Measuring Student Motivation in STEM

BSCS recently received news of funding from NSF's PRIME program for a research project titled Validating a Rapid Measure of Student Motivation: Using the Expectancy-Value Theory of Motivation to Understand Student Achievement and Interest in STEM Classrooms. This project will build upon recent work studying factors in student motivation in courses in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The work will focus on students from middle school through early college, and will take place in a number of states.

A unique instrument will be designed to give researchers and evaluators a new lens on student motivation and future interest in STEM. For example, one approach to studying achievement gaps may be to investigate systematically whether there is also a “motivation gap” among students in different demographic groups.

Principal Investigator Steve Getty says, "This work has come about through great collaborations with Drs. Kenneth Barron at James Madison University and Chris Hulleman at the University of Virginia. Our initial tests measuring student motivation began with our work on Carbon Connections. This new work brings together the experience and background of BSCS in science learning and the expertise of our Virginia partners in educational psychology and motivation theory.”

Co-PIs on the project are BSCS Director of Research & Development Joseph Taylor, along with Barron and Hulleman. The work has exciting implications for other work at BSCS as the measure is planned for use in other research projects to help explain findings related to student achievement.

Understanding Student Motivation is funded by the National Science Foundation, Grant #DRL-1228661.

BSCS is proud to partner with like-minded organizations committed to making a difference in science education.