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

这个项目涉及一套“混合方法”的研究测试一个新的模型扩展的社会认知职业生涯理论（SCCT;伦特，布朗，哈克特，1994年）。SCCT已被证明是一个启发式的框架，了解妇女和男子的兴趣，选择，和性能和坚持在各种学术和职业领域。这一模式提供了一个综合框架，汇集了许多因素（例如，人格、认知、社会和行为），这些因素已经被单独证明可以预测或促进积极的适应。特别是，该项目将测试，使用纵向设计，新的SCCT模型的学术满意度和调整，侧重于社会认知变量之间的动态关系，在形成期的妇女和男子的过渡到STEM环境：他们的头两年在大学。该项目的这一部分将涉及心理仪器的开发或调整，在大西洋中部地区的两所主要是白色和两所历史上的黑人大学的大样本学生，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科普作为STEM专业的过渡。马里兰州大学、摩根州立大学、弗吉尼亚理工大学和霍华德大学已同意参与本研究。智力优势：拟议的项目旨在通过以下方式促进对男女如何适应科学、技术、工程和数学环境的科学理解：（a）测试新的SCCT满意度和调整模型，（B）评估模型-数据拟合在性别和机构背景下的不变性，（c）研究男女在特定模型路径上的差异，及（d）探讨妇女对环境资源和障碍的看法，以及个人/社会的应付策略。该项目将解决以前研究中的差距，将SCCT应用于妇女对STEM领域的调整。更广泛的影响：调查结果可以为教育干预措施的设计提供信息，以促进妇女积极适应STEM专业并保持STEM专业，重点关注易于修改的变量和过程。项目小组将（a）通过在专业会议上的介绍和在期刊上发表文章，向科学和教育界的受众传达研究结果;（B）向其他研究人员提供作为项目一部分开发的仪器;（c）建立一个由社会科学家、物理科学家以及工程师，他们可以就如何增加妇女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;及（d）为女性及少数族裔研究生提供研究训练机会。

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.