Patrick N. Beymer

In trying to motivate college students toward career paths in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), many scholars and policy-makers focus on promoting students' course- or field-related motivation. However, STEM fields each contain dozens of careers, the nuances of which are not often discussed during STEM coursework itself. Further, many students change career plans while remaining highly motivated for studying particular STEM courses or fields. In order to understand career plan development, it may be important to understand the development of college students' career-specific motivation and how career motivational beliefs uniquely relate to STEM participation. The present study examined the development of course and career-related motivation, side by side across one semester, in a group of 738 college physics students. Results showed that (a) course and career motivation were empirically distinct, (b) course and career motivation developed mostly separately from one another across one semester of college, (c) course motivation was more strongly associated with students' final physics grades, whereas career motivation was more strongly associated with career satisfaction and certainty, and (d) there were unique gender differences in career motivation compared to course motivation. Together, findings suggest that course motivation and career motivation likely develop along separate, though interrelated, pathways during college, each of which uniquely contributes to different aspects of STEM career persistence (foundational knowledge and skills, vs. career-specific exploration). In order to foster STEM participation and equity, scholars and educators should complement course-focused motivational supports with supports for career motivational development across college. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

In the last thirty years, student engagement has received attention as a critical contributor to students’ school success. Given the positive links between engagement and academic outcomes, it is critical to understand antecedents of student engagement. Guided by Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (SEVT), this study examined how competence-related beliefs, task values (attainment, intrinsic, and utility values), and cost perceptions (task effort, outside effort, loss of valued alternatives, and emotional cost) were associated with five dimensions of engagement — behavioral, cognitive, emotional, social, and agentic—over two time points in undergraduate introductory math and science courses. Path analyses with motivation constructs at time one predicting engagement dimensions at time two ( N = 247) revealed that while competence-related beliefs were primarily associated with cognitive and emotional engagement, task values were significantly associated with behavioral, cognitive, emotional, social, and agentic engagement. Notably, when evaluated independently, different facets of cost exhibited both positive and negative associations with various engagement dimensions. The findings underscore the complex relationships between motivational constructs and engagement dimensions in STEM education. The study highlights the need for tailored motivational strategies to enhance student engagement in introductory math and science courses.

The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is increasingly used by researchers from various disciplines to answer novel questions about individuals’ daily lives. Measurement best practices have long been overlooked in ESM research, and recent reviews show that item quality is often not reported in ESM studies. The absence of information about item quality may partly be explained by the lack of consensus on how ESM item quality should be evaluated. As part of the ESM Item Repository project (esmitemrepository.com) — an international open science initiative that collects ESM items in an open item bank and evaluates their quality — we brought together 42 international ESM experts to develop an ESM item quality assessment tool. In four Delphi phases, experts suggested 57 item quality criteria, rated the criteria, provided arguments for and against the criteria, and rated the criteria again, considering reflections from other experts. The result of the Delphi process is ESM-Q: A quality assessment tool consisting of 10 core criteria, as well as an additional 15 supplementary criteria, to be used depending on the type of items being rated and the availability of supplementary information. The criteria cover topics ranging from construct validity to the optimal wording of items. ESM-Q can aid ESM researchers in selecting existing ESM items, developing new high-quality ESM items, and evaluating the quality of ESM items in systematic reviews. Expert reflections also highlight open research questions surrounding ESM item design that form a research agenda for ESM measurement.