Lessons Learned as an Administrator, as a Grant Panelist, and From 25 Years of Motivation Research Funding

• In Event: 51.064 - Grant Writing for Motivation Research: A Guide for Early Career Researchers

Abstract

I approach the topic of this symposium from the perspective of a senior motivation researcher who has enjoyed more than 25 years of continuous extramural funding for my research. The presentation will be divided into four parts. In the first part, I briefly review my own trajectory of extramural funding. I focus on timing issues –for example, why I chose to wait until the post-tenure years to seek extramural grants, what factors contributed to my successes (and failures) in the grant-making enterprise, the agencies that I find most receptive to motivation research, and what I see as the future of funded research on motivation. It will be critically important that motivation research remain theory guided, but now more than ever there is a greater emphasis on impact - for example, does changing motivation lead to empirically verifiable changes in school adjustment outcomes.

In the second part of my presentation, I put on my administrator’s hat: I served a term as chair of a large Department of Education in a research-intensive university where much of my efforts involved mentoring junior faculty on all aspects of the promotion process, including the importance of extramural funding for promotion and other merit advances. Here I make two interrelated points (with examples). First, early career scholars need to know the culture of their own department and the university about extramural funding as criteria for advancement. Second, if theirs is a research-intensive university, early career scholars must be proactive (not shy about) requesting resources that facilitate grant writing. These might include, for example, a course release, a graduate student researcher to help with literature reviews, or support to attend workshops on advanced quantitative data analysis.

In the third part of my presentation, I draw on my extensive experience serving on review panels that evaluate proposals for research support. I have been a panel member for both public (NIH, NSF) and private foundations (W.T Grant, Spencer). Review panels serve a powerful gate-keeper function: Their evaluations of what is fundable shape the science in any particular field, including motivation science. I will offer audience members a set of guiding principles for writing grants such as seeking out mechanisms that are designed for early career scholars, paying careful attention to the review criteria of any particular funding agency, and taking advantage of mechanisms that support small grants. Grant-making in the early stages of one’s career is a process of building an increasingly complex research portfolio over time. It is Ok (and even preferable) to start small.

Finally, as a scholar of color myself, I discuss some of the unique challenges that early career scholars of color might face. These include understanding the role of race/ethnicity in testing motivation theories, decisions about collaborators (when to work on other people’s grants and when to take the lead), and broadening participation (e.g., mentoring graduate students while conducting research and writing grants).

Author

• Sandra Graham, University of California - Los Angeles