United States

(a) The focus of study
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is dedicated to increasing diversity in the research workforce by increasing the numbers of trained researchers from underrepresented groups who become leaders in aging research. Hence, Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM), Wake Forest University (WFU) and Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) in Winston-Salem, NC, host two types of research opportunities; one during the academic year, the other in the summer. The program, Enhancing Undergraduate Education and Research in Aging to Eliminate Health Disparities (ENGAGED), is a research training program that is open to WFU and WSSU students during the academic year. When held during the summer, it is open to students from all colleges and universities. We hypothesize that engaging underrepresented students in research with faculty mentors across a broad array of aging topics, while providing professional development activities in a research community setting that fosters science identity will increase their research acumen and encourage them to continue in a biomedical science career targeting aging. 
(b) Methodology and measures used
During the academic year, the program provides a “hands-on” research internship and/or an ENGAGED Research Club designed to increase science identity by promoting a sense of belonging in an aging research community. Most students choose to participate in both. Tuition is paid if students want to take the Research Club for credit. During the summer, students perform research with an experienced faculty member, attend lectures, trainings and professional development sessions to build technical and academic skills, and share their findings at the ENGAGED Symposium, held at the end of the program. Post-program surveys are given to assess student satisfaction and track the success of alumni. To date, we have trained 82 students (68% female, 62% Black/African American, 18% Hispanic; 7% with a disability; 46% from disadvantaged backgrounds). Results indicate that ENGAGED program participants continue to thrive in MSTEM careers.
(c) Illustrative questions/issues to be discussed in the open-ended roundtable discussion.
•What MSTEM training programs do you have at your institution?
•How do you measure short- and long-term success?
•Do you have longitudinal data?
•How are students tracked?
•What elements of your program are critical to promoting long-term interests of the students in an MSTEM field?
•Given the Supreme Court decision, how has your institution addressed the need to diversify the MSTEM workforce?
•How is the mental health of the students addressed?

2025 Understanding Interventions Annual Conference

Diversifying the MSTEM Talent Pool Through the Enhancing Undergraduate Education and Research in Aging to Eliminate Health Disparities (ENGAGED) Program

technical paper

### Welcome to the 2025 Understanding Interventions Annual Conference

This year’s event promises to be an enlightening experience, filled with opportunities for sharing, networking, engagement, and inspiration.

Our mission? To foster an inclusive environment where the science communities can come together to discuss, collaborate, and strategize on how to broaden participation in science careers. Whether you’re an educator, researcher, policymaker, or passionate advocate, this conference is designed to provide valuable insights and practical solutions.

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Mark your calendars, spread the word, and join us for the 2025 Understanding Interventions Annual Conference on February 7-8th.

Background: The graduate education community increasingly recognizes the critical role that mentorship plays in trainee development and career preparation. Studies indicate that mentor-mentee relationships enhance graduate students’ academic research experience. The process of choosing a research group and dissertation committee to establish a foundation for the graduate school experience can significantly impact a trainee’s research skills and career development. However, navigating this process can be challenging, especially for students from historically marginalized backgrounds who may lack the social and cultural capital needed to navigate the research environment. Therefore, training that empowers graduate students with the skills and knowledge to choose an advisor, a research group, and a dissertation committee that best fits their identities and backgrounds is needed. 

Program: Science Communication Lab (SCL) and WISCIENCE teamed up to develop a course using evidence-based materials, including the Entering Research curriculum (Branchaw, Butz, & Smith, 2020), on establishing and maintaining healthy, professional relationships. The course, “Build Your Research Community,” aims to demystify the apprenticeship model of scientific training through a free, interactive online platform, and is designed for students transitioning into life-science graduate school (senior undergraduates, post-baccalaureate students, and early career graduate students). It guides students through the process of finding and developing healthy mentoring relationships, especially with one’s primary research advisor. To connect the practices to their individual situations, students watch videos, complete reflective questions, participate in online discussions, and are encouraged to reflect on their own strategies and challenges. 

Pilot test: In collaboration with 12 training programs, we conducted 2 years of pilot testing with 396 students in total. Preliminary results from this past year show that 75% of students (Ns 108-197) agreed or strongly agreed that the course topics were relevant to their training and 67% were somewhat or extremely likely to recommend the course to other trainees. In addition, more than 60% of students reported “a lot” or “a great deal” in the learning gains for the course and higher percentages of participants agreed or strongly agreed with science identity statements post-course compared to overall responses on a pre-survey.

Conclusion: "Build Your Research Community" addresses a critical need by providing accessible, evidence-based training to help students establish and maintain healthy mentoring relationships. By making the hidden curriculum explicit, graduate students are empowered, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds, to navigate the research environment effectively.

Session Format: This session will explore our instructional design approach to developing inclusive, interactive online curricula for navigating relationships for mentees, including sourcing diverse speakers and content selection. Representatives from SCL and the Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement (WISCIENCE) at University of Wisconsin-Madison will present an overview of the NIH-funded (IPERT) course on navigating mentoring relationships (5 mins). Preliminary evaluation results from ongoing pilot testing will be presented as well as lessons learned from the implementation process and guidelines on how to integrate the online course into existing curricula (10 mins). In the final section, participants will work in groups to identify potential strategies to incorporate the course into their research training programs. A final question and answer period will engage participants in a discussion of implementation strategies (5 mins). Participants will leave the session with an understanding of the hidden curriculum that graduate students and postdocs face, approaches to address those concerns through mentoring, and strategies for implementing a mentoring curriculum at their own institution.

"Build Your Research Community”: An Inclusive Online Course Effectively Guides Research Trainees in Building Mentoring Networks

Abstract
Introduction. As demographic shifts continue to occur across the educational landscape, national goals remain salient for diversifying the biomedical workforce. In 2014, the NIH selected 10 undergraduate institutions across the U.S. as sites for the BUilding Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) award, a historic $500 million research training and institutional capacity-building initiative that utilized a multi-pronged approach to enact student, faculty, and institutional level change through evidence-based yet novel initiatives (Hurtado et al., 2017; Gibbs et al., 2022). This study examined efforts toward institutionalization and sustainability accomplished through the award. Through a multiple case study design, we identified what BUILD sites have accomplished at an institutional level and plan to maintain beyond grant funding. The following research questions guided this study:
1.What kinds of initiatives will be sustained and/or institutionalized after award funding ends?
2.What institutional conditions aided or inhibited programs in becoming a permanent part of the institution to advance diversity in biomedical sciences?
 
Methods. To understand program sustainability and institutionalization of the BUILD program, the researchers held one- to two-day site visits at each of the 10 BUILD sites and conducted 259 interviews and focus groups with 368 total participants, including staff, students, faculty, principal investigators, and central administration. The team created summary reports from the site visits and developed matrices to conduct a cross-case analysis of the initiatives. They then conducted multiple rounds of coding of the interview and focus group data, including descriptive coding, thematic coding, and pattern coding. The team continued to create and refine matrices at each step in the process to thoroughly examine the collected data (Saldaña, 2013; Miles et al., 2020).
 
Results. There are several program elements being sustained beyond the grant. At the student level, program elements include: undergraduate scholarship, research, and biomedical training; graduate student programming; and curriculum and courses. At the faculty and organizational levels, interventions include faculty training, changes in faculty hiring practices, and infrastructure developments. However, while this expanded our understanding of what was being sustained beyond the grant, it was also necessary to understand the context and circumstances of these maintained initiatives. The study found four contextual elements that facilitated whether or not programs would be sustained: institutional financial status; organizational infra/structure and partnerships; commitment from central administration and STEMM faculty; and alignment with institutional priorities. The presence of these elements, or lack thereof, described whether or not an institution’s context was receptive toward intervention sustainability.
 
Conclusions and Discussion. This study provides lessons for future grant-funded teams and senior administrators engaged in STEMM equity and inclusion efforts. Regarding the most commonly sustained activities, the interventions that required the fewest resources to maintain were most salient: undergraduate training in courses, faculty mentor training, hiring developments, and infrastructure changes. Regarding contextual elements, the study found that interventions can only be maintained if they are financially viable and supported by the institution at structural, organizational, and individual levels. It is important to note that these contexts, while often preexisting, are also malleable. Context may initially be nonreceptive to sustainability, but there may also be circumstances fostered by program teams to increase the likelihood of sustaining initiatives beyond grant funding.
 
Acknowledgments. Work reported in this publication was supported by NIH Grant U54GM119024 and several NIH offices, centers, and institutes. We thank members of the Coordination and Evaluation Center who contributed to data collection and/or coding: Christian Cabunag, Justin Andrew Gutzwa, and Patricia Martin, and the change agents who shared their experiences for the Enhance Diversity Study and members of the DPC.

Sustaining Grant-funded Programs: Conditions for Sustaining Initiatives that Enhance Diversity in STEMM

Developing Culturally Responsive Metrics for STEM Student Success in Minority Serving Institutions

Participation of underrepresented groups in biomedical and behavioral science research fields is vital to ensuring a high-quality supply of these scientists in the United States. Unfortunately, many underrepresented students do not see research careers as a viable option and may choose not to pursue graduate education in biomedical research (Byars-Winston, Guiterrez, Topp, & Carnes, 2011). In this symposium we provide an overview of an innovative student-led entrepreneurial undergraduate research training program, the ASCEND Scholars Program, designed to diversify the biomedical research workforce.  The program is a component of A Student-Centered Entrepreneurship Development (ASCEND) model (Kamangar, et al, 2019) funded through the NIH “Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity” (BUILD) initiative from 2014 – 2019 (Valentine and Collins, 2015).  We provide an overview of the model, student selection criteria and scholar characteristics, and core components of student training designed to enhance student interest, knowledge, and skills in biomedical and behavioral science research careers. We then provide a pre—post analysis of Individual Development Plans (IDP) assessed at the beginning and conclusion of program participation.  Examined are changes in student perceptions of their short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals and skills needed to achieve them.  Next, a presentation led by ASCEND Scholar alumni will focus on the importance of experiential learning and opportunities for community engagement in strengthening student interest in biomedical and behavioral science research. Finally, we highlight key program outcomes such as scholar increase in science identity, peer support, research, academic, and social self-concept.

ASCEND: Cultivating Biomedical and Behavioral Science Researchers through Entrepreneurial Research Training

Research suggests that experiential learning through community outreach and leadership serves as a basis for improving academic, personal, and career outcomes for students (Goldberg, et al 2011). Training programs that include community outreach experience and opportunities for leadership reveal that participation in community fosters a sense of pride and increased self-efficacy knowing that a contribution was made to benefit the community (Battaglia, et al, 2019).  The purpose of this presentation is to highlight changes in ASCEND Scholar community engagement and leadership during their participation in the program. Data on student engagement in community-based activities and leadership roles were collected from students each year of their participation in the program. Descriptive data suggests that student engagement in community activities and leadership roles increased during their participation in the program. Engagement in an entrepreneurial training program enhanced student involvement in key campus and community leadership roles and participation.  Implications of these findings for broadening participation in biomedical and behavioral science research is addressed.

Ascending in Biomedical Research Through Leadership and Community Engagement

Individual Development Plans (IDP) were designed as a tool to identify academic and career goals, assess the feasibility of obtaining these goals with respect to the individuals’ skill sets, and develop a plan to acquire these skills and competencies to obtain short- and long-term academic and career goals (Edwards, et al, 2024). In this program, ASCEND Scholars were provided with a career planning process that allowed them to identify both academic and professional needs and career goals (Kamangar, et al, 2019). The IDP also assessed student self-assessments of academic, research, and professional development skills needed to achieve their goals and areas in which improvement is needed. In this presentation, we examine if IDPs help students establish their short term and long-term goals and assess perceived skills needed to actualize their goals.  IDPs were collected at baseline/year 1 and during program year 2 from 63 ASCEND Scholars. Students specified the specific skills needed in each category and their level of proficiency on a scale from 1 = lowest level of proficiency to 5 = highest level of proficiency. Paired t-tests reveal that students showed improvement in each of the areas assessed (p < .05). Academic skills: Y1:M=3.07, SD=.57;Y2:M=3.46,SD=.46; Research/Technical Skills: Y1: M=3.05,SD=.64;Y2: M=3.30,SD=.56; Professional/ Interpersonal Skills (Y1: M= 3.18,SD=.75, Y2:M= 3.66, SD=.60. Examination of long-term goals shows that student goals changed over time and reflect interests in becoming leaders in Biomedical and Social Science careers. Participation in an entrepreneurial research training model may have influenced student perceptions of their long-term career goals and skills needed to achieve them.

Cultivating Biomedical and Behavioral Science Researchers through Self-Assessment and Individual Development Plans

The ASCEND Research Training Program (Kamangar et al., 2019) was designed to address the need for a more inclusive research environment by focusing on student-centered hallmarks of success.(Hallmarks of Success, 2019) These included: 1) Strengthening Science Identity by fostering a supportive learning environment where students felt valued as scientists which helped them develop a strong sense of belonging in the research community; 2) Building Research Self-Efficacy by equipping students with a strong sense of confidence in their ability to conduct independent research including providing opportunities to design, execute, and present research projects; 3) Enhancing Academic, Scientific, Personal, and Social Self-Concept by actively recruiting and training mentors who could provide effective guidance and support tailored to each student's needs and exposing students to diverse research areas and opportunities to interact with successful scientists. By focusing on these hallmarks, this research training program aimed to cultivate not only research skills but also the confidence and drive necessary for students from underrepresented backgrounds to become future leaders in a diverse and thriving research landscape. In this presentation, we assess the effectiveness of the ASCEND entrepreneurial research training program in terms of the hallmarks of success.  Other key academic outcomes are also examined. An annual ASCEND survey was administered to 270 students at Morgan State University.  A retrospective pre/-post design was employed to examine perception of change in key constructs over a one-year period. ASCEND Scholars were compared to a matched control sample. 
Compared to their comparison group (n = 59), ASCEND Scholars (n = 40) had significantly greater gains in Science Identity (pre/post: 70.0 and 77.2% vs. 58.9% and 89.7%, p <0.001), Research Self-Efficacy (pre/post: 65.1% and 74.8% vs. 48.1% and 84.7%, p=0.003) Academic Self-Concept (pre/post: 75.4% and 80.4% vs. 73.9% and 89.0%, p <0.001), Social Self-Concept (pre/post: 75.4% and 84.5% vs. 65.8% and 86.5%, p=0.008), and Peer Support (pre/post: 43.3% and 49.6% vs. 33.9% and 72.0%, p <0.001). Entrepreneurial research training promotes a greater sense of research confidence and efficacy in students underrepresented in biomedical and behavioral science research. This may aid in diversifying the biomedical and behavioral science research workforce via greater student identification and confidence in pursuing these fields.

Fostering the Development of Research Entrepreneurs through ASCEND

Patterns of Effective Mentorship Among NIH Career Development (K) Awardees

Exploring First-Year Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of STEM Career through Reflections on a Summer Research Program

Keywords: Undergraduate, Summer research experience, Experiential learning, STEM career development 
 
Introduction. This paper explores how experiences of students who participated in an undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) summer research intervention program shape and reinforce the students' career trajectories. The Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) is a congressionally mandated program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).  LSAMP assists universities and colleges in their efforts to significantly increase the number of students matriculating into and successfully completing STEM degree programs. To diversify the STEM workforce, emphasis is placed on transforming undergraduate STEM education through innovative, evidence-based recruitment and retention strategies, and relevant educational experiences in support of historically underrepresented students (African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders) in STEM disciplines. The University of Cincinnati LSAMP site provides an educational environment to meet three goals: academic integration, social integration and professionalization of the LSAMP program. Students from Arts & Science, Allied Health and the College of Engineering and Applied Science participate in the program.  All LSAMP Scholars participate in the Dr. Edward N. Prather Summer Bridge Program, a seven-week residential program that seeks to enhance their academic preparedness for the freshman year. Upon completion of their freshman year, LSAMP Scholars are selected for this summer research program, an experiential learning environment that enables them to gain research experience through active experimentation. The program is based on authentic experiential learning theory (Kolb, 2014), where students engage in hands-on, interactive research projects of their choice that expose them to practical and research application of their major. Each student is paired with an active STEM research faculty member who offers professional guidance, helping students interpret their environment. Therefore, this study seeks to understand how the students’ experiences influenced their perceptions of workplace practice (Burnett & Taylor, 2024).

Methods.This qualitative study analyzed participants’ (female=1, male=4; Black/African American=3, Latino=2) reflections about their participation in a 12-week cohort-based STEM summer research program at a large R1 state university in Midwestern United States. To elicit student perceptions of STEM careers from their research experiences, three of the 12 reflective prompts were selected for this paper based on an instrument used by McDevitt (2016). They included (1) Week 1-Describe yourself as you started bridge. Describe yourself now. (2) Week 3-Problem-solving is a critical skill to employers. What unexpected challenges did you encounter in your research project, and how did you address them? and (3) Week 12-In what ways did your research impact your plans for your co-operative practice, career or graduate school? Question 1 addressed the general changes in student experiences. Question 2 investigated work-related skills, while question 3 sought to uncover the value and career consequences of the research experiences (Seymour et al., 2004).  The data in this study utilizes five participants’ weekly self-reported reflections. Only participants who completed their reflections in each of the 12 weeks were selected for analysis. Four students had incomplete submissions and were removed from the data sample. A total of five participants met the criteria for the study (Table 1). We developed codes for thematic analysis (Belotto, 2018) of the data to contextualize the student experiences in a STEM setting and generate detailed information about their career perceptions while participating in the program. 


Results.Two themes emerged from the student reflections: (1) Work relationships and (2) Professional skills. The first theme shows challenges experienced by the participants while establishing relationships with peers and mentors in the research learning community. Hicks had initially expressed unwillingness to engage peers, stating:

“When I started Bridge, I was more of a shut in type of person. I never personally asked for help in any subjects because I always struggled my way through topics. Now, I'm comfortable asking for help in subjects I'm not great at and more comfortable when talking to other people.”

However, Rick developed self-confidence, became proactive, and was open to divergent perspectives from the beginning of the program and asserts:

“I am more willing to jump in when something isn't right instead of letting others dominate a conversation.”

This was confirmed by a reflection by Mos. 

“Confused. Lost and in the moment. Now I would say I'm determined and looking towards the future now.”

Regarding professional skills, the study demonstrates how success in the research program impacted the participants’ view of their future careers. The participants gained and appreciated the importance of problem-solving skills in research setting and the linkage to an actual STEM practice. Davin asserts:

“When Somethings did not work the way they intended for example the flow meter was not able to work with the station upstairs so we had to configure a whole new system for the downstairs station.”

Davin exhibited the ability to craft new ideas while maintaining the provided design specifications when faced with challenges. This was confirmed by Hicks. 

“When I was first introduced to the project I'm currently working on, some code was already written by my mentor, so, at first, I struggled with what the code he wrote intended to do. There were functions I'd never seen before, and his structure was different from how I code. I broke down the code part by part and wrote down on paper what each line of code was meant to do. Eventually, I got the whole picture and understood what I could modify and where to pick up.”

This case demonstrates that the research experience exposed the participant to a new dimension of coding, leading to an expansion of coding perspectives. This view is reinforced by Katy who adds:

“There was a Quality Assurance role I applied for that I felt resonated with my experience this summer.”

The participants discovered that the project increases their self-belief in prospects for future employability

Discussion and Conclusions. A key element of the research program is that students write a research abstract and create a poster presentation suitable for submission to an undergraduate research forum or professional conference. Findings revealed that students faced different challenges as they engaged in workplace-focused activities while conducting research. Some of these challenges were exhibited by the relationships developed and meeting the expectations of their mentors. As indicated in the findings, Mos had difficulties finding a good fit and felt confused. Regarding relationships, findings show that there is a need for improved orientation (Barth et al., 2021) to create a sense of belonging early in the program. We argue that this instance is reminiscent of challenges new STEM professionals face in the workplace. Moreover, Hicks could not comprehend the code as suggested by faculty mentor and had to convert the program into smaller working units to make the code easy to execute. This suggests that the program solidified the participant’s interest in the research. While research experiences can be used to learn and develop problem-solving skills, there is risk that when students encounter task-related challenges in the learning environment, it can negatively impact their self-efficacy. The results provide a positive outlook of the program. This study is specific to the program and cohort of the site of the study with respect to programmatic differences and financial endowment. Further studies investigate comparisons across different research cohorts with a more heterogeneous sample to provide more insights into STEM student experiences and their career goals.

Acknowledgments. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award Abstract #1817314, through The Ohio LSAMP Alliance, which aims to enhance the recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines across the state. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official position of LSAMP or NSF.

Exploring First-Year Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of STEM Career through Reflections on a Summer Research Program

INTRODUCTION: Indigenous/Native Americans remain highly underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Despite the recent emphasis on diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields (Valantine & Collins, 2015), Indigenous people continue to be underrepresented in educational systems and the workforce. For example, while American Indians or Alaska Natives make up 0.8% of the U.S. population, they represented only about 0.4% of students graduating with a bachelor's degree in Science and Engineering (S&E) in 2019 (NCSES, 2021).  Their underrepresentation may be due, in part, to the incongruity between personally valued goals (e.g., the communal goal of “giving back” to one’s community or the agentic goal of “independence”) and opportunities to satisfy those goals in STEM careers. 

Goal congruity theory (GCT) is rooted in the expectancy-value theoretical framework, which explains individuals’ decisions regarding whether to engage with roles as a function of their expectations about the role and their values (Diekman et al., 2020). Goal congruity theory posits that individuals' attitudes towards a social role (e.g., being a scientist) are influenced by the communal/agentic goal affordances associated with that role and the congruity between those affordances and personally valued goals. Within GCT, two categories of goals are relevant: communal and agentic goals. Communal goals are oriented toward collaboration and assisting others, while agentic goals prioritize personal advancement and recognition (Judd et al., 2005). When individuals find that the goal affordances do not align with their goal endorsements, they experience a sense of goal incongruity. 

Research indicates that perceived communal opportunities in STEM fields increase interest and persistence, especially among underrepresented groups (Belanger et al., 2017; Thoman et al., 2015). However, the impact of goal incongruity (mismatch between expectations and valued goals) on STEM outcomes is less consistent, and evidence regarding the effect of goal incongruity has primarily been collected from non-Indigenous populations. Recent advancements in goal congruity research have begun to uncover the mechanisms underlying this influence. Belanger et al. (2020) introduced a role-based belonging model that suggests belongingness mediates the relationship between communal affordances and interest in STEM roles. Unfortunately, aside from a handful of efforts (e.g., Belanger et al., 2020), there have been relatively few longitudinal designs in both observational and experimental research, which are crucial for assessing the long-term and mediated impacts of goal affordances and congruity.
In summary, the growing GCT literature points to the potentially powerful influence of goal affordances and congruity on STEM-related outcomes for some. That is, while some research indicates that communal goals hold particular significance for students from underrepresented groups in STEM (e.g., Hispanic, African American, etc.), most studies have been conducted with White middle-class STEM students (e.g., Diekman et al., 2011; Allen et al., 2015), which limits generalizability to other demographic groups. Further, few studies have examined the links between goal affordance and congruity, role-based belonging, and well-being among Indigenous students who face systemic challenges to their entry into STEM careers.

As one of the least represented groups in STEM, Indigenous students frequently report feelings of social isolation and disconnection within predominantly White fields, negatively affecting their motivation to continue. Descriptive and qualitative studies have shown that Indigenous students value a learning environment that affirms and respects their culture, where Native-specific knowledge and practices are appreciated (Tachine et al., 2017; Stevens et al., 2016). For Indigenous college students in STEM, the concept of 'giving back' to their communities is particularly significant in their educational and career pursuits. Despite strongly valuing communal goal affordances in STEM roles, students continuously experienced frustration in achieving these goals due to perceived barriers and challenges (Page-Reeves et al., 2019). Consequently, Indigenous students facing a greater perceived incongruity between their cultural values and their learning environments are more likely to experience academic stress compared to their peers (Chee et al., 2019). Thus, research and theory can incorporate Indigenous concepts and ways of knowing to improve understanding of the opportunities and strengths through which students from these communities integrate into STEM fields.

The current study addressed several gaps in the GCT literature by longitudinally assessing the influence of communal and agentic goal affordances and congruity on STEM persistence and well-being outcomes in a national sample of Indigenous undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs pursuing STEM degrees and careers. The present study examines the following research questions.

RQ1: How do perceived communal affordances of STEM roles relate to later role outcomes among Indigenous STEM students?
RQ2:  How does incongruity between communal affordance and endorsement relate to later role outcomes among Indigenous STEM students?
RQ3: How do perceived agentic affordance of STEM roles relate to later role outcomes among Indigenous STEM students?
RQ4: How does incongruity between agentic affordance and endorsement relate to later role outcomes among Indigenous STEM students? 
RQ5: Is the relationship between prior goal affordances or incongruity and future role outcomes mediated by role-based belonging?

METHODOLOGY: This longitudinal research study followed Indigenous people (N = 154) pursuing STEM degrees/careers to investigate the direct and indirect effects of perceived communal/agentic goal affordances in STEM careers and incongruity (Time-2) on intentions to persist and personal well-being (Time-3) through a sense of belonging in their STEM field (Time-2), controlling for baseline (Time-1). 

RESULTS: Both communal and agentic goal affordances positively influenced persistence intentions through belonging. By contrast, agentic goal incongruity negatively influenced persistence intentions through belonging, but communal goal incongruity did not. Surprisingly, we found no significant results for well-being.

DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS: Supporting Indigenous students in STEM is of paramount importance. Based on GCT, goal affordances of STEM roles and congruity between goal affordances and personally valued goals are crucial to fostering interest and positive attitudes toward STEM careers (Diekman et al., 2020). Despite this, existing literature, predominantly centered on white samples, consisted of certain constraints in understanding the nuance of these relationships. The analysis reveals that Indigenous students benefit significantly from the perception that STEM roles can satisfy communal and agentic goals, thereby nurturing a stronger sense of belonging and a more pronounced intention to engage in STEM careers. Additionally, our findings suggest that a significant discrepancy between the students’ perceived affordances for agentic goals, but not communal goals and personal values, leads to students feeling lower feelings of belonging and reduced persistence intentions to persist in STEM. Our findings underscore the significance of supporting roles and environments that facilitate the fulfillment of communal and agentic goals and point to the complexity of the goal-pursuit process among Indigenous populations.

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