STEM Learning and Learning Environments  

Developing STEM Achievement and Motivation: The Role of Spatial Skills and Parent-Child Interactions

Effective Years: 2018-2025

STEM learning is crucial for a well-prepared workforce, yet many students do not reach their potential in STEM. The roots of these individual differences can be traced back to school entry. Spatial skills - mentally representing and manipulating spatial information - strongly predict STEM achievement, course-taking, and careers. By 1st grade, children vary widely in spatial skills, pointing to the home environment's crucial role. The proposed research, led by a team of researchers at Temple University, will investigate the impact of parent-child interactions on spatial skills among 1st and 2nd graders. Importantly, not only skill but motivation- perceived competence, enjoyment of challenges, and low anxiety - impacts children's STEM trajectories. Unfortunately research on parents' support for children's STEM skills and motivation has proceeded in parallel, despite evidence that they reinforce one another. Prior research is also limited by short-term outcomes, parent self-report measures, or non-causal designs. The proposed studies will use longitudinal and experimental methods to 1carry out the following. 1) Identify specific aspects of parent-child interactions that predict children's spatial skills and STEM learning and motivation. 2) Establish causal relations between parents' cognitive support and children's spatial skills and motivation. 3) Establish causal relations between parents' motivational support and children's spatial skills and motivation. The project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances the fundamental research literature on STEM learning. This project will empirically test an integrated model of parents' cognitive and motivational support for children's spatial skills and STEM achievement. Study 1 will use video data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development to test whether directly-observed parenting behaviors (cognitive and motivational support) during spatial activities in 1st grade predict children's STEM achievement and motivation through age 18. Studies 2a and 2b will test causal effects of parents' cognitive support on children's spatial and math skills and motivation via experimental parent-led spatial book-reading and spatial activity interventions. Study 3 will test the impact of increasing parents' motivational support on children's spatial and math skills and motivation. Investigating these factors in a single conceptual framework is crucial to understand whether they have additive, or possibly multiplicative, effects on children's development. For example, a parent who provides high motivational support may be more attuned to their child's level of skill, and therefore provide higher-quality cognitive support. Further, receiving both cognitive and motivational support may be especially impactful. Together, these studies will not only directly test the integrated theory of parents' cognitive and motivational support, but will have the added benefit of setting the foundation for larger parent-directed interventions aimed at improving all children's spatial skills and STEM achievement and motivation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

8 Publications Related to This Project: