It’s not all about recognition and Influence: The role of communal and agentic goals and motives in science for diverse high school students

•Results support construct validity of these scales for diverse high school students.•Each type of motive and goal predicted identifying with science community values.•Self-oriented motives and communal goal affordances predicted science task value.•Agentic goal affordances negatively predicted identifying with science values.•Instruction, interventions, and theory should integrate communal goals and motives. In this study, we consider the intersections of the goal congruity framework and a related motivational model of self-transcendent versus self-oriented motives in learning. Each approach to understanding students’ motivations in science calls attention to the value of communal orientations (helping others, working for the social good, and collaboration) and contrasts them with individualistic motives (self-promotion, wealth generation, knowledge and skill development, and recognition). Whereas the goal congruity model focuses on students’ perceptions of science as a career, the self-transcendent motives model focuses on students’ self-perceptions of their motivation. In a sample of racially diverse high school students with a specific focus on Latinx youth, these models help to distinguish science learning motives and goal affordances in science career paths that are more communal and self-transcendent from those that are more agentic and self-oriented. First, we evaluated the construct validity to learn if these models, operationalized through psychological measures, function adequately for diverse high school students. Next, we evaluated if and how these interrelated motivational models explained unique variance in a meaningful way with how students value science and identify with science community values. We found that students’ self-oriented and self-transcendent motives in science and perceived communal goal affordances explained unique variance in students’ identification with science community values. Self-oriented motives uniquely predicted intrinsic value, interest value and attainment value for science. Perceived communal goal affordances of science uniquely predicted the utility value and attainment value for science. Agentic goal affordances that were more extrinsic, such as money and recognition, did not function well enough to remain in the SEM model. Findings provide important clarifications for the specific context of science learning for diverse high school students that both build on and distinguish from past research.