Family matters! The influence of family, peers, mentors, and professors on STEM college students’ motivational beliefs and career decision making

Support from family, peers, mentors, and professors has a crucial role in the development of students’ motivational beliefs about learning. However, the relative importance of each of these social supports in affecting students’ motivation, and the precise processes through which these social factors motivate students, are not well understood at the college level. The present study examined how family, peers, mentors, and professors shaped science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college students’ motivational beliefs for career decision making, defining motivational beliefs in accordance with situated expectancy-value theory. We collected survey and open-ended responses from a large sample of college students ( n = 2,229) in 42 unique STEM courses at a large, public southeastern university in the United States. We examined how, why, and for whom different social supports influenced students’ task-value and/or competence related motivational beliefs for career-decision making. Results indicated that students most often selected interactions with family members as influencing their career decision-making, both in terms of overall influences and as the strongest influence, relative to interactions with peers, mentors, or professors. For all social influences, most students reported being attracted in a positive way towards certain careers as a result of social interactions, as opposed to socializers making students disenchanted with careers. Most students described how social supports influenced motivational beliefs related to task values, with comparatively fewer referencing social influences on competence-related beliefs. Findings highlight the important role of multiple social supports, particularly family, in shaping students’ motivational beliefs and career decision-making throughout emerging adulthood.