Using QuantCrit to Develop and Examine the Transformational STEM Consciousness Scale

• In Event: Mindsets and Mentorship: Improving Success for Underserved and Community College Students

Abstract

Guided by QuantCrit, we introduce and validate the Transformational STEM Consciousness (TSC) scale, which fuses students’ motivation to pursue racial/social justice through STEM with a critique of STEM’s historic complicity in inequity. Surveying 255 undergraduates and graduates in 18 justice-integrated STEM courses across 11 U.S. institutions, confirmatory factor analysis supported a unidimensional structure (CFI =.990; RMSEA =.07). Results also showed evidence of convergent (r = .56 with equity-ethic career values, r= -.66 with color-evasive racial attitudes) and discriminant validity (weak ties to prestige motives). Hierarchical regressions confirmed that color-evasive racial attitudes and prestige suppressed TSC, whereas equity-ethic, STEM identity, and prior justice exposure enhanced it. TSC offers scholars and practitioners a concise, psychometrically sound tool for transforming STEM success.

Authors

• Juan C. Garibay, University of Virginia

• Lindsay Wheeler, University of Virginia