The central thesis of our research is that differences in personal interests contribute to the differential appeal of careers in engineering and scientific research. Personal interests steer individuals toward goals, and influence the intensity and persistence in pursuing goals. Personal interests contribute to the self-selection of environments and differential exposure to different aspects of the environment well before it is time to choose a career (Silvia, 2006). Individual interests are only part of the story. Instruction in science can undermine subsequent choices of science courses and careers by the way it presents research as an activity. Our research examines the structure of interests in male and female children and college students, and explores how such interests interact with ways science is taught. It also examines how interests and classroom instruction influence students’ beliefs about research itself and research careers.

Interests are usually presented as individual-centered motivational constructs (Silvia, 2006). Achievement is seen as a multiplicative function of ability and motivation. This Ability X Motivation interaction implies that if either ability or motivation were zero, performance would be zero, or at least extremely low. Phrased in terms of interest, holding ability/aptitude constant, higher interest will lead to higher achievement than when interest is low. This attribution-based interactive account has received wide support for both college students’ and children’s academic performance (e.g., Cronbach, 2002; Harackiewicz, et al., 2008; Wigfield, Eccles, Schiefele, & Davis-Kean, 2006). Because ability is often regarded as a stable aptitude, intervention minded researchers focus on motivation. Usually, motivation is manipulated by increasing incentive values. This is especially true in research with children (e.g., Corpus, & Lepper, 2007), but some research manipulates beliefs about the self (e.g., Bandura & Bussey, 2004; Elliot & Dweck, 2005). With a few notable exceptions, the general, personal interests of children as a motivational influence on academic performance in STEM activities are unknown terrain (Sandro & Tracey, 2007). This oversight is noteworthy because general personal interests are widely recognized as a major determinant of adult occupation and career choice (e.g., Holland, 1997; Hough & Ones, 2002; Prediger, 1982, 1996; Prediger & Vansickle, 1996; Tracey & Rounds, 1996).

First, exactly what interests enhance (or undermine) academic performance in STEM? Specifically, the available evidence suggests that females have less interest in science and technology, but perhaps somewhat greater interest in people than do males. Ackerman et al. (2001) assert that the root of gender differences in achievement in STEM is partially determined by different interests in social closeness and femininity. This account does not explain how or why such interests impede other knowledge, or how they are acquired. How such processes work in children during development is unknown. The interests/motives in our research focus on the Person-Thing Orientation (PTO), originally developed by Thorndike (1911). Later, Little (1968, 1972) constructed a PTO measure “top-down” as a vehicle for exploring his Specialization Theory. The theory explained how individuals bridge personality and the environments in which they find themselves. Little developed his PTO scale (Little, 1974) to assess individual’s differential orientation toward two primary objects in the environment—persons and things. Little discovered that empirically Person Orientation (PO) was probably not the bipolar opposite to Thing Orientation (TO). The available literature suggests that PTO may appear with different labels, and may operate as two separate components of one positive manifold, but the distinction itself is important, in everyday phenomenology, hidden within more formal theories, and in occupational interests in STEM. The P aspect of PTO is the descriptor for motivational processes underlying interpersonal relations, and the T aspect is the descriptor for motivational processes underlying preferences for mastery over objects. Yet PTO has not been studied systematically, possibly because it seems less trait-like than other individual differences (Little, 1999). At the broadest level of analysis, when occupational interests are included with it, PTO appears as a single bipolar dimension. Subsequent factor analytic research (e.g., Prediger, 1982; Rounds, 1995) suggests that vocational interest can be characterized in terms of two fundamental dimensions: a Person-Thing dimension, and an Ideas-Data dimension. Sex differences in occupational preferences occur primarily along the PT dimension (Lippa, 1998), not along the Ideas-Data dimension. In general, females tend to be more interested in people-oriented occupations, whereas males tend to be more interested in thing-oriented occupations like STEM. Lippa (2005) found that sex differences on the (single) PT dimension were large, often with d > 1.00. Whether PTO is one-dimensional or two orthogonal dimensions, PTO may offer a useful tool for exploring the acquisition of interest in STEM, and especially sex differences in such interests.

Bill Graziano is a Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. He was the Head of the Dept of Child Development and Family Studies from 2002- 2005 and was Professor of Psychology at Texas A & M from 1989-2002. He has held positions at the University of Georgia, at Arizona State University and at University of Michigan. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a Charter Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, a Charter Member of the Association for Research in Personality and was President of Sigma Xi at Texas A&M, 2001-2002 and Member of the executive Committee at Purdue, 2005-2006. Professor Graziano is interested in the development of personality and the meditational processes that determine stability and change. He studies of personality include agreeableness, empathy and helping behavior in situational perspective. Professor Graziano has been the PI on numerous federally funded projects including NIH and NSF.