Motivational Trajectories and Experiences of Minoritized Students in STEM: A QuantCrit Examination of Existing Data

• In Event: Division C Vice Presidential Session: Calling in Educational Psychology Researchers, Continued: Supporting Culturally Responsive and Critical Research Journeys

Abstract

Purpose. Traditionally minoritized students face inequities in access to high-quality, motivating STEM instruction (Cardichon et al., 2020; Eccles et al., 2006). Although achievement motivation research has produced powerful principles for supporting students in general, minoritized students’ motivational experiences and evidence of opportunities that are particularly important for supporting their success is largely missing. Understanding their motivational experiences is vital for informing theory and practice toward cultural responsiveness. Accordingly, this study addressed the need for asset-based and critical research centering the experiences of minoritized students (Harper, 2010; Kumar & DeCuir-Gunby, 2023) by:
(1) documenting group and individual motivational trajectories of Black, Latine, and Indigenous students enrolled in STEM courses, and
(2) identifying factors that are important for supporting motivational trajectories using qualitative and quantitative data.
Perspectives. Situated expectancy value theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020) informed the focal motivational processes for this study: expectancy for success, value for academic tasks, and the perceived costs of pursuing tasks. We also incorporated three tenets of Critical Race Theory (DeCuir-Gunby, 2020; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) to guide the investigation. First, racism and its effects are ubiquitous. Accordingly, we assumed power structures constrain or amplify students’ motivation, and we aimed to critically examine how our research choices reflected our positionality and the dominance of whiteness in our field. A second CRT tenet, the importance of counter-storytelling, was addressed by highlighting success stories and individual case studies to complement quantitative results. A third CRT tenet is the importance of promoting social change, addressed by highlighting strengths, promoting contextual changes, and advancing conceptualization of motivational support for minoritized students.

Method. The sample (N = 612; 255 Black, 317 Latine, 54 Indigenous) consisted of students in STEM courses who completed surveys throughout the semester; some also completed a follow-up survey the following year. Surveys included measures of expectancy, value, cost, and course motivational climate adapted from validated scales (Robinson et al., 2019; 2022). Academic records were obtained from the university.

Results. Growth models identified typical change patterns (Figure 1) and the roles of climate processes for motivational trajectories (Figure 2). Students’ open-ended answers revealed reliance on themselves, on relevance examples in class, and on learning about interesting aspects of the content to sustain their confidence and interest. Individual cases (e.g., Figure 3) further illuminated students’ complex motivational pathways. For example, a chemistry course ignited a Latine man’s interest and confidence for chemistry even as he persisted in pursuing a psychology major. A Black man in computer science appeared to rely heavily on utility value and hard work, persisting in his computer science major despite struggling with confidence and emotional costs.

Significance. Results supported the importance of students’ incoming motivation as a lens that informed their classroom climate perceptions; those perceptions only rarely predicted motivational trajectories, suggesting existing supports may be insufficient while pointing to specific ways those supports can be amplified. Indeed, qualitative and case study evidence suggested self-reliance as an important way students sustained their motivation and persistence, along with opportunities to connect course content with their lives.

Authors

• Kristy A. Robinson, McGill University

• Sanheeta Shankar, McGill University