PostDoctoral Research Fellowship

社会心理学和教育心理学中的学术文献表明，自我效能感在学术投入和坚持不懈中扮演着重要角色。目前，研究非裔美国青年自我效能感的研究很少。考虑到在为解释非裔美国人成绩不佳而开发的模型中强调激励属性，这种遗漏令人震惊。同样，日益增长的关于少数族裔种族认同的学术研究往往包括断言种族认同对于青年发展积极的自我评价以及他们在面对种族障碍时继续参与和坚持的重要性。然而，在文献中很少有关于自我效能感的明确检验。更具体地说，到目前为止还没有研究考察自我效能信念和种族认同信念如何有助于非裔美国青年的学业适应，以及这两个因素如何相互作用来缓冲经历过的种族歧视的影响。智力上的功绩。拟议项目的智力价值是促进寻求解决非洲裔美国青年基于歧视经历、自我效能信念和种族认同信念的特定概况如何解释他们的学业成就的理论和研究。例如，具有特定种族认同和自我效能信念的年轻人如何应对歧视？具有特定种族认同信念的青少年是否有较高的自我效能感？一定量的种族认同和自我效能感能预测高成就结果吗？具体的概况可能有助于非裔美国青少年的学业成就，利用以人为本的方法将能够确定多种种族认同和自我效能信念模式，这些模式可能会缓冲歧视经历的影响。更广泛的影响。拟议项目的更广泛影响将加强该研究员的理论方法，研究自我效能信念和种族认同信念如何在非裔美国儿童和青年的生活中发挥作用。这将是理解以人为本的信念如何促进和/或阻碍学术成果的第一步。这项研究还考察了非洲裔美国青少年的不同样本，允许识别学生经历的模式相似之处，尽管他们的社会经济背景。研究结果将在科学界、学者和社区利益攸关方中传播，并将促进关于黑人儿童和青年的功效和种族认同信念的重要性的现有文献。总体而言，除了促进这位研究员的职业生涯外，这项工作还有可能对非裔美国青年的教育表现产生积极影响。

Scholarly literature in social and educational psychology assert the important role of self-efficacy in academic engagement and persistence. Currently, there is a dearth of research studies examining self-efficacy beliefs among African American youth. This omission is striking given the emphasis on motivational attributes in models developed to explain African American underachievement. Similarly, the growing scholarship on minority racial identity often includes assertions of the importance of racial identity to youths' development of positive self-evaluations and to their continued engagement and persistence in the face of racial barriers. However, there has been little explicit examination of self-efficacy in the literature. More specifically, no study to date has examined how both self-efficacy beliefs and racial identity beliefs contribute to African American youths' academic adjustment and how the two factors interact to buffer the effects of experienced racial discrimination. Intellectual Merit. The intellectual merit of the proposed project is to contribute to the theory and research seeking to address how specific profiles of African American youth based on discriminatory experiences, self-efficacy beliefs, and racial identity beliefs explain their academic achievement outcomes. For instance, how do youth with specific racial identity and self-efficacy beliefs cope with discrimination? Do adolescents with certain racial identity beliefs have higher self-efficacy beliefs? Does a certain amount of racial identity and self-efficacy predict high achievement outcomes? Specific profiles may contribute to the academic achievement of African American adolescents and utilizing a person-oriented approach will allow for the identification of multiple patterns of racial identity and self-efficacy beliefs that could potentially buffer the effects of discriminatory experiences. Broader Impacts. The broader impact of the proposed project will enhance the fellow's theoretical approach to the study of how self-efficacy beliefs and racial identity beliefs operate in the lives of African American children and youth. This will be the first step in understanding how person-centered beliefs promote and/or hinder academic outcomes. The research also examines a diverse sample of African American adolescents, allowing for the identification of pattern similarities of experiences of students, despite their socioeconomic background. Findings will be disseminated among the scientific community, scholars, and community stakeholders and will advance the current literature on the importance of both efficacy and racial identity beliefs of Black children and youth. Overall, in addition to advancing the Fellow's career, this work has the potential to have positive impact on educational performance of African American youth.