This is a longitudinal, quantitative study to examine the roles of gender and ethnic identification in the development of high school students STEM values, expectancies, and achievement behaviors within the framework of the Eccles Expectancy Value Model of achievement behaviors, which proposes that engaging in certain educational behaviors, such as course taking are the product of an individual's expectations for success and its perceived value or importance. The PI seeks to expand this model to specifically address the unique contributions of social identity factors in STEM engagement. This study will follow the students via self-reports across 3 years to gather insight into continuity and change over time. Participants will be adolescent 10th, 11th and 12th graders, who are a mixture of white, black, Latino and Asian Americans. Parents or primary guardians of the adolescents will be included in the study. The initial sample of 256 students (32 per gender x ethnic group) was extended to include 100 additional students and parents. The participants will be a representative sample of public high school students and their families in the school district of Philadelphia PA.
The research will examine possible conflicts between gender and ethnic stereotypes. One example is a perceived conflict between the math competency associated with Asians and the negative gender stereotype associated with an Asian female. The primary research questions are: 1) How do gender and ethnicity interact in academic identification and STEM achievement behaviors; 2) Which factors put female and ethnic minority students at risk for not pursuing STEM; and 3) Are these constructs and processes stable from 10th to 12th grade. The quantitative analyses will focus on regression analysis; however, structured equation modeling (SEM) may also be utilized.
The proposed study will provide new knowledge and understanding to the fields of educational, social, and developmental psychology, STEM education, and education policy through the development of a stronger conceptualization of the social/cognitive factors responsible for the participation of girls and ethnic minorities in STEM. The project will provide data absent in earlier studies on attitudes of students of color as well as a point of departure for education researchers and policymakers, whose goal is to develop effective motivational strategies to increase the participation of female students of color in STEM education and careers. Further the knowledge to be gained from this research is central to the development of curricular programs designed to target such groups, i.e., programs that respond to the specific educational disseminated among parents and the community as well as scientists and educators. The PI will mentor graduate psychology students in research methods; undergraduate students and females will be given preference in recruitment.
Careers that involve education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are a critical component of the U.S. economy, yet women and ethnic minorities (namely, African Americans and Latinos/as) are underrepresented in these careers. Thus, this project, the Philadelphia Adolescent Life Study (PALS), sought to answer several questions that could shed light on new approaches to improving the representation of women and ethnic minorities in STEM careers. We recruited nearly 370 adolescents and their parents, representing equal numbers of African Americans, Latinos/as, Asian Americans, and White/European Americans from public neighborhood schools, and followed them annually over 3 years. We also recruited an additional sample of 88 youth from public neighborhood single-sex and mixed-sex schools serving primarily low-income African Americans. The primary research questions were: 1) In light of previous research findings that boys have more positive attitudes about STEM compared to girls, in what situations do these gender differences vary? For example, Do these gender differences persist across multiple ethnic groups, or just among Whites? Our findings from a sample of over 350 adolescents found that, while boys and girls performed similarly in their high school math and science classes, girls tended to feel less positive about their abilities in those subjects. These differences did not differ across ethnic groups, but Asian American youth outperformed youth of other ethnic groups in math and science classes. We also asked, Do gender differences in STEM persist among kids in single-sex schools as well as mixed-sex schools? This question is particularly relevant for PALS as more and more urban school districts begin to offer single-sex schooling to families. We surveyed adolescents from public, neighborhood single-sex and mixed-sex schools and found that, while single-sex (compared to mixed-sex) schooling generally was linked to higher achievement and more positive in math, science, and reading attitudes among girls, it was linked to poorer achievement and more negative attitudes in those subjects among boys. 2) Which factors put female and ethnic minority students at risk for not pursuing STEM? Some research on ethnic disparities in STEM involvement points to the importance of ethnic identity. Thus, we have begun examining this question by first assessing how parental ethnic socialization practices might be linked to adolescent ethnic identity across four ethnic groups. While African American youth reported greater exploration of and commitment to their ethnic identity than youth from other ethnic groups, and parents of African American youth tended to report higher levels of ethnic socialization than other parents. In addition, while parent’s efforts were significantly associated with adolescents’ ethnic identity one year later, this process was similar across all four ethnic groups. Future reports will examine how this process is linked to academic attitudes and achievements, as proposed by competing psychological theories. 3) Are these constructs and processes stable from 10th to 12th grade? In future reports, we will examine the stability and change among students’ STEM attitudes. If student STEM attitudes show evidence of fluctuation, we must understand the factors that contribute to those changes.
