Improving the STEM Higher Education Research Workforce: Examining Motivation as a Predictor of Faculty Research Development and Productivity

STEM学科的教师研究生产力推动了科学进步、大学-行业知识转移、创新经济活动和数据驱动的政府决策。然而，近几十年来，尽管联邦研究经费增加，美国STEM的研究生产率却停滞不前，这引发了如何在经济能力之外最大限度地提高STEM学术研究队伍的生产率的问题。本项目的目的是调查动机在STEM高等教育教师研究、生产力和发展中的作用。激励的教职员工预计将更有生产力，并留在高等教育劳动力队伍中，特别是如果他们来自传统上在STEM研究劳动力中代表性较低的人群。当前项目的结果将向高等教育机构，特别是努力提高学术生产力的大学通报STEM教员积极性的具体优势和不足，这些具体优势和不足与研究生产力的可衡量收益有关。这是朝着设计研究开发干预措施迈出的关键一步，从基于大学的入职计划到NSF培训补助金，旨在增强动机，以提高STEM教员研究人员的生产率。研究结果将为大学提供最佳实践和政策指导，以支持STEM教员产生创新的基础和应用科学知识，通过他们的研究应对关键的社会和经济挑战，并培养灵活、知识丰富和多样化的下一代STEM研究人员。该项目由科学创新与政策计划和激励竞争性研究的既定计划共同资助。这个多机构项目将是第一个将STEM教师心理调查结果与研究生产率的文献计量学指标(出版物、引文、社交媒体关注度)配对的项目。这些数据将被用来测试一个概念模型，该模型假设教师的特征(人口统计、就业)和机构素质(研究资源、社会环境因素)如何与动机变量(自主性、能力、关联性、兴趣、控制力、价值、自我调节、毅力)相关，如果得到支持，应该会产生最佳的内在动机和积极的情绪，并导致提高研究生产率(例如，文献计量、自我报告)。结构方程模型将被用来横向分析假设的关系，并纵向预测STEM教研员在三年内的发展。此外，该项目将根据性别、种族和民族，审查STEM领域中传统上代表性不足的群体之间的假设关系。这项研究将在几个方面提高我们对STEM高等教育研究队伍的了解。首先，这个项目代表了第一个将教师调查数据与独立的研究生产率的文献计量学指标配对的跨学科研究。其次，这些研究将利用与教师研究结果相关的变量的可靠和有效测量，并在美国10所高等教育机构约1,400名教师的大样本中评估假设模型的普适性。第三，这项研究将在调查与教师研究效率和发展相关的心理变量的有限实证结果的基础上，探索与教师特征(例如，STEM中代表性不足的少数群体)和机构素质之间的相互作用。第四，该项目将利用已建立的激励理论，很少应用于教师的研究、生产力和发展，以在这个未得到充分研究的领域产生新的知识和最佳实践。因此，当前的项目将指导建立STEM教师动机的关键变量和基准，以预测研究生产率和随着时间的推移的发展。该项目由科学创新与政策计划和促进竞争性研究的既定计划共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Faculty research productivity in STEM disciplines drives scientific advancement, university-industry knowledge transfer, innovative economic activity, and data-driven government decision-making. In recent decades, however, USA STEM research productivity has plateaued despite increases in federal research funding, leading to questions of how to maximize productivity in the STEM academic research workforce beyond financial means. The objective of this project is to investigate the role of motivation in STEM higher education faculty research productivity and development. Motivated faculty are expected to be more productive and stay in the higher education workforce, particularly if they are from populations traditionally underrepresented in the STEM research workforce. Results of the current project will inform higher education institutions, particularly universities striving to increase scholarly productivity, as to specific strengths and deficits in STEM faculty motivation that relate to measurable gains in research productivity. This is a critical step toward designing research development interventions from university-based induction programs to NSF training grants aimed at bolstering motivation to enhance the productivity of STEM faculty researchers. Findings will provide guidance to universities on best practices and policies for supporting STEM faculty in producing innovative basic and applied scientific knowledge, tackling key social and economic challenges with their research, and training the next generation of flexible, knowledgeable, and diverse STEM researchers. This project is jointly funded by the Science of Science Innovation and Policy Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. This multi-institution project will be the first to pair STEM faculty psychological surveys responses with bibliometric indicators of research productivity (publications, citations, social media attention). These data will be used to test a conceptual model hypothesizing how faculty characteristics (demographic, employment) and institutional qualities (research resources, social-environmental factors) relate to motivational variables (autonomy, competence, relatedness, interest, control, value, self-regulation, grit) that, if supported, should yield optimal intrinsic motivation and positive emotions, and result in enhanced research productivity (e.g., bibliometric, self-report). Structural equation modeling will be used to analyze the posited relationships cross-sectionally and predict the development of STEM faculty researchers longitudinally over a three-year period. Additionally, the project will examine hypothesized relationships among traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM fields based on gender, race, and ethnicity. This research will improve our understanding of the STEM higher education research workforce in several ways. First, this project represents the first interdisciplinary study pairing faculty survey data with independent, bibliometric indicators of research productivity. Second, these studies will utilize reliable and valid measures of variables relating to faculty research outcomes and evaluate the generalizability of the hypothesized model in a large USA sample of ~1,400 faculty across 10 higher education institutions. Third, this research will expand upon limited empirical findings investigating psychological variables associated with faculty research productivity and development, and explore the interplay with faculty characteristics (e.g., underrepresented minority groups in STEM) and institutional qualities. Fourth, the project will utilize established motivation theories rarely applied to faculty research productivity and development to generate new knowledge and best practices in this under-examined domain. As such, the current project will guide the establishment of critical variables and benchmarks for STEM faculty motivation to predict research productivity and development over time. This project is jointly funded by the Science of Science Innovation and Policy Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.