A revealing analysis of university faculty and students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) indicates that professors’ beliefs about intelligence play a measurable role in the success of STEM students, especially underrepresented minorities.
“In a university-wide sample, we found that all students – and Black, Latino and Native American students in particular – earn significantly higher grades in STEM courses when their professors believe intelligence is a malleable quality that can be developed over time, compared to when their professors believe intelligence is a fixed trait that cannot change very much,” said author Dr. Elizabeth Canning, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Mary Murphy, a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Science’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Murphy is the study’s principal investigator.
“For about 20 years the research on people’s mindsets has really been the focusing on students’ mindsets and what do students believe about whether intelligence is fixed or whether intelligence can change and is malleable by using difference strategies,” said Murphy. “A lot of the research that had been done really focused on trying to change students’ mindsets to get them to adopt more of a growth mindset about intelligence and showing that would have and effect on their motivation, the way they respond to challenges, the way they respond to failure and critical feedback.”
The researchers sent surveys to STEM faculty at a university and had 40 percent of them respond.
“We have responses all across the board. There were on the fixed mindset side, some who were more on the growth mindset side, and some who were kind of in the middle. So, they were pretty forthcoming about what they believed about intelligence,” Murphy said. “The distribution of the data was really sort of on a normal curve. Approximately half around the middle and a quarter in the tail in terms about their beliefs about intelligence. So, there really is a spread among faculty across the sciences.”
The two-year study included the survey and looked at students’ course evaluations.
The authors said there were some surprises last week when the results of the study was presented at the 2019 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
