Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program/Concentration

Educational Foundations & Leadership

Committee Director

Tony C. Perez

Committee Member

Kristy A. Robinson

Committee Member

Joanna K. Garner

Abstract

This is a longitudinal study focused on the importance of students’ beliefs and emotions for their persistence in science majors. The primary goals of this study are threefold. First, to examine how undergraduate science students’ academic achievement emotions combine into profiles across two time points in the context of introductory Chemistry and Biology Courses. Second, to examine how students’ beliefs and perceptions of belonging relate to profile membership and to the likelihood that students will transition between profiles of emotions over time. Third, to evaluate how emotion profile membership and transition are related to students’ intentions to pursue science and to their observed science major status over time. This study is primarily grounded in the Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions (Pekrun, 2006) and the Situated Expectancy Value Theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020).

The primary forms of analysis are Latent Profile and Latent Transition Analysis. Data were collected as part of a larger and ongoing NIH-funded study focused on supporting students’ persistence in STEM. Indicators for the latent profiles were four dimensions of emotion, calculated in accordance with prior theory that groups discrete emotions together via a Circumplex model (Linnenbrink-Garcia et al., 2016), representing positive activated (e.g., excited), positive deactivated (e.g., calm), negative activated (e.g., agitated), and negative deactivated (e.g., exhausted) emotions.

Latent Profile Analyses indicated that four profiles of emotion were present in the data at both time points. These profiles were labeled in accordance as follows: 1) Moderate Positive, Low Negative, 2) Moderate All, High ND, 3) Low Positive, High Negative, and 4) Moderate Positive, Diverging Negative. Transition Analyses indicated that stability in profile 1 was the most common transition pattern. Students’ beliefs regarding perceived control, positive and negative value, and two facets of belonging (with their professors and the University) had significant relations with profile membership at each time point and with profile transitions. Profile membership at the second time point was also significantly related to students’ science commitment and persistence. Implications for theory and practice, especially teaching practices in undergraduate science fields, are discussed.

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ISBN

9798197810502

ORCID

0000-0001-9168-0694

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