The individual stem student in context: Idiographic methods for understanding self-knowledge and intraindividual patterns of self-efficacy appraisal.

Abstract

This study aimed to identify elements of personal knowledge that were hypothesized to underlie within-person, across-context variations in students' appraisals of self-efficacy for coping with challenges encountered in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Freshman in a college of engineering completed assessments of (a) 4 elements of personal knowledge regarding themselves and their educational resources; (b) their subjective beliefs about links between these 4 personal and social qualities and each of 32 specific educational challenges; and (c) perceived self-efficacy for successfully handling each of the 32 challenges. Individual students' self-efficacy appraisals commonly varied substantially within-person, across contexts. This variability was predictable. Students displayed relatively high (low) self-efficacy within subsets of situations they subjectively linked to positively (negatively) valenced knowledge that they possessed, a finding consistent with the knowledge-and-appraisal model of personality architecture that guided the research. Additional analyses demonstrated that students with similar overall academic self-efficacy scores may display markedly different profiles of self-efficacy appraisal across context. Students' narrative accounts enriched understanding of these profile patterns. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThis study introduces novel methods for assessing the beliefs of individual STEM students and the specific social contexts in which these beliefs come into play. Findings show that our assessments predict both consistency and variability in student's confidence in their ability to handle challenges encountered in STEM education. Because our assessment methods provide richer, more nuanced information about individual students than the assessments commonly found in the scientific literature, they may be of particular value to school counselors and advisors who need to understand idiosyncrasies in the beliefs and social experiences of the individual student.

Bringing Back the Person into Behavioural Personality Science Using Big Data

“…It is also possible that some common traits emerge or are applicable for all persons, and some additional traits that are unique for only one individual. This possibility would resemble what was found in the course of the development of the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (Cheung et al, 1996). Using the lexical approach, traits unique to the Chinese culture like Harmony, Ren Qin (Relationship) Orientation, Face and Thrift Extravagance emerged in addition to common traits like Emotionality and Introversion–Extraversion.…”

“…Although Windelband (1904) did not restrict the idiographic approach to the study of individual persons, the call for a careful analysis of the individual person as an alternative to the analysis of aggregates was echoed throughout the history of personality psychology (Allport, 1937; Beck, 1953; Beck & Jackson, 2020a; Carlson, 1971; Lamiell, 1981; Magnusson, 2001; Shoda, Mischel, & Wright, 1994; Stern, 1911), and there are indeed idiographic studies in personality science that are but low in number compared with the vast amount of nomothetic research (e.g. Allport, 1965; Beck & Jackson, 2020a; Cervone, Mercurio, & Lilley, 2020; Grice, 2004; Hermans, 1988; Karch, Sander, von Oertzen, Brandmaier, & Werkle‐Bergner, 2015; Nasby & Read, 1997; Pelham, 1993; Schmitz & Skinner, 1993; Shoda et al, 1994; Simonton, 1998).…”

The dynamics, processes, mechanisms, and functioning of personality: An overview of the field

“…We focus on research and practice in clinical psychology/psychotherapy and work/organizational psychology as major applied disciplines in psychological science. Studies on dynamic personality phenomena in educational settings also exist (e.g., Cervone, Mercurio, & Lilley, 2020; Zhang, Beckmann, & Beckmann, 2019) but remain sparse.…”

Music Student’s Approach to the Forced Use of Remote Performance Assessments

“…Undergraduate students studying music volunteered to take part in the research. Of the 84 students, 68 identified as completely female on the 11-point gender scale (Cervone et al, 2020;Haupert, 2019), and 13 identified as completely male, two identified in the middle of the gender scale (choosing 5) and one person reported not identifying on the scale. Students represented a range of year groups, with 48 (57.1%) first year, 25 (29.8%) second year, 8 (9.5%) third year, and 3 (3.6%) fourth year students.…”