Can a Brief Online Intervention Raise Adolescents’ STEM Expectancy and Values? A Four-Arm Randomized Trial of Goal Setting and Role Modeling

Adolescents’ expectancies and subjective task value beliefs for STEM decline across secondary school, yet few trials have compared different intervention components for enhancing these beliefs within the same trial. This four-arm randomized trial, framed by situated expectancy-value theory, compared brief online interventions focused around goal setting, role modeling, their combination, and an active control. Participants were 855 Year 9 students (401 female, 454 male; M age = 14.68) across six Australian schools (3 urban, 3 rural). Outcomes were expectancy, intrinsic value, utility value, and perceived cost for STEM overall and, in exploratory analyses, for biology, chemistry, and physics. Compared to the control condition, the goal-setting-only condition produced higher post-intervention expectancy (Δ = 0.17, q = .034) and intrinsic value (Δ = 0.18, q = .034) but not utility value. Role modeling alone produced no significant benefit after statistical correction. The combined condition raised expectancy but also perceived cost. No gender interaction was significant. In rural (compared to urban) schools, exploratory analyses showed that, relative to the active control, goal setting alone raised utility value (Δ = 0.46, q < .001) and role modeling alone raised expectancy (Δ = 0.11, q < .001). Exploratory subject-specific analyses showed similar goal-setting gains. Results suggest that a brief, structured online goal-setting sequence can raise adolescents’ immediate STEM expectancy and intrinsic value, warranting longer-term follow-up.