Panel:
Social Psychological Insights for Education Policy: Impact of Learning Mindsets on High School Students’ Motivation, Behavior, and Academic Outcomes - Evidence from Three Randomized Control Trials
(Education)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
The focus of education research is shifting from demonstrating that educational interventions are effective (or not) on average to a deeper exploration of for whom it works, in what contexts, and how. To that end, this panel aims to engage diverse perspectives (social psychology, sociology, and education policy) to examine the impact of three social-psychological interventions aimed to improve students’ educational outcomes in diverse high school settings.
This panel includes three papers that feature three different social-psychological interventions each addressing a specific psychological barrier that students face in high school. Each of these papers approach student success from a sound social-psychological perspective, and are implemented as randomized control trials (the “gold standard” for understanding policy-relevant causal effects) on large samples of students (N > 500 in all trials) in three diverse settings: a predominantly low-income (and underrepresented students of color) sample of high school students across 20 schools in US (paper 1), a large high school in Chile (paper 2), and a nationally-representative sample of 9th graders from 65 schools in the US (paper 3). Collectively, these papers showcase the potential for integrating psychological insights into the design and evaluation of interventions that promote student motivation, achievement, and other significant student outcomes, especially for traditionally disadvantaged students—racial/ethnic minority, low-income, or lower-achieving students.
The first paper, “It’s normal for AP to be a challenge”: A randomized controlled trial of a social-belonging intervention for first-time Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate students,” uses a key insight from social psychology—providing adaptive interpretations about setbacks or challenges—in promoting students’ performance and persistence in advanced high school courses that act as gateway points for students’ future educational trajectory. The second paper, “Effect of a Growth Mindset Intervention on Standardized Tests, GPA and Challenge Seeking Behavior: Gender Differences from an RCT in Chile,” explores the effect of a growth mindset intervention on students’ standardized test scores and teases out gender differences in a large high school in Chile. Finally, the third paper, “Using Multi-site Multiple Mediator Instrumental Variables to Explore Mediator Effects of Growth Mindset Intervention in the National Study of Learning Mindsets (NSLM)," goes beyond just reporting heterogeneous treatment effects across sites and explores the potential mechanisms that may be driving the observed positive (and heterogeneous) effects of a growth mindset intervention on students’ academic outcomes using advanced econometric techniques.
Educational interventions designed to improve student outcomes should strive to understand the often hard-to-measure psychological processes that may hamper at-risk students from thriving in academic settings. Borrowing from the tenets of translational medical science, education science must also incorporate rigorous, multi-site research designs, when possible, to acknowledge and appreciate the heterogeneity of the educational contexts within which policies and interventions need to be implemented to promote student success.
