PGE: PLN Girls' Career-Relevant Interests in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology: Examining Outcome Expectations, Perceived Barriers, and Perceived Supports

本研究的目的是通过扩展我们的理论框架和经验基础，更直接地关注结果期望、感知障碍和感知支持的影响，来增加我们对女孩早期职业发展的理解，因为她们在科学、数学、工程和/或技术职业中形成了观点，形成了信念结构，并做出了职业选择的决定。需要对结果信念在职业兴趣的发展、稳定和变化中的作用进行调查，考察影响年轻女孩和妇女最终进入从事科学和技术职业的渠道的背景因素，为研究提供框架。这项规划拨款涉及几个合作研究人员、研究机构和学校系统的招募和承诺。合作研究人员将提供咨询、教育心理学和科学等学科的专业知识。跨机构的合作将为多个站点提供机会，利用现有资源解决问题，并允许在广泛不同的人口统计和地点进行研究。多个学校系统将有助于为农村、郊区和城市青年以及不同的社会经济群体提供普及的机会。规划年将包括确定足够大和多样化的女孩样本，以及设计和试点测试定性和定量工具。这项研究将使用多方法方法来审查10-14岁女孩的结果期望和感知到的障碍和支持，这些期望对与职业有关的兴趣的影响，以及如果通过未来的赠款资助，这些兴趣和结果预期随着时间的推移的发展。重点小组将用于确定在开发若干Q分类项目时使用的因素，并将其纳入评估工具。测量感兴趣结构的量化工具将在必要时设计，在适当时进行修订，然后在中学生中进行试点测试。

The purpose of this research is to increase our understanding of the early careerdevelopment of girls as they form opinions, develop belief structures, and make decisions about career options in science, mathematics, engineering, and/or technology careers by expanding our theoretical framework and empirical base to include a moredirect focus on the influence of outcome expectations, perceived barriers, and perceived support.The need to conduct inquiry into the role of outcome beliefs in the development, stability, and change in career interests, and to examine contextual factors that impact the eventual entry of young girls and women into the pipeline toward pursuing scientific and technical careers provides the framework for the research.This planning grant involves the recruitment and commitment of several collaborating researchers, research institutions, and school systems. Collaborative researchers will provide the expertise across the disciplines of counseling, educational psychology , and science. Collaboration across institutions will provide the opportunity for multiple sites to bring existing resources to bear on the problem and allow for research across widely varying demographics and locations. Multiple school systems will contribute to the opportunity to generalize to populations of rural, suburban, and urban youth, as well as varying socioeconomic groups.The planning year will include the identification of a sufficiently large and diverse sample of girls, and the design and pilot testing of both qualitative and quantitative instrumentation. This study will use a multimethod approach to examine the outcome expectations and perceived barriers and supports ofgirls, ages 10-14, the impact of these expectations on career-related interests, and, if funded through a future grant,the development of these interestS and outcome expectations over time. Focus groupswill be used to identify factors to be used in the development of items for several Q-sorts and to be incorporated into assessment tools. Quantitative instruments thatwill measure the constructs of interest will be designed, when necessary , revisedwhen appropriate, and then pilot tested with middle school youth.