In the United States, persistence for women and ethnic minorities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers is strongly impacted by affective factors such as science identity, agency, and sense of belonging. Policies aimed at increasing the diversity of the national STEM student population and workforce have recently focused on fostering inclusive learning environments that can positively impact the experiences of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in STEM, thus increasing their retention. While research on inclusion in STEM in higher education is relatively new, inclusion research has a rich history in several other disciplines. These fields have developed theoretical frameworks and validated instruments to conceptualize and assess inclusion. Self-determination theory (SDT) is a well-established theoretical framework in educational psychology that states that ones’ internal motivation is strongly correlated with the satisfaction of three specific psychological needs: autonomy, competency, and relatedness. In this paper, we introduce SDT and discuss how it relates to inclusion and to ongoing efforts to increase retention of STEM URM students in higher education environments. We argue that grounding inclusion initiatives in the SDT framework increases our understanding of the mechanisms mediating their impact, thus facilitating their reproducibility and generalizability. Finally, we describe how this theoretical framework has been adapted by the field of Industrial and Organizational Psychology to define and assess inclusion in the workplace as an example of how STEM education researchers can use this framework to promote and assess inclusion in their fields.

中文翻译：

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理论联系实际：使用自决理论更好地理解STEM中的包容性

在美国，女性和少数族裔在科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）事业中的毅力受到诸如科学认同，代理和归属感等情感因素的强烈影响。旨在增加国家STEM学生人口和劳动力多样性的政策最近集中在营造包容性学习环境，这些环境可对STEM中代表性不足的少数族裔（URM）的经历产生积极影响，从而增加其保留率。尽管高等教育中对STEM的包容性研究相对较新，但包容性研究在其他几个学科中都有着悠久的历史。这些领域已经开发出理论框架和经过验证的工具以概念化和评估包容性。自决理论（SDT）是教育心理学中一个行之有效的理论框架，它指出人的内在动力与满足以下三个特定心理需求的密切相关：自主性，能力和亲和力。在本文中，我们介绍了SDT，并讨论了它与包容性以及与如何在高等教育环境中增加STEM URM学生保留率的持续努力之间的关系。我们认为，在SDT框架中建立包容性倡议可以增加我们对介导其影响的机制的了解，从而促进其可重复性和通用性。最后，