GENDER & ACHIEVEMENT RESEARCH PROGRAM
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projects overview

The Motivation and Identity Research Lab is involved in a number of projects, some of which are described below. MIRL is also involved in research through the following programs:

  • The MacArthur Research Network on Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood
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For more information on individual projects, click here.
For more information about our funding, click here.

childhood and beyond (cab)

This project is a longitudinal, field-based study of the development of children's and adolescents’ self-esteem, and activity preferences across four activity domains common to childhood experience: academic, social, instrumental music, and sport. The study was designed to look at four basic issues: 1) the development of self and task beliefs within and across domains, 2) the role of these beliefs in shaping children's behavioral choices across the domains, 3) the antecedents of parents' and teachers' beliefs about their children in each of these domains, and 4) the impact of parenting and teaching styles and of teacher and parent beliefs, values, and perceptions on children's developing self and task beliefs.
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The study began in 1986, and has followed a sample of about 800 children, their parents and teachers for 30 years using both questionnaire and interview procedures. Objective measures of the children's competence in math, language arts, and sport/physical skill were obtained, as well as subjective indicators from teacher and parent ratings. Detailed information about the school and home social and material context were obtained from parents, children, and teachers. Although data collection on this study has ceased, analyses on the rich data that has been collected is ongoing.

The michigan study of adolescent and adult life transitions (MSALT)

This longitudinal study of adolescent development began in 1983 with a group of fifth and sixth graders recruited from 10 different school districts in Southeastern Michigan. The first six waves were collected throughout students' school careers at grades 6, 7, 10, and 12 with 2,381 adolescents still remaining in our school districts by grade 12 in the spring of 1990. We followed up with the students multiple times throughout young adulthood at ages 21, 23, and 29 to update our information on their occupational, educational, and family status. The last follow up occurred in 2013-14 when participants were approximately 42 years old.

Analysis of the longitudinal data set has focused on the following general goals: (a) tracing the development of achievement-related beliefs, self-perceptions and values, and psychological adjustment across the adolescent and early adult years; (b) assessing the impact of these beliefs, self-perceptions, values, and psychological resources on adolescents' educational, occupational, and interpersonal life-task planning; on work and educational achievements; on leisure activity choices and participation; and on other life-role choices and outcomes during 18-29 year age period and (c) assessing the relation of social experiences and individual characteristics to adolescents' transition into young adulthood. Since the start of the study, we have obtained a greater understanding of how transitions into junior high, high school, college and/or the work place, and parenthood impacts the individual's development.

Maryland adolescent development in context study (MADICS)

The Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study was designed to collect information from an economically and ethnically diverse sample of adolescents and their families about the influences of multiple levels of social context on a wide range of developmental indicators. This longitudinal study of approximately 1400 African-American (61%) and European-American (35%) adolescents and their families began in Fall 1991 as the adolescents entered middle school. Eight waves of data have been collected from the adolescents, their caregivers, older siblings, school personnel, school records, and the 1990 census databanks via in-home and telephone interviews and self-administered questionnaires. The data were collected when the youth were in grades 7, 8, 9, 11, and one, three, 11 and 14-years post high school graduation.

The project has five major goals: (1) providing a comprehensive description of various developmental trajectories through adolescence; (2) testing the utility of the Eccles et al. (1983) expectancy/value model of choice behavior and of self and identity theories for predicting individual differences in pathways through adolescence; (3) linking variations in these trajectories to experiences in four salient social contexts (family, peers, schools, neighborhood) in terms of the following contextual characteristics: (a) structure/control, (b) support for autonomy, (c) emotional support, (d) opportunities and risks, and (e) shared beliefs, values, and expectations, as well as on the developmental fit between changes in both individuals and contexts; (4) investigating the interplay between these social spheres of experience as they influence development in terms of the following cross-contextual characteristics and processes: (a) compatibility vs. discrepancy, (b) synergistic vs. compensatory influences, and (c) management of multiple contexts by parents, peers, and the adolescents themselves; and (5) extending our understanding of goals 1-4 to African-American adolescents with a focus on both general developmental processes and the specific dynamics associated with ethnic identity, prejudice, discrimination and social stratification.

current grants

Name
Source
PI/CO-PI
Goals
Successful Pathways through Middle Childhood
MacArthur Foundation
Eccles
To study the impact of a school intervention, family characteristics, and school characteristics on early adolescent development.
Risk and Promotive Effects on Adolescence Development
NICHD
Eccles
To collect data on and study a sample of 1400 African-American and European-American adolescents and their families, and to test the utility of the Eccles et al. framework for predicting adult role choices.
Identity and Activities
William T. Grant Foundation
Eccles
To analyze relations between personal and social identities, activity involvement and developmental trajectories, examine issues of ethnic identity and reactions to experiences of racial discrimination, and analyze family management as it relates to both activity involvement and the emergence and consolidation of personal and social identities.
(missing name here)
NICHD
Eccles & Davis-Kean
To participate in a consortium to analyze the impact of socio-emotional development, child-rearing practices, socio-economic status, decision-making process, and intergenerational transfer of information on child and adolescent development as they transfer into adulthood.
African-Americans in Higher Education
Spencer Foundation
Chavous & Eccles
​To study African-American adolescents as they enter and progress through college to gain a more comprehensive picture of students; experiences during this crucial developmental period.
Women, Minorities and Technology
National Science Foundation
Eccles & Davis-Kean
​To test the utility of the psychological components of the Eccles et al. theoretical framework for understanding the psychological mediators of gender and ethnic group differences in activity and task choices related to entry into informational technology jobs and to test the utility of the socializational components of the Eccles et al. framework for understanding origins gender and ethnic group differences in psychological mediators in the first goal above.

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  • Home
  • Research Projects
    • Projects Overview
    • CAB
    • MSALT
    • MADICS
    • WMT
  • Researchers
  • Articles
  • Conferences