Two decades of research consistently demonstrates that students' beliefs about the malleability of intelligence (also known as "mindsets") influence their motivation and academic outcomes. The ...current work provides a novel extension to this literature by examining how STEM professors' mindset beliefs can influence students'-and particularly female students'- anticipated psychological experiences and interest in those professors' courses. In 3 experiments, college students evaluated STEM courses taught by professors who espoused either fixed or growth mindset beliefs. Students' anticipated psychological experiences (i.e., fair treatment concerns, sense of belonging, evaluation concerns), anticipated course performance, and ultimately, course interest were assessed. Results revealed that, regardless of gender, students anticipated more negative psychological experiences, lower performance, and lower course interest when courses were taught by STEM professors who endorsed more fixed (vs. growth) mindset beliefs. However, consistent with an identity threat framework, the effects of STEM professors' mindset beliefs (in all studies and across all outcomes) were much larger among female students. Results suggest that professors' perceived mindset beliefs may deter students from taking the STEM courses students need in order to major in STEM.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Many colleges and universities aim to address the STEM pipeline by focusing on introductory STEM gateway courses-with the objective of making them more attractive and stoking students' interest in enrolling in these courses. However, students' anticipated experiences with professors in these courses may prevent students from becoming interested in these courses in the first place. In the current research, three experiments examined how STEM professors' fixed (vs. growth) mindset beliefs (i.e., beliefs that intelligence is fixed and unchangeable vs. malleable and developed) shape students' anticipated psychological experiences in these courses (i.e., their expectations for fair treatment, sense of belonging, evaluation concerns), their anticipated course performance, and ultimately, their interest in taking the STEM professors' courses. Results reveal that students anticipate more negative psychological experiences, lower performance, and report less interest in enrolling in STEM courses taught by professors who endorse fixed (vs. growth) mindset beliefs; however, these effects were moderated by student gender such that the effects of faculty mindset across all studies and outcomes were 22-74% larger among female students. Results suggest that professors' growth mindsets may serve as a productive lever for increasing interest in STEM courses among college students-and especially among women.
"What happens when the defining moment of your life might be a figment of your imagination? How do you understand — and live with — definitive feelings of having been abused when the origin of those ...feelings won’t adhere to a singular event but are rather diffused across years of experience? In Bullied: The Story of an Abuse, Jonathan Alexander meditates on how, as a young man, he struggled with the realization that the story he’d been telling himself about being abused by a favorite uncle as a child might actually just have been a “story” — a story he told himself and others to justify both his lifelong struggle with anxiety and to explain his attraction to other men. Story though it was, Alexander maintains that some form of abuse did occur. In writing that is at turns reflective, analytic, and hallucinatory, Alexander traces what it means to suffer homophobic abuse when such is diffused across multiple actors and locales, implicating a family, a school, a culture, and a politics — as opposed to a singular individual who just happened to be the only openly gay man in young Alexander’s life. Along the way, Alexander reflects on Jussie Smollett, drug abuse, MAGA-capped boys, sadomasochism, Catholic priests, cruising, teaching young adult fiction about rape, and a host of other oddly but intimately related topics."
The Development of the STEM Career Interest Survey (STEM-CIS) Kier, Meredith W.; Blanchard, Margaret R.; Osborne, Jason W. ...
Research in science education (Australasian Science Education Research Association),
06/2014, Volume:
44, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Internationally, efforts to increase student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers have been on the rise. It is often the goal of such efforts that increased ...interest in STEM careers should stimulate economic growth and enhance innovation. Scientific and educational organisations recommend that efforts to interest students in STEM majors and careers begin at the middle school level, a time when students are developing their own interests and recognising their academic strengths. These factors have led scholars to call for instruments that effectively measure interest in STEM classes and careers, particularly for middle school students. In response, the authors leveraged the social cognitive career theory to develop a survey with subscales in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This manuscript details the six stages of development of the STEM Career Interest Survey. To investigate the instrument's reliability and psychometric properties, this 44-item survey was administered to over 1,000 middle school students (grades 6-8) who primarily were in rural, high-poverty districts in the southeastern United States. Confirmatory factor analyses indicate that the STEM-CIS is a strong, single factor instrument and also has four strong, discipline-specific subscales, which allow for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subscales to be administered separately or in combination. This instrument should prove helpful in research, evaluation, and professional development to measure STEM career interest in secondary level students. Author abstract, ed
Recent research has re-emphasized the importance of vocational interests for understanding workplace attitudes and behavior. As a result, there is a renewed interest in the assessment of vocational ...interests in organizations. Numerous interest assessments have been developed over the past century, and they are now administered to millions of people throughout the world. Nevertheless, there is still work to be done, particularly as interest assessments are increasingly being used in organizational settings. This article reviews developments in interest assessments and discusses the implications of their use for both research and practice. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of examining vocational interests in organizational contexts and proposes future research directions.
With the goal of improving assessment of interests toward social and enterprising areas, we developed the Vertical Social Interest Scale (VSIS) by incorporating vertical differentiation between ...occupations in terms of authority and communication. Social and enterprising occupations, their complexity levels, and work activities were identified using the information in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and Occupational Information Network. Three studies (N = 515 total), two of which utilized students and one a working adult sample, were conducted to assess the factor structure and validity of VSIS. Construct validity was demonstrated using factor analyses and based on associations with traditional interest assessments and extraversion. Criterion-related validity was demonstrated based on associations with satisfaction with academic domain for the student sample and affective occupational commitment for the adult sample. Results support the validity of VSIS in predicting relevant vocational outcomes.
Offers a careful analysis of how Aristotle understands civil war, partisanship, distrust in government, disagreement, and competition, and explores ways in which these views are relevant to ...contemporary political theory.
We tested whether a utility value intervention (via manipulated relevance) influenced interest and performance on a task and whether this intervention had different effects depending on an ...individual's performance expectations or prior performance. Interest was defined as triggered situational interest (i.e., affective and emotional task reactions) and maintained situational interest (i.e., inclination to engage in the task in the future). In 2 randomized experiments, 1 conducted in the laboratory and the other in a college classroom, utility value was manipulated through a writing task in which participants were asked to explain how the material they were learning (math or psychology) was relevant to their lives (or not). The intervention increased perceptions of utility value and interest, especially for students who were low in expected (laboratory) or actual (classroom) performance. Mediation analyses revealed that perceptions of utility value explained the effects of the intervention on interest and predicted performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Context personalization-the incorporation of students' out-of-school interests into learning tasks-has recently been shown to positively affect students' situational interest and their performance ...and learning in mathematics. However, few studies have shown effects on both interest and achievement, drawing into question whether context personalization interventions can achieve both ends. The effects of personalization are theorized to result from activation of students' prior knowledge of personal interests and generation of situational interest in math tasks, though theorists have begun to question whether situational interest serves as a mechanism by which learning outcomes are achieved. This experimental study examines whether personalizing 4 units of algebra problems that high school students (N = 150) solve in an intelligent tutoring system could improve their performance in units (i.e., accuracy and learning efficiency) and on classroom exams, whether adolescents who solved personalized problems would report greater situational interest in units (and later, individual interest in math) than peers who solved standard problems, and whether paths through situational interest would contribute to effects of personalization on outcomes. High school students in the personalization condition reported greater triggered situational interest in experimental units, and triggered interest predicted in-tutor outcomes (accuracy, learning efficiency). A total effect of personalization was also observed on classroom exam performance and individual interest in mathematics. Implications for theories of interest and context personalization are discussed, as are implications for math instruction and design of personalized learning environments.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Context personalization refers to an instructional design strategy that incorporates students' out-of-school interests into learning tasks like math problems. Recent research has shown that personalization positively affects students' situational interest and their performance and learning in math, but students seldom obtain both outcomes. This study confirmed that personalizing 4 units of algebra story problems to students' out-of-school interests was sufficient to increase their situational interest in the task and to improve the efficiency with which they solved problems within the intelligent tutoring system. Months later, those who solved personalized problems also reported greater interest in mathematics and scored higher on a classroom math test than a control group. These results extend evidence for the benefits of personalization and confirm that personalizing problems to incorporate student interests at an appropriate depth and specificity can simultaneously produce effects on math interest and learning.
A course of action often suggested in an attempt to improve employment outcomes of adults with autism spectrum disorder, is to match between special interests and job opportunities. In this ...commentary, we propose that the match may be more complicated than it seems, possibly overseeing more pressing employment needs that should be answered such as: the job’s characteristics, labor market demands, and stress resulting from job expectations. Self determination theory of motivation is suggested as a lens through which the association between special interests and a paying job can be examined, highlighting important considerations that hold the potential to increase employment success. Recommendations for new research directions and vocational rehabilitation practice are discussed.
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