Research on Social Cognitive Career theory (SCCT) has focused on formulating relationships among constructs that affect college student performance and persistence. Exploring these relationships and their impact on persistence is of critical importance in STEM domains, where a crucial need exists to increase and sustain the number of students pursuing STEM degrees. Using two key constructs from the SCCT framework - self-efficacy and outcome expectations – in conjunction with student performance, this study is aimed at developing a robust model that not only measures these constructs and changes within them across semesters, but also serves to assess the impact self-efficacy, outcome expectations and performance have on students’ persistence in STEM majors. This talk will describe preliminary results from testing this model overall and on a much finer grain using a subset instrument to assess subtle changes in each construct across a semester; this two-pronged approach of evaluating and validating this model overall and on a finer scale at key time points across and within semesters will help identify events that trigger changes in each construct, allow for interventions to offset these changes, develop comprehensive affective profiles for at-risk students and make sound predictions about students’ persistence in their chosen STEM majors.

Development and preliminary testing of a STEM persistence model:  Using a subset instrument to generate affective profiles

251st National Meeting (2016)

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