Many college students, especially first-generation and underrepresented racial/ethnic minority students, desire courses and careers that emphasize helping people and society. Can instructors of introductory science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses promote motivation, performance, and equity in STEM fields by emphasizing the prosocial relevance of course material? We developed, implemented, and evaluated a prosocial utility-value intervention (UVI): A course assignment in which students were asked to reflect on the prosocial value of biology or chemistry course content; our focus was on reducing performance gaps between first-generation and continuing generation college students. In Studies 1a and 1b, we piloted two versions of a prosocial UVI in introductory biology (N = 282) and chemistry classes (N = 1,705) to test whether we could encourage students to write about the prosocial value of course content. In Study 2, we tested a version of the UVI that combines personal and prosocial values, relative to a standard UVI, which emphasizes personal values, using a randomized controlled trial in an introductory chemistry course (N = 2,505), and examined effects on performance and motivation in the course. In Study 3, we tested the prosocial UVI against a standard UVI in an introductory biology course (N = 712). Results suggest that the prosocial UVI may be particularly effective in promoting motivation and performance for first-generation college students, especially those who are more confident that they can perform well in the class, reflecting a classic expectancy-value interaction. Mediation analyses suggest that this intervention worked by promoting interest in chemistry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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对入门 STEM 课程进行亲社会价值干预。

许多大学生，尤其是第一代和代表性不足的种族/少数民族学生，渴望学习强调帮助人民和社会的课程和职业。科学、技术、工程和数学 (STEM) 入门课程的教师能否通过强调课程材料的亲社会相关性来提高 STEM 领域的动机、表现和公平性？我们开发、实施和评估了亲社会效用价值干预（UVI）：一项课程作业，要求学生反思生物学或化学课程内容的亲社会价值；我们的重点是缩小第一代大学生和下一代大学生之间的表现差距。在研究 1a 和 1b 中，我们在生物学入门课 (N = 282) 和化学课程 (N = 1,705) 中试行了两个版本的亲社会 UVI，以测试我们是否可以鼓励学生写出课程内容的亲社会价值。在研究 2 中，我们在化学入门课程中使用随机对照试验（N = 2,505）测试了结合了个人和亲社会价值观的 UVI 版本（相对于强调个人价值观的标准 UVI），并检查了对表现的影响以及课程中的动机。在研究 3 中，我们在一门生物学入门课程中将亲社会 UVI 与标准 UVI 进行了测试 (N = 712)。结果表明，亲社会 UVI 可能对促进第一代大学生的动机和表现特别有效，尤其是那些更有信心自己能在课堂上表现出色的学生，反映了经典的期望值交互作用。中介分析表明，这种干预通过促进对化学的兴趣而发挥作用。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。