From Bench to Bedside: A communal utility value intervention to enhance students' biomedical science motivation.

ABSTRACT: Motivating students to pursue science careers is a top priority among many science educators. We add to the growing literature by examining the impact of a utility value intervention to enhance student's perceptions that biomedical science affords important utility work values. Using an expectancy-value perspective we identify and test two types of utility value: communal (other-oriented) and agentic (self-oriented). The culture of science is replete with examples emphasizing high levels of agentic value, but communal values are often (stereotyped as) absent from science. However, people in general want an occupation that has communal utility. We predicted and found that an intervention emphasizing the communal utility value of biomedical research increased students' motivation for biomedi

SUBMITTER: Brown ER 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4657866 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature