Stephanie's Site

I'm a developmental and educational psychologist

Research Training

I’m currently a doctoral candidate in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program at Michigan State University, working with Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia. I transferred with Dr. Linnenbrink-Garcia from Duke University, where I received my master’s in Developmental Psychology in 2013.

Before enrolling at Duke, I completed my B.A. in Psychology from Reed College. There, I wrote my senior thesis under the supervision of Jennifer Henderlong-Corpus and continued to work in her lab during a post-baccalaureate year. I also worked with Kathryn Oleson examining links among academic self-doubt, grade-checking, and procrastination, and Kristen Anderson on factors impacting adolescent substance use. These studies involved experimental, mixed-method, and classroom-based correlational designs.

At its core, my research interests center around academic motivation, or reasons for trying hard in school. While this is a fundamentally educational question, I use my cross-disciplinary experiences to inform my research. My graduate training at Duke allows me to consider issues of student motivation through a developmental lens. My training in developmental, social, and clinical psychology at Reed also allows me to integrate knowledge from several fields to conceptualize motivation.
I'm a Researcher
What Motivates Students in Academic Settings?

Students enter the classroom with different motivations to succeed, and often have multiple reasons for trying hard in school. For example a student may try hard in algebra because she perceives herself as both interested in and good at math. What combinations of motivation do students endorse, and how does that relate to their success in school? I use person-centered approaches–like cluster analysis and latent profile analysis–to examine motivational profiles (i.e., combinations of motivation) and how they relate to outcomes like career choices, achievement, and engagement.

I first used a person-centered approach in my undergraduate thesis, and have since applied it to several projects including my NSF graduate research fellowship and my dissertation. I’m specifically interested in examining profiles across motivational frameworks (e.g., achievement goal theory, expectancy-value theory, self-determination theory) and development (i.e., within-person and cross-sectional motivational change). Though most of my work focuses on motivation, I've also used person-centered approaches to examine non-motivational factors such as epistemic beliefs and procrastination styles.

Research Questions

What combinations of motivation do students endorse?

How stable is motivation in the short-term, long-term, and across development?

Which motivational profiles are most adaptive, and when?

How can results from person-centered analyses address open theoretical debates within motivation theory?
What Influences Motivation?

Because most person-centered motivation studies have not assessed profile membership longitudinally, there has been little discussion of why students follow certain motivational trajectories. What differentiates a student who begins in an adaptive profile but experiences motivational loss from a student with similar motivational tendencies who maintains motivation across the school year? My research addresses these questions by examining factors that predict changes in students’ motivation over time. I have examined friends, perceived classroom climate, and academic subject as contextual influences on motivation. In several projects (including my dissertation), I am also examining students’ exam achievement, perceptions of success, attributions, and emotions as personal factors that predict motivational change. Ultimately, I hope to use this work to create targeted interventions with struggling students.

Research Questions

Do friends influence students’ motivation, engagement, and achievement? If so, when, for whom, and through which mechanisms?

Are different motivational profiles more prevalent and adaptive in varying academic subjects or contexts?

Do academic achievement and reactions to academic success/failure predict motivational change?
Other Ongoing Research Projects

Interventions and factors predicting college STEM retention (with Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, Rochelle Schwartz-Bloom, and Tony Perez)

Epistemic profile development in engineering courses (with Michael Barger and Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia)

Goal endorsement of gifted and typical students (with Kate Snyder)

Emotion calibration during learning and evaluative tasks (with John Ranellucci)

Motivational processes in flipped college classrooms (with Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia and Cary Roseth)

Productive procrastination and procrastination styles (with Erin Westgate and Kathryn Oleson)
Selected Publications

Full texts available upon request.

Publications

Wormington, S. V. & Linnnebrink-Garcia, L. (in press). A new look at multiple goal pursuit: The promise of a person-centered approach. Educational Psychology Review.

Corpus, J. H., Wormington, S. V., & Haimovitz, K. (in press). Creating rich portraits: A mixed-methods approach to understanding profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The Elementary School Journal.

Godin, E., Wormington, S. V., Perez, T., Barger, M. M., Snyder, K. E., Richman, L. S., Schwartz-Bloom, R., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (in press). A pharmacology-based enrichment program for undergraduates promotes interest in pharmacology. Cell Biology Education-Life Sciences Education.

Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Wormington, S. V., & Ranellucci, J. (2015). Measuring affect in educational contexts: A circumplex approach. In M. Zembylas and P. A. Schutz (Eds.), Methodological Advances in Research on Emotion and Education. New York: Academic Press.

Corpus, J. H., & Wormington, S. V. (2014). Profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in elementary school: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Experimental Education, 82, 480-501.

Wormington, S. V., Anderson, K. G., Schneider, A., Tomlinson, K. L., & Brown, S. A. (2014). Peer victimization and negative consequences in early and late adolescence: Does school belonging matter? Journal of School Violence. Advance online publication.

Snyder, K. E., Barger, M. M., Wormington, S. V., Schwartz-Bloom, R., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2013). Identification as gifted and implicit beliefs about intelligence: An examination of potential moderators. Journal of Advanced Academics, 24, 242-258.

McClintic-Gilbert, M. S., Corpus, J. H., Wormington, S. V., & Haimovitz, K. (2013). The relationships among early adolescents’ motivational orientations, learning strategies, and academic achievement. Middle Grades Research Journal, 8, 1-12.

Wormington, S. V., Anderson, K. G., Tomlinson, K. L., & Brown, S. A. (2013). Alcohol and other drug use in middle school: The interplay of gender, peer victimization, and supportive social relationships. Journal of Early Adolescence, 33, 609-633.

Wormington, S. V., Corpus, J. H., & Anderson, K. A. (2012). A person-centered investigation of academic motivation and school-related correlates in high school. Learning and Individual Differences, 22, 429-438.

Casey, C. M., Wormington, S. V., & Oleson, K. C. (2012). Promoting comfort and confidence with research through a pluralistic ignorance project. Teaching of Psychology, 39, 293-296.

Corpus, J. H., Haimovitz, K., & Wormington, S. V. (2012). Understanding intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: Age differences and meaningful correlates. In N. M. Seel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. New York: Springer.

Wormington, S. V., Anderson, K. A., & Corpus, J. H. (2011). The role of motivation quality in high school students’ current and lifetime alcohol consumption. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 72, 965-974.

Haimovitz, K., Wormington, S. V., & Corpus, J. H. (2011). Dangerous mindsets: Theories of intelligence predictive of losses in intrinsic motivation. Learning and Individual Differences, 21, 747-752.

Selected Recent Presentations

Wormington, S. V., & Snyder, K. E. (2015). Examining achievement goal endorsement and adaptiveness in gifted and typical students. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, Illinois.

Wormington, S. V., Barger, M. M., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2014). One size fits all? Longitudinal, profile-centered examinations of adolescents’ motivation in mathematics and social studies. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Wormington, S. V., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2014). Early adolescent friendship networks and academic motivation in mathematics and social studies. Paper presented at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Austin, Texas.

Wormington, S. V., Westgate, E. C., & Oleson, K. C. (2014). Academically productive procrastination: Links to unique motivations and academic consequences. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Austin, Texas.

Wormington, S. V., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2013). A new look at multiple goal pursuit: The promise of a person-centered approach. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, California.

Wormington, S. V., & Corpus, J. H. (2012). School engagement and academic performance: The mediating role of intrinsic motivation. Paper presented at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Wormington, S. V., Anderson, K. G., & Brown, S. A. (2012). Protective and risk-related school factors affecting alcohol consumption: A developmental perspective. Paper presented at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Perez, A. C., Wormington, S. V., Barger, M. M., Schwartz-Bloom, R., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2014). Profiles of costs: How expectancy-value profiles relate to undergraduates’ choices in STEM. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the International Conference on Motivation, Finland.

Barger, M. M., Wormington, S. V., Huettel, L., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2014). Testing a combined perspective of personal epistemology positions and traits using cluster analysis. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Perez, A. C., & Wormington, S. V. (2014). Undergraduates’ developing motivation for science: A person-centered approach. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the International Conference on Motivation, Finland.
I'm a Teacher
Teaching Philosophy

Because I study motivation, there is a connection between what I study and how I teach. Most of my teaching experience has been with statistics and research methods, topics foundational for future researchers (and scientific literacy) but often considered challenging and/or boring. As such, I focus on two aspects in my teaching: connecting course content to real life and fostering students' competency through appropriately challenging assignments. Because students come to the classroom with unique interests and goals, I actively encourage students to find relevance between what they're learning in class and their everyday lives via course assignments and discussions. Finally, I aim to foster students' belonging given the inherently social nature of the classroom.
Teaching Experience

To date, I've served as a teaching assistant for seven courses at the undergraduate level. I also designed and taught a course on research methods in psychological science. These teaching experiences--which have been in liberal arts, private, and public university settings--provide insights into teaching across different college contexts. In Spring 2016, I will experience hybrid teaching for the first time as TA for a course on Motivation and Learning. I hope this experience will help me identify unique challenges associated with asynchronous learning.

Relevant Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant, Motivation and Learning-hybrid offering (Michigan State University, 2016)

Instructor of Record, Research Methods in Psychological Science (Duke University, 2013)

Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Statistical Methods in Psychology (Duke University, 2013)

Teaching Assistant, Child Observation (Duke University, 2013)

Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Psychology (Reed College, 2011)

Teaching Assistant, Research Design and Data Analysis (Reed College, 2009, 2010)

Teaching Assistant, Developmental Psychology (Reed College, 2009, 2010)
I'm a Mentor

Mentoring Philosophy

My main goal as a mentor is to help students develop the skills they need to be successful thinkers and researchers. I involve students in every aspect of research, providing an appropriate level of challenge, guidance, and autonomy. These efforts are largely informed by the excellent mentorship I've experienced in my own training. Specifically, I seek to implement clear and frequent communication, developmentally appropriate expectations, and early research experiences in my mentoring efforts. I also encourage students to explore their own research interests through collaborations with other students and individual projects.

Mentoring Experience

At the K-12 level, I have volunteered as an after school instructor, classroom aid, mentor, and volleyball coach. I also spent a summer interning for the Key Issues Institute in Keystone, CO, where I helped introduce middle-level educators to inquiry-based teaching techniques. These experiences both inform and are informed by my research. I aim to support students' motivation using research-based practices. At the same time, I learn from students and teachers which factors are most salient for supporting students.

I have also mentored students at the undergraduate and graduate level. At Duke, I co-advised two graduation with distinction theses, supervised one independent study project, and served on one student's thesis committee. At MSU, I have served on two graduate students' practicum committees. I've also mentored newer graduate students through the AERA Motivation SIG mentoring program. These experiences help me realize how I'd like to mentor my own students in the future.
I'm a Community Member
Service Experience

Just as important to me as my research and teaching is my role as a member of the academic community. I firmly believe that researchers are only as strong as their communities, and I try to serve both my professional and university communities in various capacities. I'm the former AERA Division C Graduate Student Council senior co-chair and a member of the APA Division 15 Psychology Today committee. I was also the co-organizer of my program's Student Research Group and recently served on a faculty search committee.

Selected Service Activities

Graduate Student Senior Co-Chair, American Educational Research Association Division C (2014-2015)

Psychology Today Committee Member, American Psychological Association Division 15 (2013-Present)

Graduate Student Junior Co-Chair, American Educational Research Association Division C (2013-2014)

Graduate Student Representative, CEPSE Faculty Search Committee (2014-2015)

Student Research Group Co-Organizer, EPET Program (2014-2015)

Reviewer for Educational Psychology and Spanish Journal of Psychology

Graduate student conference proposal reviewer for APA Division 15, AERA Division C (section 2a), AERA Motivation SIG, AERA MLER SIG, and SPSP Outstanding Graduate Research Award

Co-reviewer (with advisor) for Journal of Educational Psychology, Learning and Instruction, and Contemporary Educational Psychology
Contact Me

Interested in learning more about my research? Let's chat!

E-mail: wormingt [at] msu [dot] edu

Twitter: svwormington

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