Examining Interventions to Reduce Stereotype Threat in Undergraduate Mathematics

Examining Interventions to Reduce Stereotype Threat in Undergraduate Mathematics

Dr. Jessica M. DeshlerDepartment of Mathematics

West Virginia University, USA

Randomised Controlled Trials in the Social Sciences, 9th Annual Conference

University of York, UK, September 2014

Context for the Study

My background: B.S., M.S. & Ph.D. in Mathematics

Research: applied mathematics mathematics education

Approaching studies in the undergraduate classroom as both a researcher (mathematics, education) and an instructor.

West Virginia University

Research Intensive, public, land-grant university

Morgantown, West Virginia

Fall 2013 Enrollment ~ 23,000 Undergraduate students

~ 5,000 Graduate students

Stereotype Threat

Being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s group. (Steele & Aronson, 1995)

Has been shown to reduce the performance of individuals who belong to negatively stereotyped groups. (Steele, 1997).

Women & Mathematics

“When women perform math, unlike men, they risk being judged by the negative stereotype that women have weaker math ability.”

-(Spencer, Steele & Quinn, 1999)

Why do we need to support women/girls in mathematics?

Diverse populations bring diverse perspectives –

Diversity Trumps Ability (Page, 2008)

If all of our students (employees, coworkers, etc.) have the same backgrounds (experiences, perspectives), they can’t work as efficiently to solve problems.

In US, 31% of PhDs in Mathematics (NSF, 2012) are women, but only 21% of tenure track faculty in mathematics departments.

Our Study

Interventions have been shown to reduce stereotype threat in a laboratory setting.

Research Question: Would the interventions work in an actual undergraduate mathematics classroom?

Our implementation: Use two laboratory interventions in a college calculus class.

Does the data support the laboratory findings?

Values Affirmation Intervention

Students ranked 5 personal characteristics Creativity, Humor, Physical Attractiveness, Social

Skills & Relationships with friends/family

Describe importance of highest ranked characteristic

Describe a time in life this was important

Control: Rank same 5 characteristics but write about his/her least valuable attribute & why it’s important to others.

Role Model Intervention

A reading on a fictitious female WVU student majoring in mathematics (and education) who has been successful in mathematics, college, etc….

Picture

Control: A reading about business/industry, not focused on specific people.

Participants

Calculus I class - two sectionsStudents were not mathematics majors48 women, 76 menOne class period (not at the institution where these were used in the lab)

Randomly Assigned to one of: Control (no interventions)Values Affirmation intervention ONLYRole Model intervention ONLYBOTH Interventions

Design

Randomly assigned, blocked by gender, to one of two conditions, both conditions, or neither condition.

Neither

Values Affirmatio

n

Role Model Both Total

Female 12 14 9 13 48

Male 18 15 24 19 76

Plots by Intervention & Gender

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Role Model Both ControlValues Affirmation

Means by Treatment: Female

Means by Treatment: Male

Procedural Results

Female Male

Conceptual Results

Female Male

Is this a real effect?

Concern about self-selection into the course

Sample size too small to detect the effects we saw (first time using an authentic measure)

Sample was chosen based on what worked in the lab – where the math test was GRE-like

Characteristics of Participants

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 1401.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

GPA by Gender

FemaleMale

Participant

GP

A

Results – Continued

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

5

10

15

20

Role Model Intervention

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Values Affirmation

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

Results - Continued

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

5

10

15

20

Both

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

5

10

15

20

Control

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

5

10

15

20

Role Model Intervention

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

5

10

15

20Values Affirmation

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

5

10

15

20

Both

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.250

5

10

15

20

Control

FemaleMale

GPA

Calc

ulu

s S

core

Next Steps

Now that we have a sense of real performance on this assessment, run the experiment with a reasonable sample size.

Pay more careful attention to the randomization procedures, rather than having to fix problems later through the model

The experiment is cheap, relatively speaking (cost is in time)

Advice?

References

National Science Foundation. 2012. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering .

Page, S. (2008). The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies Steele, C. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance, American Psychologist, 52 (6)

Steele, C.M. & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 (5)

Spencer, S.J., Steele, C.M. & Quinn, D.M., (1999). Stereotype Threat and Women’s Math Performance, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35 (1)

Acknowledgements

Research Team:

Elizabeth Burroughs, Mathematics, Montana State University (Visiting at University of York)

Jessi Smith, Psychology, Montana State University

Rachel Matsumoto, Graduate student, Psychology, Montana State University