Abstract
The present study tests predictions from the Tripartite Integration Model of Social Influences (TIMSI) concerning processes linking social interactions to social integration into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) communities and careers. Students from historically overrepresented groups in STEM were followed from their senior year of high school through their senior year in college. Based on TIMSI, we hypothesized that interactions with social influence agents (operationalized as mentor network diversity, faculty mentor support, and research experiences) would promote both short- and long-term integration into STEM via social influence processes (operationalized as science self-efficacy, identity, and internalized community values). Moreover, we examined the previously untested hypothesis of reciprocal influences from early levels of social integration in STEM to future engagement with social influence agents. Results of a series of longitudinal structural equation model-based mediation analyses indicate that, in the short term, higher levels of faculty mentorship support and research engagement, and to a lesser degree more diverse mentor networks in college promote deeper integration into the STEM community through the development of science identity and science community values. Moreover, results indicate that, in the long term, earlier high levels of integration in STEM indirectly influences research engagement through the development of higher science identity. These results extend our understanding of the TIMSI framework and advance our understanding of the reciprocal nature of social influences that draw students into STEM careers.
Highlights
The current and previous findings indicate that faculty mentors exert influence and draw their mentees into their disciplinary community by helping them to see themselves as belonging in the community, by internalizing community values, and to a lesser extent, seeing themselves as competent
The overarching purpose of this longitudinal study was to improve our understanding of STEM workforce development by testing Tripartite Integration Model of Social Influences (TIMSI) predictions about the ways in which individuals socialize into STEM communities and careers
We examined the process whereby agents of the scientific academic community exert influence on integration into the scientific community through social influence processes
Summary
ParticipantsAll study procedures were approved by the University of Connecticut institutional review board (#H14-213WVU). Written informed consent was obtained from all study participants. Students in non-STEM majors were not asked questions about their scientific persistence intentions (the primary outcome of this study) in an effort to reduce fatigue and mitigate potential reactivity to irrelevant survey questions. Historical enrollment data at the university indicate that university undergraduates are 51% female and 49% male, 56% White, 11% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 10% foreign nationals, 6% Black, 3% multi-racial, and 3% undeclared race/ethnicity [80]. Prior research in the larger longitudinal study indicated that study participants largely mirrored the demographics of the university, with the exception of somewhat smaller proportion of students who chose not to declare their race, African American students, and Hispanic students [81]. The present study focuses on a subsample of the larger sample, that is, HO students in STEM majors
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