The Ways of Knowing course with Shelley Wong was undoubtedly the most significant course of my academic career. Although I had a
strong sense of what I wanted to research (e.g., motivation and self-regulation among college and adult aged students) I struggled with finding
a context to study the variables in. The concepts and theories that I learned in that class will influence my current and future research goals as 
well as the way I view and understand the world. Specifically, all the students were required to select a topic to study and present/teach to the 
class over the course of two class periods. Although I had no idea what Critical Race Theory (CRT) was, I was drawn to the name. I did not 
expect that my understanding of CRT would change my entire approach to research and understanding of the social world. 

      CRT is a movement, dialogue, and perspective that analyzes the institutional, structural, and hierarchical nature of race and racism and is a
force that challenges racism through the power of law. This approach to understanding race brings to light how all people, regardless of race or
gender, indirectly promotes institutionalized racism through their implicit actions and beliefs. Although this perspective is rooted in the domain 
of law, CRT has serious implications for education and how achievement is influenced by the structures of race. For example, how do 
stereotypes (e.g., the different baseless positive/negative preconceived notions about gender, race, sexual orientation, or other group that
people use to understand that specific group of people) influence the achievement patterns of different students? There is strong research to
support that the stereotype threat phenomenon is real and heavily influences how students of a negatively and positively stereotyped group 
performs on tests. However, my specific area of interest is how different stereotype endorsements influence how self-regulated/motivated they
are to achieve, how that may differ across domains, and how that may influence their achievement patterns. In other words, how much does a 
given individual feel he or she conforms to a cultural stereotype and how does that influence self-regulation and motivation? 

      Many of the research on stereotypes focus on stereotype threat and how it influences achievement among students in a testing situation, 
however, I believe that the influence of stereotypes goes beyond testing situations to everyday learning behaviors and cognitions such as 
self-regulation and motivation. However, the construct of stereotype endorsement has not been widely researched; therefore, a measure to
examine stereotype endorsement has not been developed. As a result, I must create my own measure of racial stereotype endorsement in
order to examine what I want to understand.