# Supporting Student Agency in Undergraduate Biomedical Education

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · 2023 · $715,253

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Black, Latinx, American Indigenous, and Pacific Islander students remain underrepresented in biomedical
majors and research careers. Some of this problem is because science courses and careers are presented in
ways that do not align with aspects of URM students’ social identities and values. URM students (particularly
female URM students) feel like they do not belong or are “imposters” in science, especially when compared to
well-represented (WR) white and Asian students (particularly male WR students). Bolstering student agency is
a promising and innovative strategy that could address these issues. Nascent but growing correlational and
experimental research suggests that supporting students’ orientation for agency has the potential to shift
aspects of student motivation for science and subjective experience in science classes, as well as instructors’
practice and classroom climate, bringing the science education that URM students are provided into alignment
with their goals and identities. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the effectiveness of an
intervention designed to promote an agentic orientation among diverse college students in introductory classes
required in biomedical science majors. A longitudinal, cluster-randomized, active control experiment (N~90
classes and 6,750 students) across multiple universities will be conducted to test the hypothesis that an
intervention promoting an agentic orientation (i.e., training students to adopt a malleable mindset of their
science motivation and classroom environment and use a variety of agentic engagement strategies) supports
students’ initial persistence and achievement in biomedical science via psychological and environmental
processes (Aim 1), as well as their sustained persistence and achievement up to 4 years following the start of
the intervention study (Aim 2). Persistence and achievement outcomes include course grades, GPA, course-
taking, biomedical degree obtainment, and career/graduate program intentions. Proximal process variables
include reports of students’ agentic mindset, engagement, interest, psychological needs, self-efficacy, identity,
perceived belonging, imposter beliefs, and empowerment, as well as classroom motivating climate reports and
observations. The inclusion of a condition combining the student-focused agentic orientation intervention with a
training intervention for science instructors on encouraging students’ agency, autonomy, and motivation will
provide the opportunity to examine the added benefit of training teachers over and above the benefits of the
student-focused intervention alone (Aim 3). Finally, this large, well-powered intervention study will allow for
testing of the hypothesis that an agentic orientation intervention will be equally or more effective for URM vs.
WR students and exploration of the extent to which intervention effects vary depending on other characteristics
of students (e.g., gender, first-generation, personality, v...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10725008
- **Project number:** 1R01GM147147-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Erika A. Patall
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $715,253
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-08-15 → 2028-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10725008

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10725008, Supporting Student Agency in Undergraduate Biomedical Education (1R01GM147147-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10725008. Licensed CC0.

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