When Talking About Their Interest in Science, Social Recognition Feedback Shapes Women's Science Interest Development

• In Event: Family, Friends, and Faculty: How Actual and Perceived Beliefs of Others Shape Students’ STEM Motivation

Abstract

Objective: To examine the role of social interactions with close others on the development of students’ interest in science, and whether gender changes these interactions. Specifically, we examine whether social recognition appraisals (feeling encouraged and understood) when talking about interest is particularly important for the development on women’s science interest development.

Theoretical Framework: Interest development is often conceptualized as an intra-individual process, but talking about one’s interests provides an important medium through which people seek recognition or validation for their emerging interests, via inferences from others’ reactions to interest disclosure (Thoman et al., 2012). Social recognition, feeling encouraged or understood, about one’s emerging interest may be especially important for students who experience stigma in a specific domain. For example, social interactions with close others may have high stakes for women, who face negative stereotypes about whether they belong in science (Thoman et al., 2013). Because maintaining interest is key to persistence is science fields (Renninger, Neiswadt, & Hidi, 2015), we examine gender differences in the effects of perceived social recognition from close others on women’s science interest development.

Data Source: Undergraduate science majors at a large California university were invited to participate in an online longitudinal survey study. The sample included 549 freshman and sophomore students (66% female; 32% Asian, 32% Latino/a, 17% Caucasian, 13% Multi-racial, median age = 19).

Methods:
Students completed a baseline survey three weeks into the semester (Time 1) and another at the end of the semester (Time 2). At each time point students reported their interest in a science future (7 items, α = .95, adapted from Carroll et al., 2009 and Chemers et al., 2011) and science identity (6-items, α = .89, adapted from Chemers et al., 2011). At the end of the semester, students also reported how often talked about their interest in science with their close others (3 items, α = .79) and their appraisals that close others have been encouraging and understanding when talking about their interest in science (social recognition appraisals; 2 items, r = .66).

Results: Even after controlling for baseline interest in a science future and students’ frequency of talking about interests, linear regression analyses showed a significant interaction between social recognition and student gender (b = .16, t = 2.34, p = .02). Simple slopes analyses indicated that social recognition appraisals predicted greater interest in a science future for women (b = .15, t = 3.33, p < .001), but not for men (b = -.01, t = -.18, p = .86). Further analyses ruled out potential alternative explanations for this relationship.

Significance: These findings highlight the role of perceived social recognition from close others in promoting science interest development for freshmen and sophomore women undergraduate science majors.

Authors

• Christina Curti, University of Rochester

• Matthew Jackson, San Diego State University

• Jeanette Zambrano, San Diego State University

• Dustin Thoman, San Diego State University