GSE/RES: A Longitudinal, Mixed-Method Test of a Social Cognitive Model of Women's Adjustment to STEM Majors: Building an Empirical Foundation for Theory-Based Interventions

GSE/RES：女性适应 STEM 专业的社会认知模型的纵向混合方法测试：为基于理论的干预奠定经验基础

• 批准号: 0827470
• 负责人: Robert Lent
• 金额: $ 47.21万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0827470&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: GSE; RES; Longitudinal; Mixed; Method

This project involves a set of "mixed method" studies testing a new model extension of social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). SCCT has proven to be a heuristic framework for understanding women's and men's interest in, choice of, and performance and persistence in various academic and career fields. This model offers promise as an integrative framework, bringing together a number of factors (e.g., personality, cognitive, social, and behavioral) that have been shown individually to predict or promote positive adaptation. In particular, this project will test, using a longitudinal design, the new SCCT model of academic satisfaction and adjustment, focusing on the dynamic relations among the social cognitive variables during a formative period in women's and men's transition to the STEM environment: their first two years in college. This part of the project will involve development or adaptation of psychological instrumentation, a large sample of students at two predominantly White and two historically Black universities in the mid-Atlantic region, and structural equation modeling procedures. In a companion study, participants will be queried using semi-qualitative methods to explore in more depth how they experience the academic environment and what strategies they use to cope with their transition as STEM majors. The University of Maryland, Morgan State University, Virginia Tech, and Howard University have agreed to participate in this study. Intellectual Merit: The proposed project is intended to advance scientific understanding of how women and men adjust to the STEM environment by (a) testing the new SCCT model of satisfaction and adjustment, (b) assessing invariance of model-data fit across gender and institutional context, (c) examining differences in particular model paths for women versus men, and (d) exploring women's perception of environmental resources and barriers and personal/social coping strategies. The project will address gaps in prior research applying SCCT to women's adjustment to STEM fields. Broader Impacts: The findings can inform the design of educational interventions to promote women's positive adaptation to, and retention within, STEM majors by focusing on variables and processes that are amenable to modification. The project team will (a) communicate the findings to scientific and educational audiences via presentations at professional meetings and journal publications; (b) make instrumentation developed as part of the project available to other researchers; (c) build a local, multi-disciplinary network of social scientists, physical scientists, and engineers who can pursue additional research on how to increase representation of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM fields; and (d) provide research training opportunities for female and ethnic minority graduate students.

本项目涉及一套“混合方法”研究，测试社会认知职业理论的新模型扩展（SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994）。SCCT已被证明是一个启发式框架，用于理解女性和男性在各种学术和职业领域的兴趣、选择、表现和坚持。该模型作为一个综合框架提供了希望，它汇集了许多因素（例如，个性、认知、社会和行为），这些因素已被单独证明可以预测或促进积极适应。特别是，本项目将使用纵向设计测试新的SCCT学术满意度和调整模型，重点关注女性和男性在向STEM环境过渡的形成时期（大学头两年）社会认知变量之间的动态关系。该项目的这一部分将涉及心理仪器的开发或适应，在大西洋中部地区的两所主要是白人和两所历史上的黑人大学的大量学生样本，以及结构方程建模程序。在一项配套研究中，参与者将使用半定性方法进行询问，以更深入地探索他们如何体验学术环境，以及他们使用什么策略来应对作为STEM专业的过渡。马里兰大学、摩根州立大学、弗吉尼亚理工大学和霍华德大学已经同意参与这项研究。智力价值：拟议的项目旨在通过(a)测试新的SCCT满意度和调整模型，(b)评估跨性别和制度背景下模型数据拟合的不变性，(c)检查女性与男性在特定模型路径上的差异，以及(d)探索女性对环境资源和障碍以及个人/社会应对策略的看法，促进对女性和男性如何适应STEM环境的科学理解。该项目将解决SCCT应用于女性适应STEM领域的先前研究中的空白。更广泛的影响：研究结果可以为教育干预的设计提供信息，通过关注可修改的变量和过程，促进女性对STEM专业的积极适应和保留。项目小组将(a)通过在专业会议和期刊出版物上发表报告，向科学和教育受众传达研究结果；(b)使作为项目一部分开发的仪器可供其他研究人员使用；(c)建立一个由社会科学家、物理科学家和工程师组成的本地多学科网络，他们可以就如何增加女性和其他代表性不足的群体在STEM领域的代表性进行更多的研究；(d)为女性和少数民族研究生提供研究培训机会。