Glover Ciara S, Bámaca Mayra Y, Homma Kazumi
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA.
Psychological Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95343, USA.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Sep 5;15(9):1212. doi: 10.3390/bs15091212.
Existing frameworks of task values have called for greater attention to contextual factors that inform decision-making. A critique of this research is a lack of attention to the cultural and situational milieu embedded in motivational theories. Investigating the development of academic values through obligations to the family and self-perceptions of academic ability adds to our understanding of the broader factors that drive student motivation in STEM. This paper explored the roles of family-related obligations associated with the motivational utility values of college STEM majors and the mediating role of academic efficacy. College students at two large ethnically diverse public research institutions shared their experiences in an initial survey as part of a larger longitudinal study on student adversity, motivation, and persistence in STEM ( = 1571, = 20.41). The results revealed that academic efficacy weakens the roles of caregiving obligations on the perceived utility of their STEM major. The role of financial obligations to the family on students' utility values operated indirectly through self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.
现有的任务价值观框架呼吁更加关注影响决策的情境因素。对这项研究的一项批评是，缺乏对动机理论中所蕴含的文化和情境背景的关注。通过对家庭的义务以及对学术能力的自我认知来研究学术价值观的发展，有助于我们更全面地理解驱动学生在STEM领域产生动机的因素。本文探讨了与大学生STEM专业动机效用价值观相关的家庭义务的作用以及学术效能的中介作用。两所大型种族多元化公立研究机构的大学生在一项初步调查中分享了他们的经历，该调查是关于学生在STEM领域的逆境、动机和坚持的一项更大规模纵向研究的一部分（ = 1571， = 20.41）。结果表明，学术效能削弱了照顾义务对其STEM专业感知效用的作用。家庭经济义务对学生效用价值观的作用是通过自我效能间接发挥的。本文讨论了这些发现对未来研究的启示。
