Collaborative Research: Identity Development Evaluation of African American Science Students (IDEAAS): A Longitudinal Investigation

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The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. As such, this study will build on an emerging body of research about ways to broaden the representation of the African American undergraduate students in STEM fields. This type of research is highly important since studies show that racial bias weaken scientific identity in STEM by triggering and perpetuating threatening stereotypes that African Americans do not have the capacity and skills to become scientists. To that end, this project will employ a stereotype inoculation model to test whether environments characterized by majorities of marginalized group members serve to reduce the negative effects of stereotypes, protect identity development, and facilitate self-efficacy and career-related motivation. The study will compare perceptions of campus climate and academic mentoring relationships using populations of undergraduate students from two universities. It will look at specific factors that both exacerbate and buffer the negative effects of racial stereotypes, as well as the implications that they, in turn, have for the development of an adaptive science identity. This project will test three conceptual models grounded in the stereotype inoculation framework. The first model will portray an erosion process whereby scientific disidentification increases as a function of racial bias and stereotype threat. A second counteractive model will test the potentially facilitative effects of racial identity on scientific self-efficacy through its spillover effect on scientific identity. The third model will examine the unconditional latent growth of implicit scientific identity, as well as the time-varying effects of students' perceptions of their mentoring relationships on the identity outcomes. Data will be collected from cohorts comprising more than 500 STEM majors attending the two universities participating in the project. Outcomes from this work will advance stereotype inoculation theory development through its innovative contextual focus on the micro- and macro-level processes that influence African American science students' STEM career attitudes. The study will also (a) provide insights into the mediating role that multiple identities, both racial and scientific identity, play in buffering these stereotypes, and (b) identify the interpersonal ingredients that comprise effective faculty-student relationships that give shape to multiculturally inclusive academic climates