Abstract
The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of persistence within STEM learning environments as a function of cumulative stress and latent trauma. The biopsychosocial impact of prolonged stressors due to hostile environments and academic demands has deleterious health effects on historically underrepresented students who enter STEM disciplines. The Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children, clinical histories, and psychophysiomeasurement tools were used to measure the effects of cumulative stress and latent trauma as historically underrepresented students persisted through high school STEM discipline classes. Elevated responses on the inventory and history were triangulated through measures of biological markers for cumulative stress and developed into a profile combination of traits to identify those students likely to show symptomology consistent with the negative effects of cumulative stress and latent trauma. Examination of these outcomes using a latent class profile analysis model suggested the presence of cumulative stress resulting from program participation was significant.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, N. E. (2016). Dialog About Psychosocial Issues in Problem-Based Learning Sessions in Medical Education (doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ETDA libraries Pennsylvania State University. (accession no. 13439).
Al-Mutawah, M. A., & Fateel, M. J. (2018). Students' achievement in math and science: How grit and attitudes influence? International Education Studies, 11(2), 97–105.
Annalakshmi, N., & Venkatesan, M. (2018). Perceived discrimination among students in higher education. Indian Journal of Health & Wellbeing, 9(5), 761–769.
Asparouhov, T., & Muthén, B. (2012). Using Mplus TECH11 and TECH14 to test the number of latent classes. Mplus Web Notes, 14(22), 1–17.
Bazelais, P., Lemay, D. J., & Doleck, T. (2016). How Does Grit Impact College Students’ Academic Achievement in Science? European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 4(1), 33–43.
Benedek, M., & Kaernbach, C. (2010). Decomposition of skin conductance data by means of nonnegative deconvolution. Psychophysiology, 47(4), 647–658.
Bizik, G., Picard, M., Nijjar, R., Tourjman, V., McEwen, B. S., Lupien, S. J., & Juster, R. P. (2013). Allostatic load as a tool for monitoring physiological dysregulations and comorbidities in patients with severe mental illnesses. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 21(6), 296–313.
Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2012). Child development in the context of adversity: Experiential canalization of brain and behavior. American Psychologist, 67(4), 309–318.
Bonham, V. L., Sellers, S. L., & Neighbors, H. W. (2004). John Henryism and self-reported physical health among high–socioeconomic status African American men. American Journal of Public Health, 94(5), 737–738.
Brown, B. A., Henderson, J. B., Gray, S., Donovan, B., Sullivan, S., Patterson, A., & Waggstaff, W. (2016). From description to explanation: An empirical exploration of the African-American pipeline problem in STEM. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(1), 146–177.
Calarco, J. M. (2018). Negotiating opportunities: How the middle class secures advantages in school. Oxford University Press.
Casad, B. J., & Petzel, Z. W. (2018). Heart rate variability moderates challenge and threat reactivity to sexism among women in STEM. Social Psychology.
Chesmore, A. A., Weiler, L. M., & Taussig, H. N. (2017). Mentoring relationship quality and maltreated children's coping. American Journal of Community Psychology, 60(1–2), 229–241.
Coleman, J. S., & Coleman, J. S. (1994). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard university press.
DeSarbo, W. S., Wedel, M., Vriens, M., & Ramaswamy, V. (1992). Latent class metric conjoint analysis. Marketing Letters, 3(3), 273–288.
Destin, M., Castillo, C., & Meissner, L. (2018). A field experiment demonstrates near peer mentorship as an effective support for student persistence. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 40(5), 269–278.
Dika, S. L., & D'Amico, M. M. (2016). Early experiences and integration in the persistence of first-generation college students in STEM and non-STEM majors. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(3), 368–383.
Douglas, L. J., Jackson, D., Woods, C., & Usher, K. (2019). Rewriting stories of trauma through peer-to-peer mentoring for and by at-risk young people. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 28(3), 744–756.
Ebenezer, J., Kaya, O. N., & Kassab, D. (2018). High school students’ reasons for their science dispositions: Community-based innovative technology-embedded environmental research projects. Research in Science Education, 1–25.
Franklin, J. D. (2019). Coping with racial battle fatigue: Differences and similarities for African American and Mexican American college students. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(5), 589–609.
Gao, W., Emaminejad, S., Nyein, H. Y. Y., Challa, S., Chen, K., Peck, A., & Lien, D. H. (2016). Fully integrated wearable sensor arrays for multiplexed in situ perspiration analysis. Nature, 529(7587), 509–514.
Habig, B., Gupta, P., Levine, B., Adams, J. (2018). An informal science education program’s impact on STEM major and STEM career outcomes. Research in Science Education, 1–24.
Hess, R. S., & Copeland, E. P. (2001). Students' stress, coping strategies, and school completion: A longitudinal perspective. School Psychology Quarterly, 16(4), 389–405.
Jeon, S., Seo, T. S., Anthony, J. C., Chung, H. (2020). Latent class analysis for repeatedly measured multiple latent class variables. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1–15.
Johnson, K. M., & Mantina, N. (2016). Race influences student experience in STEM courses. The FASEB Journal, 30(1_supplement), 553–557.
Johnson, S. B., & Pryce, J. M. (2013). Therapeutic mentoring: Reducing the impact of trauma for foster youth. Child Welfare, 92(3).
Kamata, A., Kara, Y., Patarapichayatham, C., & Lan, P. (2018). Evaluation of analysis approaches for latent class analysis with auxiliary linear growth model. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 130.
Kang, J., Keinonen, T., Salonen, A. (2019). Role of interest and self-concept in predicting science aspirations: Gender study. Research in Science Education, 1–23.
Kim, H. G., Cheon, E. J., Bai, D. S., Lee, Y. H., & Koo, B. H. (2018). Stress and heart rate variability: A meta-analysis and review of the literature. Psychiatry Investigation, 15(3), 235–245.
Kirchgasler, C. (2018). True grit? Making a scientific object and pedagogical tool. American Educational Research Journal, 55(4), 693–720.
Lamb, R. (2014). Examination of allostasis and online laboratory simulations in a middle school science classroom. Computers in Human Behavior, 39, 224–234.
Lamb, R., & Premo, J. (2015). Computational modeling of teaching and learning through application of evolutionary algorithms. Computation, 3(3), 427–443.
Lamb, R., & Etopio, E. A. (2020). Virtual reality: a tool for preservice science teachers to put theory into practice. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 29, 573–585.
Lamb, R. L., Cavagnetto, A., Adesope, O. O., Yin, L., French, B., & Taylor, M. (2014). Artificially intelligent systems in education a tool for the future. Educational and Learning Games, 79.
Lamb, R., Annetta, L., Vallett, D., Firestone, J., Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., Walker, H., ... & Hoston, D. (2018). Psychosocial factors impacting STEM career selection. The Journal of Educational Research, 111(4), 446–458.
Lamb, R., Firestone, J., Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., & Hand, B. (2019). A computational model of student cognitive processes while solving a critical thinking problem in science. The Journal of Educational Research, 112(2), 243–254.
Lamb, R., Hand, B., & Kavner, A. (2020). Computational modeling of the effects of the science writing heuristic on student critical thinking in science using machine learning. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 1–15.
Law, D., Fatimilehin, I., Casale, L., Zlotowitz, S., Seymour, N., Chentite, M. M., . & Patel, W. (2018). Improving the psychological wellbeing of children and young people: Effective prevention and early intervention across health, education and social care. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Lingiardi, V., & McWilliams, N. (Eds.). (2017). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual: PDM-2. Silver Springs, MD: Guilford Publications.
Lissek, S., & van Meurs, B. (2015). Learning models of PTSD: Theoretical accounts and psychobiological evidence. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 98(3), 594–605.
Lucca, K., Horton, R., & Sommerville, J. A. (2019). Keep trying!: Parental language predicts infants’ persistence. Cognition, 193, 1–8.
McGee, E. O., & Martin, D. B. (2011). “You would not believe what I have to go through to prove my intellectual value!” stereotype management among academically successful Black mathematics and engineering students. American Educational Research Journal, 48(6), 1347–1389.
Miller, K., Sonnert, G., & Sadler, P. (2018). The influence of students’ participation in STEM competitions on their interest in STEM careers. International Journal of Science Education, Part B, 8(2), 95–114.
Milner IV, H. R. (2007). African American males in urban schools: No excuses—Teach and empower. Theory Into Practice, 46(3), 239–246.
Muthen, B. (2001). Latent variable mixture modeling. New Developments and Techniques in Structural Equation Modeling, 2, 1–33.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2012). MPlus: Statistical analysis with latent variables—User’s guide. Los Angeles, CA: Muthen & Muthen.
Myers, H. F., Lewis, T. T., & Parker-Dominguez, T. Y. A. N. (2003). Stress, coping and minority health. In Handbook of racial and ethnic minority psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication.
Nasir, N. I. S., & Vakil, S. (2017). STEM-focused academies in urban schools: Tensions and possibilities. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 26(3), 376–406.
Nylund-Gibson, K., & Choi, A. Y. (2018). Ten frequently asked questions about latent class analysis. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 4(4), 440–461.
Oberski, D. (2016). Mixture models: Latent profile and latent class analysis. In Modern statistical methods for HCI (pp. 275–287). Cham: Springer.
Olson, J. S. (2017). Helping first-year students get grit: The impact of intentional assignments on the development of grit, tenacity, and perseverance. Journal of The First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, 29(1), 99–118.
Pavlides, C., Nivón, L. G., & McEwen, B. S. (2002). Effects of chronic stress on hippocampal long-term potentiation. Hippocampus, 12(2), 245–257.
Rindskopf, D. (2011). The use of latent class analysis in medical diagnosis. In Recent advances in biostatistics: false discovery rates, survival analysis, and related topics (pp. 257–270).
Robertson-Kraft, C., & Duckworth, A. L. (2014). True grit: Trait-level perseverance and passion for long-term goals predicts effectiveness and retention among novice teachers. Teachers College Record, 116(3), 1–24.
Romine, W. L., & Sadler, T. D. (2016). Measuring changes in interest in science and technology at the college level in response to two instructional interventions. Research in Science Education, 46(3), 309–327.
Ruiz-Robledillo, N., & Moya-Albiol, L. (2015). Lower electrodermal activity to acute stress in caregivers of people with autism spectrum disorder: An adaptive habituation to stress. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(2), 576–588.
Sadowski, C. M., & Friedrich, W. N. (2000). Psychometric properties of the trauma symptom checklist for children (TSCC) with psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Child Maltreatment, 5(4), 364–372.
Saklofske, D. H., Schwean, V. L., & Reynolds, C. R. (Eds.). (2013). The Oxford handbook of child psychological assessment. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Scaer, R. C. (2005). The trauma spectrum: Hidden wounds and human resiliency. New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.
Schneider, T. R. (2004). The role of neuroticism on psychological and physiological stress responses. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(6), 795–804.
Secrist, M. E., Dalenberg, C. J., & Gevirtz, R. (2019). Contributing factors predicting nightmares in children: Trauma, anxiety, dissociation, and emotion regulation. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 11(1), 114.
Smith, S. S., Smith Carter, J., Karczewski, S., Pivarunas, B., Suffoletto, S., & Munin, A. (2015). Mediating effects of stress, weight-related issues, and depression on suicidality in college students. Journal of American College Health, 63(1), 1–12.
Solórzano, D. G., & Villalpando, O. (1998). Critical race theory, marginality, and the experience of students of color in higher education. Sociology of Education: Emerging Perspectives, 21, 211–222.
Steele, C. M. (1998). Stereotyping and its threat are real. American Pscyhologist, 53(6), 680–681.
Stinson, D. W. (2008). Negotiating sociocultural discourses: The counter-storytelling of academically (and mathematically) successful African American male students. American Educational Research Journal, 45(4), 975–1010.
Tobin, K. (2000). Becoming an urban science educator. Research in Science Education, 30(1), 89–106.
Tulip, D. F., & Lucas, K. B. (1991). Persistence and withdrawal by students in a preservice science and mathematics teacher education course. Research in Science Education, 21(1), 320–327.
Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82–96.
Wherry, J. N., & Dunlop, C. E. (2018). TSCC and TSCYC screening forms in a clinical sample: Reliability, validity, and creating local clinical norms. Child Maltreatment, 23(1), 74–84.
Wong, B., & Chiu, Y. L. T. (2019). ‘Swallow your pride and fear’: The educational strategies of high-achieving non-traditional university students. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(7), 868–882.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Appendix. Mplus Syntax for Model Development and Input Termination Information
Appendix. Mplus Syntax for Model Development and Input Termination Information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lamb, R., Hoston, D., Lin (林静), J. et al. Psychological Allostatic Load: the Cost of Persistence in STEM Disciplines. Res Sci Educ 52, 1187–1206 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-021-10000-2
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-021-10000-2