate the effect of fostering incremental ability beliefs on science-related motivational beliefs, achievement, and career-related beliefs/choices for URMs, and (4) examine the underlying psychological processes (e.g., motivation) that explain why the LEAP interventions and incremental ability treatment alter students'science achievement and career-related beliefs/choices. We examine both immediate and long-term (into the first year after college graduation) effects of participating in the LEAP program (relative to a no-treatment control group) in a sample of 960 Duke University freshmen. To examine the relative impact of (1) a self-generated research experience and (2) an incremental ability treatment, we use a 2 x 2 experimental design within the LEAP treatment. Our proposed work will inform educators and policy makes about specific elements that are critical in designing interventions to encourage college students'pursuit of biomedical/behavioral research careers. The assessment of key psychological variables through which our intervention operates will provide an enhanced, more nuanced understanding of what makes these interventions successful. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research will provide administrators and science faculty with evidence regarding specific educational/psychological elements that can be incorporated into existing programs/courses to increase students'pursuit of biomedical/behavioral research careers. We expect to show that coupling an early, self- generated research experience with a science enrichment program is critical for supporting the pathway into biomedical/behavioral sciences. Moreover, we will inform the educational community that this experience can help build motivational beliefs that are critical for supporting science achievement and entry into a research career, especially among underrepresented minorities.

Project Summary Many students enter college with an interest in studying science. However, after enrolling in several college- level science courses, many pursue other majors. This phenomenon, referred to as a `leaky pipeline,' contributes to concerns over shortages in the biomedical sciences workforce, particularly among women, underrepresented minorities (URMs), and first-generation (FG) college students. Research indicates that early undergraduate research experiences and enriched curricular opportunities can encourage the pursuit of biomedical research careers. However, we still know very little about the underlying reasons why such programs are successful. To inform interventions aimed at repairing this leaky pipeline, it is critical to identify changes in psychological processes associated with both attrition and retention, and to examine how we might apply knowledge of these processes to support the pursuit of biomedical careers. This renewal application utilizes and supplements data collected during the original funding period to investigate how various types of undergraduate enrichment experiences support the pursuit of biomedical research careers and to identify the psychological processes that underlie such support. Specific Aims: (1) Examine how early undergraduate enrichment experiences support initial (end of sophomore year) engagement in the biomedical sciences through changes in underlying psychological processes (science self-efficacy, interest/value, identity, and achievement goals), (2) Examine how the type, timing, and dosage of undergraduate enrichment experiences support sustained (two years post-college) engagement in the biomedical sciences through changes in underlying psychological processes. For both aims, differences in the effects of these experiences among women, URMs, and FGs will be investigated. Four cohorts of Duke University students from the original grant will continue to be surveyed longitudinally from their first year in college to two years after graduation (the first cohort graduated from college 2 years ago and the final cohort are currently college juniors). In the current application, these data will be supplemented by (a) adding ~350 comparison group Duke students to the original longitudinal sample from Duke, (b) adding one new cohort of Michigan State University students who will be followed from their 1st year through one year post graduation, and (c) adding a qualitative component using in-depth interviews with ~80 participants. The result will be a large, relatively diverse dataset (N = 2,293; ~59% female; ~21% URM; ~19% FG) with detailed psychological and behavioral measures taken each year for 6 years supplemented with qualitative interviews. IMPACT: This rich longitudinal, multi-method dataset will provide key insights into the types of undergraduate enrichment experiences that encourage persistence in biomedical sciences, especially among women, URMs, and FGs, thus serving as a model for more effective allocation of resources throughout U.S. universities.

The Supporting Excellent Engineers (SEE) program in the College of Engineering at Michigan State University will build a financial, academic, and social support structure to increase retention and success for academically talented students with demonstrated financial need. The project will provide scholarship funding to reduce the unmet financial burden for these students during their 2nd and 3rd academic years, a critical period during which students transition from taking courses mostly outside the College to taking mostly courses in their chosen engineering discipline. SEE scholars will be selected based on their first-year academic performance and their financial need and, along with the scholarship funding, will receive targeted academic and professional development support designed to support motivation and feelings of belonging. The goal will be for each scholar to obtain an internship or co-operative education experience and for 100% of scholars to persist and graduate from an engineering major. SEE support efforts will be designed to prepare students for their first engineering job and enhance their feelings of belonging, engineering identity, and motivation to persist and succeed. By selecting students who have had the opportunity to demonstrate success in their first year on campus, the SEE selection process will give talented but underprepared students an equal opportunity to compete with peers who had stronger K-12 support structures. The data generated by the project will be widely applicable to colleges of engineering seeking approaches to maximize retention and success for all students.

SEE will support eligible students with awards of $8,000 per year for their 2nd and 3rd years, with support of four cohorts of nine students during the proposed work. Internal research indicates that second and third year students have significantly lower feelings of belonging to the College of Engineering, lower motivation in engineering (e.g., self-efficacy and value for engineering), and higher perceived costs (effort, opportunity, and psychological) associated with pursuing studies in engineering. This project will use surveys and focus group interviews to measure the effects of being a SEE scholar on students' feelings of belonging and motivation (e.g., self-efficacy, value, identity, perceived cost), relative to other peer students. SEE will provide research-based professional development and social cohort programming to assist students in building connections to the College of Engineering and one another. SEE support services will be aligned with prior research on STEM persistence and psychological research on structures that support motivation. Data collected will inform optimal support strategies in enhancing undergraduate engineering students' retention and persistence to graduation.

Science teachers identify fostering student motivation to learn as a pressing need, yet teacher professional learning programs rarely devote time to helping teachers understand and apply motivational principles in their instruction. This project will bring together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and science teachers to identify a set of practices that science teachers can readily incorporate into their planning and instruction. The project will design, develop, and test a research-based professional learning approach to help middle school science teachers effectively support and sustain student motivational competencies during science instruction. The approach will include use of materials addressing student motivational processes and how to support them, evaluation tools to measure student motivational competencies, lesson planning tools, and instruments for teacher self-evaluation. The translation to practice will include recognition of student diversity and consider ways to facilitate context-specific integration of disciplinary and motivational knowledge in practice. The project will focus on middle school science classrooms because this period is an important motivational bridge between elementary and secondary science learning. This project will enhance understanding of teacher pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in that it frames knowledge about supporting motivational competencies in science as PCK rather than general pedagogical knowledge. This project is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) that seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.

This early stage design and development project will iteratively develop and study a model of teacher professional learning that will help middle school science teachers create, modify, and implement instruction that integrates support for students' motivational competencies with the science practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas specified in science curriculum standards. A design-based research approach will be used to develop and test four resources teachers will use to explicitly include attention to student motivational competencies in their lesson planning efforts. The resources will include: 1) educational materials about students' motivational processes with concrete examples of how to support them; 2) easy-to-implement student evaluation tools for teachers to gauge students' motivational competencies; 3) planning tools to incorporate motivational practices into science lesson planning; and 4) instruments for teacher self-evaluation. A collaborative group of educational researchers will partner with science teachers from multiple school districts having diverse student populations to jointly develop the professional learning approach and resources. This project will contribute to systemic change by moving motivational processes from an implicit element of educating students, to an explicit and intentional set of strategies teachers can enact. Research questions will focus on how teachers respond to the newly developed professional learning model, and how students respond to instruction developed through implementing the model.

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.

Project Summary Many students enter college with an interest in studying science, but ultimately pursue other majors. Others graduate with a science major, but fail to enter or remain in the biomedical workforce. The many pathways out of science contribute to shortages in the biomedical workforce, particularly among women, underrepresented minorities (URMs), and first-generation (FG) college students. What is often missing in the study of persistence in biomedical fields is a consideration of the psychological mechanisms involved in persistence and an understanding of how to design experiences or institutional supports around such mechanisms. My research program addresses this gap by examining persistence in the biomedical fields using a psychological lens, with a focus on motivational trajectories and contextual supports. Over the next 5 years, I will focus on two key open questions: (1) What developmental patterns of motivational beliefs are adaptive for persistence in biomedical career pathways and do adaptive patterns vary across individuals with different characteristics (e.g., URM, FG, Gender)?, and (2) How can we improve contextual supports during college, focusing on motivational beliefs as a mediating mechanism, in order to retain more individuals on biomedical career pathways, especially those from underrepresented groups? This MIRA application aims to leverage and extend my extensive multi-site, multi-method longitudinal research by continuing quantitative and qualitative longitudinal data collection as research participants reach the next phases in their career pathways (immediately after college and >5 years after college) from two unique university samples: (1) large, land-grant public university (Michigan State University, N = 1735; 57% Female; 11% URM; 12% FG) and (2) elite, private university (Duke, N = 2546; 54% Female; 19% URM; 9% FG). Additionally, to extend the generalizability of these findings to a third unique university context and to flexibly pursue research questions based on findings from the original cohorts, data collection will be extended to Old Dominion University, a public, minority-serving institution (41% URM, 28% FG). Finally, an alternative approach for addressing persistence in biomedical fields will be pursued, namely examining how training future faculty to support student motivation and engagement in the context of enriched curricular opportunities relates to their later approaches to supporting student motivation and engagement. IMPACT: This on-going research program will provide key insights into the types of contextual supports and psychological mechanisms that are needed to encourage persistence in biomedical science careers, especially among women, URMs, and FGs.