The Development and Measurement of Identity across the Physical Sciences

Drawing from earlier work of Gee, Carlone, Johnson, and Shanahan, we developed a framework for “good physics student role identity” or, more simply, “physics identity” which is a reliable proxy for students’ affinity towards physics and is predictive of students’ physics-related career choices. This framework was postulated to be comprised of performance beliefs, competence beliefs, recognition beliefs, and interest. Subsequent investigations showed that performance and competence beliefs are not distinct and the combined performance/competence construct is somewhat akin to Bandura’s self-efficacy. Recent work has extended this framework to mathematics and engineering. We conclude with a brief discussion of the future of the framework for understanding “best practices” in STEM classrooms.