SBP: Harnessing Latinx Parents' Math Support to Increase Adolescents' Math Motivation and Achievement

该奖项是作为NSF的社会，行为和经济科学（SBE）博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划和SBE的科学扩大参与计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF的奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在Sandra D博士的赞助下，在加州大学欧文分校，这个博士后奖学金支持早期职业科学家研究如何拉丁美洲家庭和有组织的课外活动（ASA）可以建立伙伴关系，以培养学生的数学动机和成就。青少年在中学的数学成绩和动机是通往高中和大学STEM愿望和追求的关键门户。然而，许多拉丁裔和代表性不足的少数民族青年放弃了STEM追求，因为他们认为数学对他们的生活太具挑战性或不重要。青少年需要在教育环境中获得积极的经验，以提高他们的兴趣，价值观和持续的掌握。家庭环境和ASA是非正式的教育环境，扩大了年轻人在学校学习的内容，这对拉丁裔青年参加低质量学校尤为重要。随着ASA越来越多地提出增加家长参与拉丁裔青年教育的举措，家庭和ASA之间的成功伙伴关系取决于利用拉丁裔家庭的知识文化基金和家长在数学和STEM方面更广泛的文化支持。这些知识基金可以为ASA如何使数学和STEM与青少年的生活相关提供重要的见解，并可能帮助家长进一步加强他们在家中的数学支持。该项目旨在了解拉丁裔父母如何支持他们的青少年在数学和揭示的方式，ASA可以更好地利用拉丁裔父母的知识文化基金，最大限度地提高青少年的数学能力和动机。通过研究ASA如何利用父母的数学支持，以提高青少年的数学动机和成就，这个项目希望加强家庭ASA的伙伴关系，以影响积极的教育成功的拉丁青年。这个项目旨在了解拉丁父母的文化基金的知识，在数学;确定机会ASA，以加强他们的数学支持;制定一个可靠的，有效的措施，拉丁裔父母的数学支持，捕捉一个更完整的和文化接地的一套父母的行为;并检查父母的数学支持和青少年的数学动机和性能之间的联系。为了实现这些研究目标，将通过混合方法，包括调查和深入的定性访谈，从家长和青少年参与者的数学阿萨收集数据。研究结果将指导研究人员和阿萨领导者开发实用的，具有成本效益的资源，旨在加强家长的数学支持。基本方法和应用方法的结合将扩大对拉丁裔社区内家庭影响的实质性知识，丰富的信息，阐明了有效的方式，家长和ASA可以互相告知，以提高青少年的数学动机和成就。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持，通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program and SBE's Science of Broadening Participation program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Sandra D. Simpkins at the University of California, Irvine, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist examining how Latinx families and organized after-school activities (ASAs) can build partnerships to foster students’ math motivation and achievement. Youths’ math achievement and motivation in middle school is a critical gateway to STEM aspirations and pursuits in high school and college. However, many Latinx and underrepresented minority youth turn away from STEM pursuits because they perceive math to be too challenging or unimportant to their lives. Adolescents need to have positive experiences in educational contexts that boost their interests, values, and ongoing mastery. Family environments and ASAs are informal educational settings that extend what youths are learning in school, which is particularly important for Latinx youth attending lower-quality schools. As ASAs increasingly put forth initiatives to increase parent involvement in Latinx youths’ education, successful partnerships between families and ASAs hinges on leveraging Latinx families’ cultural funds of knowledge and parents’ culturally-grounded support in math and STEM more broadly. These funds of knowledge can provide vital insights to how ASAs can make math and STEM relevant to youths’ lives and may help parents further enhance their math support at home. This project seeks to understand how Latinx parents’ support their adolescents in math and uncover the ways in which ASAs can better leverage Latinx parents’ cultural funds of knowledge to maximally increase youths’ competence and motivation in math. By studying how ASAs can harness parents’ math support to increase youths’ math motivation and achievement, this project hopes to bolster family-ASA partnerships to effect positive educational success among Latinx youths.This project seeks to understand Latinx parents’ cultural funds of knowledge in math; identify opportunities for ASAs to enhance their math support; develop a reliable, valid measure of Latinx parents’ math support that captures a more complete and culturally-grounded set of parental behaviors; and examine the links between parents’ math supports and youths’ math motivation and performance. To accomplish these research aims, data will be collected from both parents and youth participants of a math ASA through mixed methods approaches, including surveys and in-depth qualitative interviews. Study findings will guide efforts by researchers and ASA leaders to develop practical, cost-effective resources aimed at enhancing parents’ math support. The integration of basic and applied approaches will extend substantive knowledge on family influences within Latinx communities and provide vital, enriching information that illuminates the effective ways in which parents and ASAs may reciprocally inform one another to improve youths’ math motivation and achievement.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.