title: New Measures Assessing Predictors of Academic Persistence for Historically Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Undergraduates in Science.
abstract: An important step in broadening participation of historically underrepresented (HU) racial/ethnic groups in the sciences is the creation of measures validated with these groups that will allow for greater confidence in the results of investigations into factors that predict their persistence. This study introduces new measures of theoretically derived factors emanating from social cognitive and social identity theories associated with persistence for HU racial/ethnic groups in science disciplines. The purpose of this study was to investigate: 1) the internal reliability and factor analyses for measures of research-related self-efficacy beliefs, sources of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and science identity; and 2) potential group differences in responses to the measures, examining the main and interaction effects of gender and race/ethnicity. Survey data came from a national sample of 688 undergraduate students in science majors who were primarily black/African American and Hispanic/Latino/a with a 2:1 ratio of females to males. Analyses yielded acceptable validity statistics and race × gender group differences were observed in mean responses to several measures. Implications for broadening participation of HU groups in the sciences are discussed regarding future tests of predictive models of student persistence and training programs to consider cultural diversity factors in their design.
authors: Department of Medicine, Center for Women's Health Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715 ambyars@wisc.edu.
authors: Angela
authors: A
authors: Byars-Winston
authors: Center for Women's Health Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715.
authors: Jenna
authors: J
authors: Rogers
authors: WISCIENCE, Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715.
authors: Janet
authors: J
authors: Branchaw
authors: Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715.
authors: Christine
authors: C
authors: Pribbenow
authors: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715.
authors: Ryan
authors: R
authors: Hanke
authors: Department of Medicine, Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Center for Women's Health Research, and Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53715.
authors: Christine
authors: C
authors: Pfund
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D003710:Demography; D005006:Ethnicity; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008913:Minority Groups; D017145:Models, Educational; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012106:Research; D012586:Science / Q000193:education*; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013334:Students