CAREER: Using Multimedia Digital Technology to Advance Understanding of the Achievement Motivation and the Life Stories of Successful African American Scientists

该项目的主要目标是利用数字技术构建霍华德大学（Howard University）成功的非裔美国STEM教授的人生故事，以发展有关动机和成就的心理学理论。霍华德大学是美国最大的非裔美国STEM博士培养地。可以说，在心理学领域内，对非裔美国人成就动机的研究未能为现有的成就动机理论提供一致的支持，这表明有必要发展新的成就动机理论。尽管生活故事在心理学中被广泛用于理解复杂的自我和身份过程，但生活故事还没有被用来产生关于非裔美国人成就动机的新知识，对这个群体来说，身份，特别是与种族有关的身份，是极其复杂的，而且没有得到很好的理解。拟议的项目将采用由研究者开发的综合教育和研究模式进行，以培养霍华德大学电气工程和心理学研究人员之间的协同和持续的研究合作。建立多媒体数字技术研究与学习实验室。在这个研究和学习实验室中，工程和心理学的教师和学生将合作开发新的生活故事数据收集、处理、分析和传播。这种模式的结构不仅有助于增进对非裔美国人在STEM领域的成就动机和生活故事的理解，而且还促进了霍华德大学研究生和本科生的研究和指导培训。此外，它是一个可以在其他机构、学科和研究项目中复制的模型。该项目潜在的广泛影响包括研究仪器、分析和发现的发展，这些将在同行评审的工程和心理学期刊上传播。此外，计划要求通过国家科学数字图书馆（NSDL）向教师、家长和教育工作者广泛传播这些生活故事，并将在霍华德大学摩尔兰斯宾加恩研究中心（MSRC）存档，供研究非裔美国人的学者使用。总的来说，该项目的综合教育和研究活动将为研究者的早期职业发展奠定坚实的基础，并将促进在霍华德大学建立一个关于非裔美国人在科学上成功的国家研究中心。

The primary goal of the proposed project is to use digital technology to construct the life stories of successful African American STEM professors at Howard University, the largest producer of African American STEM Ph.D.s in the nation, in order to develop psychological theory about motivation and achievement. It can be argued that, within the field of psychology, research on the achievement motivation of African Americans has failed to yield consistent support for existing achievement motivation theories, suggesting that new achievement motivation theory development is warranted. Although life stories have been widely used in psychology to understand complex self and identity processes, life stories have not been used to generate new knowledge about the achievement motivation of African Americans, a group for whom identity, particularly identity related to race, is extremely complex and not well understood. The proposed project will be carried out using an integrated education and research model developed by the investigator to cultivate synergistic and sustained research collaborations between electrical engineering and psychology researchers at Howard University. A multimedia digital technology research and learning laboratory will be established. Within this research and learning laboratory, engineering and psychology faculty and students will collaborate on the development of new life story data collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination. This model is structured not only to facilitate an increase in understanding of the achievement motivation and life stories of African Americans in STEM, but also advance the research and mentoring training of graduate and undergraduate students at Howard University. Moreover, it is a model that can be replicated within other institutions, disciplines, and research projects. Among the potential broad impacts of the project is the development of research instrumentation, analysis, and findings, which will be disseminated in peer review engineering and psychology journals. In addition, plans call for the life stories to be disseminated broadly to teachers, parents, and educators through the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) and will be archived at the Howard University Moorland Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) for use by scholars who study African Americans. Collectively, the integrated education and research activities of the project will build a firm foundation for the early career development of the investigator and would facilitate the establishment of a national center of research on African American success in science at Howard University.