Contextual Factors and Psychological Mechanisms that Support or Disrupt Biomedical Career Pathways

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Project Summary Many students enter college with an interest in studying science, but ultimately pursue other majors. Others graduate with a science major, but fail to enter or remain in the biomedical workforce. The many pathways out of science contribute to shortages in the biomedical workforce, particularly among women, underrepresented minorities (URMs), and first-generation (FG) college students. What is often missing in the study of persistence in biomedical fields is a consideration of the psychological mechanisms involved in persistence and an understanding of how to design experiences or institutional supports around such mechanisms. My research program addresses this gap by examining persistence in the biomedical fields using a psychological lens, with a focus on motivational trajectories and contextual supports. Over the next 5 years, I will focus on two key open questions: (1) What developmental patterns of motivational beliefs are adaptive for persistence in biomedical career pathways and do adaptive patterns vary across individuals with different characteristics (e.g., URM, FG, Gender)?, and (2) How can we improve contextual supports during college, focusing on motivational beliefs as a mediating mechanism, in order to retain more individuals on biomedical career pathways, especially those from underrepresented groups? This MIRA application aims to leverage and extend my extensive multi-site, multi-method longitudinal research by continuing quantitative and qualitative longitudinal data collection as research participants reach the next phases in their career pathways (immediately after college and >5 years after college) from two unique university samples: (1) large, land-grant public university (Michigan State University, N = 1735; 57% Female; 11% URM; 12% FG) and (2) elite, private university (Duke, N = 2546; 54% Female; 19% URM; 9% FG). Additionally, to extend the generalizability of these findings to a third unique university context and to flexibly pursue research questions based on findings from the original cohorts, data collection will be extended to Old Dominion University, a public, minority-serving institution (41% URM, 28% FG). Finally, an alternative approach for addressing persistence in biomedical fields will be pursued, namely examining how training future faculty to support student motivation and engagement in the context of enriched curricular opportunities relates to their later approaches to supporting student motivation and engagement. IMPACT: This on-going research program will provide key insights into the types of contextual supports and psychological mechanisms that are needed to encourage persistence in biomedical science careers, especially among women, URMs, and FGs.