Daily Diverse Peer Interactions, Academic Efficacy, and Social Support for Late Adolescent STEM Majors

• In Event: 3-173 - Racial/Ethnic Diversity and Adolescents’ Well-being in Everyday Life: Unpacking the Daily Processes

Integrative Statement

Introduction. Peer relationships have been shown to play an important role in supporting students’ beliefs and interests in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math; Nelson & Debacker, 2008). Interacting with ethnically diverse peers is related to improved academic performance and engagement in college (Gurin et al., 2002), thus spending time with diverse friend groups may be particularly important for STEM students. As competence beliefs (e.g., academic self-efficacy) decline across the school years, daily peer interactions may foster academic efficacy and social support (Pajares, 2002), which are both positively related to motivation behaviors (e.g., goal pursuit, choice, persistence, performance; Bandura, 1997; Wentzel, 1998) that function to reduce STEM major attrition and support STEM career aspirations. The current study explores how daily interactions with ethnically diverse friends relate to (1) academic self-efficacy and (2) STEM social support.

Method. Participants were 161 college freshmen (45% Asian/PI, 25% White, 19% Latinx, 1% Black, and 10% Multiethnic; 76% women) enrolled as STEM majors. Five daily self-report surveys were administered across one week. To measure ethnic diversity of friends, students indicated the proportion of friends from 5 ethnic groups who they had spent time with on that day. This was recoded to different ethnic groups students spent any time with that day (possible range 1-5). To measure daily academic self-efficacy, students completed 5-items from the Revised Harter Self Perception Scale for College Students (Neeman & Harter, 2012). To measure daily STEM social support, students were asked how often they talk with friends about STEM coursework (1 – never, 4 – often) on each day.

Results. Two hierarchical linear models were run to test the associations between daily ethnic diversity of friends and daily (1) academic efficacy, and (2) STEM social support. No significant ethnic group differences were observed, thus ethnicity was dropped from the final models. As illustrated in Table 1, results indicate that students who on average spend time daily with a greater variety (or more ethnically diverse) friends report higher daily levels of academic efficacy (B = .20, p < .05) and STEM social support (B = .47, p < .01). Additionally, on days where students spend time with more ethnically diverse friends than their individual average, they also report marginally greater STEM social support (B = .14, p = .05).

Discussion. Interacting daily with ethnically diverse friends in college can promote greater academic efficacy and STEM social support, which could potentially help STEM major students persist through challenging major coursework encountered on a daily basis. At a time when persistence and performance is important for future career goals, it is critical to consider how daily interactions with diverse peers can boost competence beliefs and subsequent motivation behaviors. Because this sample is from a school that is known to have a diverse student population in STEM majors (50% from underrepresented ethnic minority groups, 53% women), it is important to recognize the benefits of diversity, and how daily diverse interactions may promote greater motivation in STEM.

Authors

• Shannon Peiffer, University of California, Davis
  Presenting Author

• Alysha Ramirez Hall, University of California Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adrienne Nishina, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author