Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The disproportionate number of college students leaving the sciences before attaining their intended STEM degrees has been a persistent issue for decades (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). More troubling is that this lack of persistence has been especially prevalent among first-generation (FG) college students and underrepresented minority (URM) students (Chang et al., 2014). In the face of the ever-increasing expenses of higher education, cost-effective “wise” interventions have become increasingly popular as programs that impact students’ performance and persistence by targeting their attitudes and beliefs about academics (Walton, 2014). Despite, the promise of these short psychological interventions, the outcomes of these studies have focused on general collegiate performance rather than their ability to support students’ persistence within STEM fields. Accordingly, the present study explores the potential benefits of both a belongingness and a growth mindset intervention upon first-year Biology students. The study measures outcomes including beliefs, performance, and ultimately, persistence as a Biology major.

The study was conducted among all first-year Biology majors at a large research university (n=990). Students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions within the 2x2 factorial experimental design (belongingness intervention x growth mindset intervention). The belongingness intervention consisted of a short video in which senior students from underrepresented backgrounds reflect on the importance of belonging to their success in the sciences. The growth mindset intervention introduced a set of slides conveying the definition of a growth mindset and its benefits. Both the belongingness video and the growth mindset slides were presented within a mandatory study skills course required for all first-year Biology majors. Students completed questionnaires at the beginning and the end of the term about their expectancies and values regarding Biology (Eccles et al., 1983), sense of belonging within the Biology major (Hoffman et al., 2002), and mindset beliefs (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Descriptive analyses showed no significant differences between the treatment conditions at baseline, providing evidence for successful randomization among students.

Preliminary results indicate that although there was no effect of the interventions on same-term academic performance, there was an association between the interventions and motivation variables. Specifically, we found that students who received the growth mindset intervention reported higher utility values for Biology. In addition, students who received the growth mindset intervention reported lower values on items endorsing fixed versus growth mindset, indicating that the growth mindset intervention had a small positive impact on growth mindset beliefs. We did not identify systematic differences by first generation status in terms of the treatment effects. Discussion will also include results from analysis on the end-of-year persistence data to be collected at the end of the spring quarter of 2017 and the mediating roles of both performance and beliefs within Biology.