This project would use a sample of Wisconsin families to study the role parents play in increasing students' perception of the utility of science as a means for increasing student participation in high school science courses. The researchers are collecting survey data on high school students and their parents in a sample of students ages 11, 13, and 15. These survey data will be used with prior information from the families in a longitudinal survey to examine some hypotheses about the use of parents? knowledge of the value of high school math and science courses on student choices.
Previous research by the investigators has demonstrated that programs that focus on the value of a course leads to increased interest and enhanced performance for students in high school and college. The research would to study parent?s knowledge of the utility value of high school M&S courses and their ability to convey it. It is a three-year longitudinal study and an experimental study on parent?s information. The study would be made of 166 families with a child who completed data collection at 9th grade. A random assignment will be made so that some parents receive professional training on how to discuss course taking with their students. Parents and students will be followed up in 9 months and in 2 years to assess the impact on course taking.
PI: Janet S. Hyde Department of Psychology University of Wisconsin The pipeline leading toward careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins leaking in high school, when students choose not to take advanced mathematics and science courses. Only 12% of students take calculus, 56% take chemistry, and 29% take physics in high school. Decades of research demonstrate that a key factor motivating adolescents to pursue these advanced courses is utility value, which refers to a person’s perception of the usefulness or importance of a task. Essentially, if a student perceives that taking a calculus or physics course will be useful, e.g., in daily life or in a future career, the student’s motivation to take that optional course will increase. Teachers, parents, and peers can all contribute to students’ perception of the utility value of courses. Parents’ contributions to their children’s mathematics and science learning and motivation are a largely untapped resource for improving the mathematics and science performance of American children and were the central focus of this research. We studied parents’ knowledge of the utility value of high school math and science courses, their ability to explain and convey that information, and whether, longitudinally, these parental utility communications predict course choice and performance. We capitalized on an existing sample followed longitudinally, the Wisconsin Study of Families and Work, with data collected from both parents and children when the youth were 11, 13, 15, and 18. In addition, we tested experimentally whether giving parents information about the utility value of math and science courses would lead them to convey this information to their 10th-grader and whether this intervention would actually lead to increased choice of advanced mathematics and science courses by the adolescents in 11th and 12th grades. In a paper published in Psychological Science in 2012, we described the exciting findings from the intervention. We reported on the field experiment testing whether a theory-based intervention designed to help parents convey the importance of mathematics and science courses to their high school-aged children would lead them to take more mathematics and science courses in high school. The three-part intervention consisted of two brochures mailed to parents and a website, all highlighting the usefulness of STEM courses. This relatively simple intervention led students whose parents were in the experimental group to take on average nearly one semester more of science and mathematics in the last 2 years of high school, compared with the control group. The results demonstrate that motivational theory can be applied to this important problem. In a second paper, we investigated whether the intervention worked equally well for boys and girls, as well as what processes might account for the effect of the intervention, i.e., how did it work? For families with daughters, the intervention was most effective in increasing STEM course-taking for high-achieving daughters whereas the intervention actually decreased course-taking for low-achieving daughters (measured in terms of STEM GPA in 9th grade). In contrast, the intervention increased course-taking for low-achieving boys. Statistical analyses showed that the intervention increased the perceived utility value of STEM for both mothers and adolescents, which accounted for the effects on STEM course-taking in 12th grade. The findings indicate that utility value interventions with parents can be effective for boys and for high-achieving girls, but suggest modifications in their use with low-achieving girls. We have made the intervention materials (2 brochures and the website) available to educators on request to the co-PI, Prof. Judith Harackiewicz, jmharack@wisc.edu.
