Outcome expectations, motivations, achievement goals, and research self-efficacy within high-quality research training environments.

A primary task of scientific and scientist-practitioner training programs is to assist graduate students in acquiring research skills and, ultimately, developing research and scientific acumen. Informed by Gelso's (1979) model of effective research training environments (RTEs), we assessed the effect of the advisory working alliance and research team cohesion on trainees' research self-efficacy and research activity. With a sample of 76 counseling psychology doctoral trainees nested within 34 advisors, we examined the association between the advisory working alliance and research team cohesion and trainees' research self-efficacy and research activity. Next, we used polynomial regression and response surface analysis to test the additive and complementary effects between the advisory working alliance and research team cohesion on trainees' research self-efficacy and research activity. Univariate analyses indicated that the advisory working alliance and research team cohesion were positively associated with trainees' research self-efficacy and research activity. Moreover, polynomial regression models and response surface analyses indicated an additive effect between the advisory working alliance and research team cohesion on trainees' research self-efficacy and research activity, such that trainees' research self-efficacy and research activity were highest when the advisory working alliance and research team cohesion were consistent and high. Lastly, we found a complementary effect between the advisory working alliance and research team cohesion for trainees' research self-efficacy, meaning research self-efficacy was highest when students perceived either (a) high advisory working alliance and low research team cohesion or (b) low advisory working alliance and high research team cohesion. Training implications and future directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Using social-cognitive career theory, we identified the experiential sources of learning that contribute to research self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and science identity for culturally diverse undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and math (i.e., STEM) majors. We examined group differences by race/ethnicity and gender to investigate potential cultural variations in a model to explain students' research career intentions. Using a sample of 688 undergraduate students, we ran a series of path models testing the relationships between the experiential sources, research self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and science identity to research career intentions. Findings were largely consistent with our hypotheses in that research self-efficacy and outcome expectancies were directly and positively associated with research career intentions and the associations of the experiential sources to intentions were mediated via self-efficacy. Science identity contributed significant though modest variance to research career intentions indirectly via its positive association with outcome expectations. Science identity also partially mediated the efficacy-outcome expectancies path. The experiential sources of learning were associated in expected directions to research self-efficacy with 3 of the sources emerging as significantly correlated with science identity. An unexpected direct relationship from vicarious learning to intentions was observed. In testing for group differences by race/ethnicity and gender in subsamples of Black/African American and Latino/a students, we found that the hypothesized model incorporating science identity was supported, and most paths did not vary significantly across four Race/Ethnicity × Gender groups, except for 3 paths. Research and practice implications of the findings for supporting research career intentions of culturally diverse undergraduate students are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Research interest is the degree to which an individual is interested in conducting research-related activities. Nowadays, Indonesian higher education academics are expected to be research productive, especially those in life sciences. However, what predicts interest in research among life sciences academics is rarely known. We surveyed 240 life sciences academics (64.6% female, mean age = 31.91 years) from several higher degree institutions in Indonesia, using interest in research, research self-efficacy, and research outcome expectations questionnaires. We used social cognitive career theory which proposes that individual’s interests are the results of the interaction between one’s self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations overtime. Structural equation modelling demonstrated that research self-efficacy was directly and indirectly associated with interest in research via research outcome expectations. Understanding the social cognitive predictors of interest in research contributes to an understanding of the associations between research self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and interest in research. Recommendations for life sciences academics, faculties, and higher education institutions are discussed.

While the expectations for social work practitioners to do research have increased, their involvement is still limited. We know little about what factors influence involvement in research. The present study proposes a theoretical model that hypothesizes research training and institutional support for research as the exogenous variables, research self-efficacy as an intervening variable, and research activity as the endogenous variable. The study tests the model using data collected from a random sample of social workers. To a large degree the data support the model. Research self-efficacy has a significant effect on research activity. It is also an important mediating variable for the effect of institutional support on research activity. Although institutional support for research has no direct effect, it has an indirect effect via self-efficacy on research activity. However, research training has no effect on research activity and self-efficacy in research. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Research self-efficacy represents the adaptation of the social cognitive concept of self-efficacy to the field of academic and scientific research and is one of the best predictors of successfully engaging in research activities. The current meta-analysis focuses on the relationship between research self-efficacy and 14 other relevant variables suggested by Social Cognitive Career Theory and analyzes 85 published and unpublished studies conducted between 1989 and 2020 (n = 17,754, 209 effect sizes). The results indicate large associations between research self-efficacy and interest in research, research identity, intention/goals to pursue a career in research, research productivity, attitudes toward research, research training environment, and working alliance with the advisor, moderate associations with research outcome expectations, Holland’s investigative interests, research anxiety, and research mentoring experiences, as well as a small association with year in doctoral studies. There is no significant relationship between research self-efficacy and two other variables, gender and age of participants. Our findings help educators by showing ways through which to increase research self-efficacy in order to improve research training and career outcomes; the results suggest that effective routes for educators are the selection of students who have investigative vocational interests, an active control of possible research anxieties, development of a strong research-oriented culture in the research group and the development of a mentoring and transformational relationship with their trainees.

Using social-cognitive career theory as a framework, we investigated whether research self-efficacy and outcome expectations mediated between perceived research environment and research motivation (intrinsic, extrinsic, and failure avoidance) and interest in research. Participants were 290 Indonesian academics (48.8% female; mean age 43 years). Perceived research environment and failure avoidance were related indirectly to interest in research via self-efficacy and outcome expectations, and intrinsic motivation was related both directly and indirectly. Perceived research environment was related indirectly to outcome expectations via self-efficacy; intrinsic motivation and failure avoidance were related both directly and indirectly; and extrinsic motivation was related directly.

This study tested, with a sample of United Kingdom (UK) trainee clinical psychologists, part of an existing model of factors that influence clinical psychologists' levels of research activity, in which gender identity is hypothesized to influence research self-efficacy and this in turn strength of intention to do research. A sample of 121 trainee clinical psychologists (56 men and 65 women) completed a measure of gender identity, research intention, and a research self-efficacy scale. Results indicated no differences in levels of research intention or research self-efficacy between the biological sexes or according to category-based gender identities (masculine and feminine). However, masculinity as a scale quantity was statistically significantly related to stronger research intention, preference for conducting quantitative research and research self-efficacy. Multiple regression analysis provided evidence that research self-efficacy may mediate between masculinity and strength of research intention. Research self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of intention to do research in the future. Findings have relevance for clinical psychology training as research activity directly impacts upon advances in the discipline of clinical psychology, implementation of research into practice, and evaluation of psychological therapies.

Research self-efficacy – or research confidence – has been shown to be a predictor of research productivity. There is also some evidence that it is a mediating factor between the research training environment and research productivity. To explore the connection between research training and research self-efficacy, the authors developed, validated, and later expanded a scale to measure research self-efficacy among academic librarians. They used the expanded 38-item scale to measure the research self-efficacy of participants from a three-year research training workshop for academic librarians, comparing results before and after the workshop. Participants experienced significant increases in research self-efficacy across all 38-questions, within the annual cohorts and across all three years. The question-level results were used to make changes to the summer workshops in Years 2 and 3, in order to improve the effectiveness of the summer workshop to increase research self-efficacy. This study confirms that a measurement of research self-efficacy can be a useful tool in assessing the effectiveness of research training and improving that training.

Influence of Research Training Environment on Research Interest in Graduate Students

Prior research has examined the relations of personality, contextual, and social cognitive factors as predictors of several important research training outcomes. The present study aimed to examine the relations of three types of achievement goals—mastery approach, mastery avoidance, and performance avoidance—to research self-efficacy. Survey data were obtained on a sample of 228 counseling psychology doctoral students and subjected to hierarchical regression analyses. Results indicated that mastery approach goals were significant positive predictors of research self-efficacy over and above year in training and career-related goals, while the interaction of age with both mastery avoidance and performance avoidance goals proved to be detrimental to research self-efficacy. Implications for research training and potential research directions are discussed.

There is great interest in promoting research in academic institutions and a need to understand the various factors influencing it. The main goals of this study are to investigate the factors that predict academic research outcomes and how gender and research authority (RA) support programs affect the relationship between research self-efficacy and research interest. The participants included 143 faculty members who completed a questionnaire, 19 of whom were interviewed. The results indicate that the faculty members’ research interests and the RA’s support significantly predicted academic research outcomes. A positive and significant correlation was found between research self-efficacy and research interest. Gender and RA support were found to significantly moderate this relationship. Research self-efficacy had almost no effect on research interest among female faculty members and among faculty members who had received support from the research authority. In contrast, among male faculty members and among those who did not receive support from the research authority, the higher the research self-efficacy, the higher the research interest. An analysis of faculty members’ perceptions points to four factors that can advance research outcomes: support from the RA, mentoring, collaboration among researchers, and allotting time for research. Understanding the moderating role of gender is important to reveal the underlying mechanism of a gender gap in research interest and consequently in academic performance, considering the increased recognition that universities worldwide are male dominated and that women are underrepresented in senior positions in academia.

Women and people of color continue to be underrepresented among biomedical researchers to an alarming degree. Research interest and subsequent productivity have been shown to be affected by the research training environment through the mediating effects of research self-efficacy. This article presents the findings of a study to determine whether a short-term research training program coupled with an efficacy enhancing intervention for novice female biomedical scientists of diverse racial backgrounds would increase their research self-efficacy beliefs. Forty-three female biomedical scientists were randomized into a control or intervention group and 15 men participated as a control group. Research self-efficacy significantly increased for women who participated in the self-efficacy intervention workshop. Research self-efficacy within each group also significantly increased following the short-term research training program, but cross-group comparisons were not significant. These findings suggest that educational interventions that target sources of self-efficacy and provide domain-specific learning experiences are effective at increasing research self-efficacy for women and men. Further studies are needed to determine the longitudinal outcomes of this effort.

Social-Cognitive Theory has been used in a number of previous studies centered on research interest. A key angle of this theory seeks to test if faculty who believe they have ability and skills to accomplish research tasks effectively (i.e. having high research self-efficacy) and those who anticipate meaningful outputs from engaging in those research activities (i.e. having high research outcome expectation) are more likely to hold persistent interest in research works. Based on this theoretical framework and with the purpose to bring the current research practices in a developing context of higher education into discussion, this study set out to examine to what extent research self-efficacy and research outcome expectation predict research interest of Cambodian faculty. Participants in the study were 453 faculty members from ten major universities in the country. The main analyses were conducted using Hierarchical Multiple Linear Regression. The study detected that three blocks of independent variables (i.e. controlled personal and professional background variables, research self-efficacy, and research outcome expectation) explained about 37% of variances in research interest, with research self-efficacy accounting for the highest percentage of the total explained variances. Yet, the interaction effect of the research self-efficacy and research outcome expectation on research interest was not statistically significant. With terminal degree countries and disciplines as moderators, further moderation analyses indicated that the effect of research self-efficacy and research outcome expectation on research interest did not vary across disciplines and across places where participants obtained their terminal degree. Through these empirical analyses, this article offered some constructive thoughts on the current practices and policies of research culture building in the studied context.

Research on multicultural competencies has mainly focused on the practice dimension of psychology training and practice. Little theoretical or empirical research has examined multicultural research training and self-efficacy. In this study, 119 psychology graduate students filled out a Web survey focusing on the research training environment, research self-efficacy, multicultural competency, the multicultural environment, and social desirability. Results showed that multicultural competency, research training, and the multicultural environment were related to multicultural research self-efficacy. Hierarchical regressions showed that multicultural competency predicted students' research anxiety; social desirability predicted multicultural research utility, multicultural competency, and the research training environment; and multicultural competency predicted students' confidence in research and perceptions that their graduate training programs were multicultural. Implications are discussed.

PurposeThis study investigated the influence of teachers on undergraduate students’ development of research aspirations and the mechanisms behind this process.Design/methodology/approachEmploying social cognitive career theory, the study gathered data from 232 undergraduates, developed a structural equation model via the maximum likelihood method and executed empirical testing.FindingsThe findings reveal that neither direct nor emotional mentoring independently satisfies students’ needs for self-efficacy and aspiration in research nor significantly influences research interest. Specifically, the study demonstrates that (1) research self-efficacy, outcome expectations and research interest significantly shape research aspirations; (2) an overemphasis on direct mentoring might impede research aspiration development and (3) a focus on emotional mentoring, while overlooking direct mentoring, could result in diminished research self-efficacy.Originality/valueThis research pioneers a comprehensive analysis of the role of teachers in shaping undergraduate research aspirations through the lens of social cognitive career theory. It underscores the critical need to both balance mentoring approaches and foster intrinsic research motivation.