March 28th, 2015 | RESEARCH
Individuals are at an increased risk to drop out of the STEM pipeline if they are female or Latino, and during certain periods including high school. Families are a potential untapped resource of support for high school students. Based on the expectancy-value model, we examined if a variety of parental behaviors predicted students’ ability self-concepts in and value they placed on biology, chemistry, and physics. Self-report surveys were collected from 988 9th grade Latino boys, Latina girls, Caucasian boys, and Caucasian girls. The findings suggest that, as early as the beginning of high school, students hold different motivational beliefs for biology, chemistry, and physics. Caucasian boys reported higher parental behaviors and motivational beliefs compared to Latino boys, Latina girls, and Caucasian girls. Latina girls reported the lowest parental behaviors and motivational beliefs. Parent education and Spanish language use partially explained some of these differences suggesting ethnic differences are in part due to differences among Caucasians and Latinos on parent education and language use. Parents’ positivity, co-activity and school-focused behaviors predicted higher adolescent ability self-concepts and importance values in all three sciences for all adolescents in this study. Parents can support adolescents in science through a variety of behaviors at home. Many of these behaviors do not require parents to be science experts and thus may be attainable for a range of families.
Document
Simpkins_Price_Garcia_2015.pdf
Team Members
Sandra Simpkins, Author, Arizona State UniversityChara Price, Author, Arizona State University
Krystal Garcia, Author, Arizona State University
Citation
Identifier Type: DOI
Identifier: 10.1002/tea.21246
Publication: Journal of Research in Science Teaching
Funders
Funding Source: NSF
Award Number: 1054798
Related URLs
CAREER: How Families Motivate Mexican-Origin Adolescents to Pursue Physical Science in High School
Tags
Access and Inclusion: English Language Learners | Ethnic | Racial | Hispanic | Latinx Communities | Women and Girls
Audience: Parents | Caregivers | Youth | Teen (up to 17)
Discipline: Chemistry | Education and learning science | Life science | Physics
Resource Type: Peer-reviewed article | Research Products
Environment Type: Informal | Formal Connections | K-12 Programs