Classroom Success and Stereotype Threat

With each passing year, we enter new worlds when it comes to understanding inhibitors to learning. As but one example, back in the mid-1970’s when this educator was going through his teaching program, the concept of stereotype threat had not even been conceived of.

But there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that stereotype threat is not only real, there may be ways to actually address the issue. Of course, teachers cannot tackle an issue unless they have an understanding of what the concept entails.

But then again, many of the teaching fundamentals already employed by educators of our youngest students may actually be critical to addressing this new found learning inhibitor.

Stereotype Threat

To get a quick definition of stereotype threat, we head on over to Wikipedia where we find this very direct synopsis:

Stereotype threat is when a person who belongs to a group that has a negative stereotype attached to it subconsciously conforms to the negative stereotype by performing a task to a lesser degree than they would otherwise.

The site offers this simple example:

Black people have the “less intelligent” stereotype attached to them, so a black person might perform poorly on an IQ test. If said person was either unaware of the stereotype or knew the stereotype to be wrong (stereotype threat is not present) then they would perform better.

Another way of thinking about the idea is to think about the traditional stereotypes associated with a specific subgroup: about a female student focusing on traits associated with being a female or of an African-American focusing on traits associated with being an African-American.

Wikipedia goes on to note that the typical issue found in education is one where a subgroup performs poorly because of the prevailing stereotype. It could be the case of poor standardized test performances by blacks on the SAT. Another typical subgroup performance issue involves young women in either mathematics or science.

Latest Study

A recent study by researchers at the University of Colorado reveals that the issue of stereotype threat in the sciences is very real for young women. The study also reveals that educators can take some very simple steps to help reduce the impact of stereotype threat in the classroom.

In the case of the Colorado research, it appears that two simple 15-minute writing exercises administered early on in the semester boosted the scores of female students in an introductory physics class. Perhaps even more amazingly, the writing exercises had nothing to do with physics and everything to do with making these young women more comfortable with being women even while they were in the science setting.

For their writing assignments, the students were asked to write about things that mattered to them: things like relationships with family and friends. It appears that those young women who were allowed to hone in on things they care about provided additional affirmation that then helped them perform better on the science tasks when they were presented with them.

At Slate Magazine, Amanda Schaffer has dissected the results of the experiment featuring 399 undergrads in a calculus-based physics class. Some students were randomly assigned to write about two or three items from a list that included “learning and gaining knowledge,” “belonging to a social group,” “athletic ability,” “relationships with family and friends,” and “sense of humor.” These individuals were then asked to reflect on why these things mattered to them.

The second set of students was provided the same list of values. In an amazing twist, these students were asked to select the values on the list that were least important to them but to explain why these values might be important to other people.

The writing assignment came early when students were theoretically feeling the most apprehension about the course: the first week of school and then the week before the first midterm.

The results of this activity were amazing. Schaffer explains that most of the women who “received C’s in the class were in the group that had written on values they cared about least” while most of the “women who received B’s had written on what they cared about most.”

In contrast, there was no effect for the women who were receiving A’s or for the men in the class irrespective of grades. Later on in the course, those women who had affirmed their own values also “scored higher on a standardized exam of key physics concepts, taken at the end of the term.”

The theory being suggested is that those students who were able to write about the things they cared about felt some additional comfort early on in the class. The assignment may have reduced some of the anxiety associated with stereotype threat and thus allowed the students to relax and let their true intellect come through.

The key of course is that each positive development helps build confidence over the course of a semester. A slightly better performance on test one leads to greater motivation and thus leads some to work harder. That work then transcends to understanding of the material that then leads to greater confidence and even further motivation. As Schaffer states, “it’s easy to imagine such a virtuous cycle.”

Praise and Success

We have written previously about the importance of praise in the learning process for our youngest learners. But it seems that we should rethink how important this concept is with older students as well.

From this latest study, we see that how students feel about themselves in a particular classroom setting is critical. Therefore, finding ways to help students feel comfortable in a classroom setting is critical to helping them believe in themselves.

Lastly, there does appear to be an exceedingly virtuous cycle, one where comfort and belief in oneself leads to additional levels of success that can in turn further a student’s motivation and effort level. And when it comes to learning, it is the work ethic of students that matters most.

Ironically, the steps teachers can take to address any and all of these characteristics appear to be similar in scope to what educators must do to address the issue of stereotype threat. The key is finding age-appropriate methods for doing so.