STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR ELITES: A STEM Leadership Program

In this article we explore the level of motivation held by students engaged in a specially designed leadership program - Emerging Leaders in Technology, Science and Mathematics (Elites). Elites was developed as part of a NSF S-STEM grant awarded to Radford University in 2014 that provides scholarships for meritorious students with financial need, which aligns with Involvement Theory (Astin, 1985). Elites was designed to incentivize student participation in high impact activities to develop their professional skills aligned with their degree program, in order to develop them into STEM leaders. Coupled with Proactive Advising (Schee, 2007, Varney, 2012), the Elites program overarching goal was to promote retention of these students at Radford University and in their STEM related disciplines. This paper presents the successes and challenges of the Elites program as measured by focus group interviews and evaluating the students’ motivation levels to engage in the Elites program that is framed on an academic motivational model: M.U.S.I.C. (Jones, 2009). The results suggest students were motivated to remain with the Elites program and perceived the Elites program as effective as they prepared for their futures as STEM leaders.