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Working with STEM instructors, we develop interventions to help students value their learning and/or reduce perceptions of the negative consequences of learning in both college and high school. The goal of all interventions is to increase students’ participation in STEM learning and career pathways and to help them make informed and motivated academic decisions. 

We conduct longitudinal studies to understand what motivates high school and college students to choose certain careers or courses of study over others and what motivational challenges can make students change their future plans. Hand in hand with that focus, we examine how learning contexts and teachers might better be able to support students’ career motivation by giving them new types of resources to help learn about career options.

We explore how students’ beliefs about negative consequences of learning, or perceptions of learning barriers, influence their short- and long-term learning outcomes. We are currently working on designing projects that measure how social/career models, teachers, peers, and other contextual factors influence students’ perceptions of negative (and positive) motivational beliefs.

Some of our lab members are part of a study with Drs. Erin Dolan and Justin Lavner at the University of Georgia. In the study, we work to design professional development interventions for life sciences advisors so they learn how to manage conflict better with their graduate students. We are conducting a longitudinal study to assess how the interventions affect faculty and student conflict resolution and relationship satisfaction over time.