Talking About Science Interest: Appraisals of Positive Responsiveness Impact Women's Science Interest Development

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-14 - How Interesting! Students' Motivation and Interest in Context

Abstract

Talking about one’s interest provides an important medium through which students can validate their emerging interests via appraisals of others’ reactions to their interest disclosure. Because maintaining interest is key to persistence is science majors, we examine gender differences in the effects of close others’ reactions to interest as a means of learning how to better support women’s science interest development. From a longitudinal survey study of undergraduate science majors (N = 549), we found that appraisals that close others are encouraging and understanding when talking about one’s interest in science (positive responsiveness appraisals) predicted interest in a future in science for women, but not men, controlling for baseline and the frequency of talking about one’s interest in science.

Authors

• Christina Curti, University of Rochester

• Jeanette Zambrano, University of Southern California

• Garam Lee, San Diego State University

• Matthew Jackson, San Diego State University

• Dustin Thoman, San Diego State University