The Importance of Interest in the Biomedical Pipeline: An Expectancy-Value Approach to Intervention

• In Event: How Do Expectancies and Values Affect Interest Development?

Abstract

Interest plays a major role in STEM motivation. Our research is based in introductory biology classes for pre-health majors, where students start out with high levels of interest. The course is challenging, however, and we test interventions (based in expectancy-value theory) to help struggling students perform better. Both competence beliefs and values are critically important, but we intervene on value, and test competence beliefs as moderators. Different outcomes reflect different motivational processes, and we use different measures to study students’ performance and persistence in STEM. We conducted a two-year follow-up of a utility-value intervention (UVI) with 1039 students, examining subsequent course-taking and whether students had chosen biomedical majors. We think of these long-term outcomes as behavioral indicators of well-developed interest. The original study (Harackiewicz, Canning, et al., 2016) had found that the UVI improved course grades for all students, as well as for underrepresented students, by promoting engagement.

In the follow-up (Hecht et al., 2019), students who were more confident that they could succeed in the course were more likely to persist in biomedical fields if they had received the UVI (a classic expectancy-value effect), and this effect was mediated by higher levels of personal relevance in students’ writing assignments (linguistic measure). We also found that the UVI increased persistence through the original effects on course grades, for all students, and for underrepresented students in particular. In other words, engagement was more relevant for performance (with implications for persistence), but a focus on personal relevance (for confident students) was most relevant for academic choices over time.

In an interview study (Rosenzweig et al., 2020, in press), we examined whether students who left biomedical fields felt pushed out versus pulled away. We identified 1193 students who intended to pursue biomedical fields of study early in college and interviewed them approximately two years later about their future plans. Among students who left (n = 192), 62.5% reported disenchantment, referencing both low interest and low perceived competence in biomedical fields. However, 37.4% of students who left felt pulled towards alternative fields of study, with almost all of them referencing a growing interest in other fields. Interest in biology and course grades both negatively predicted students’ feelings of disenchantment, but interest was the stronger predictor. Results highlight the importance of considering students’ reasons for leaving biomedical fields, and the important role that interest plays in students’ academic decisions over time. Most recently, we have examined changes within the STEM pipeline (indeed, almost half the students who remained in biomedical fields had changed their plans), and again, we find evidence for the power of interest in driving these changes.

Our linguistic analyses and interviews with students suggest that we can learn from what students write and tell us. Open questions for discussion: Do we need different theories for different outcome measures, or can we integrate theoretical models that focus on academic performance with those that focus on interest development and academic choices, with the goal of improving intervention science?

Authors

• Judith Harackiewicz, University of Wisconsin

• Cameron Hecht, The University of Texas at Austin

• Emily Q. Rosenzweig, University of Georgia