Reducing Attrition in STEM Doctoral Education: A Longitudinal Investigation using Momentary Assessment and Social Psychological Intervention

ECR计划强调基础STEM教育研究，将在该领域产生基础知识。这项研究将探讨心理威胁带来的压力是否有助于解释为什么近一半的博士生，以及女性和代表性不足的少数民族学生在获得STEM学位之前离开研究生院的比例更高。拟议的研究将指导自我肯定理论，以确定是否可以通过帮助学生改变他们的环境威胁的评价，提高博士教育保留社会心理干预的有效策略。由于很少有研究纵向和严格地探讨了对博士生的轨迹产生负面影响的因素以及心理干预如何改变这些轨迹，这项研究将是朝着这个方向迈出的重要一步。为此，这项研究将推进该领域的知识，以提高博士水平的STEM领域的整体参与度，同时有助于使未来的STEM专业劳动力多样化。这项研究将采取纵向随机对照试验的形式，在三个主要研究机构的两组STEM博士生中进行。一年级的研究生将被随机分配到一个控制条件或标准或偶然的肯定干预。标准的肯定涉及经过经验验证的写作练习，让参与者反思他们的重要价值观。新开发的偶然肯定让参与者明确地将他们的价值观与他们的长期教育目标联系起来。智能手机应用程序将用于提供定期的助推器干预措施，并收集关于学生生活经历的持续生态瞬时评估数据。这种方法将提供所需的心理和行为数据，以记录可能导致STEM博士课程学生流失的长期压力指标。研究结果将为STEM研究生的心理和表现轨迹以及预测减员和保留的因素提供一个窗口，包括肯定干预在这一人群中的有效性。研究结果还将有助于推进与STEM教育中的社会认同、动机和目标追求相关的理论，并通过提供有关肯定干预机制的必要纵向信息，进一步扩展和扩展肯定理论。测试量身定制的智能手机提供助推器干预措施的有效性，特别是扩展了肯定理论，并普遍提供了移动的心理干预措施。

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This study will examine whether stress from psychological threat helps explain why nearly half of doctoral students overall and even higher rates of women and underrepresented minority students leave graduate school before attaining their terminal STEM degrees. The proposed research will be guided by the self-affirmation theory in determining whether social psychological interventions can be effective strategies for improving retention in doctoral education by helping students alter their appraisal of environmental threats. Since few, if any, studies have longitudinally and rigorously explored factors that negatively impact trajectories of doctoral students and how psychological interventions can alter these trajectories, this research will be an important initial step in that direction. To that end, this study will advance knowledge in the field about ways to increase overall participation in STEM areas at the doctoral level while at the same time help to diversify the future STEM professional workforce. This research will take on the form of a longitudinal randomized controlled trial conducted among two cohorts of incoming STEM doctoral students at three major research institutions. First-year graduate students will be randomly assigned to a control condition or to either a standard or contingent affirmation intervention. The standard affirmation involves an empirically-validated writing exercise that has participants reflect on their important values. The newly-developed contingent affirmation has participants explicitly link their values to their long-term educational goals. A smartphone application will be used to provide periodic booster interventions and collect ongoing ecological momentary assessment data on students' lived experiences. This method will provide needed psychological and behavioral data to chronicle long-term indicators of stress that may contribute to student attrition from STEM doctoral programs. Results will provide a window into the psychological and performance trajectories of STEM graduate students and the factors that predict attrition and retention, including the effectiveness of affirmation interventions in this population. Results will also help advance theory related to social identity, motivation, and goal pursuit in STEM education and will further expand and extend affirmation theory, by providing needed longitudinal information on the mechanisms underlying affirmation interventions. Testing the effectiveness of tailored smartphone delivery of booster interventions expands affirmation theory in particular and the delivery of mobile psychological interventions generally.