2007 — 2011 |
Cohen, Geoffrey [⬀] Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: a Self-Affirmation Intervention Approach @ University of Colorado At Boulder
The goal of the proposed project is the application of a social-psychological approach to understanding and remedying the racial achievement gap in school and on standardized tests. The study will use field-experimental, laboratory, survey, and longitudinal methodologies to develop and refine an intervention strategy aimed at improving the science and math performance of academically at-risk minority students (African Americans and Latino). In the context of randomized, double-blind experiments, students will either complete an identity-affirming exercise designed to alleviate social identity threat, or complete a similar exercise that excludes the critical treatment.( In a 15 minute exercise students are provided a list from which they select the value of most importance to them. They then write a paragraph about why it is important. Students in the control group will be given the same list, asked to select the least important value and write why that value might be important to someone else.) Outcomes will be official school grades, state achievement test scores, and psychological outcomes related to stress and motivation. The proposed research follows from previous work of the PIs, which offered initial evidence that threats to individuals? social identity (i.e., group identity) can undermine their academic performance.
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0.97 |
2009 — 2011 |
Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Testing the Effects of the Inauguration of the First African American President On the Affirmation Process
This RAPID proposal describes a series of field and laboratory studies to determine whether the election of Barack Obama, the first African American president, will serve as an affirmation to members of ethnic minority groups and lead to improved academic motivation and performance. Whether this particular event has significant effects on the achievement of students of varying age groups, especially in STEM subjects, constitutes an urgent and important question for rigorous scientific research. We agree with the PI that this research will advance our understanding of how major societal events, beyond the immediate classroom environment, affect students' psychology and achievement motivation. The proposed research will shed light on the social-psychological processes that play a role in the racial achievement gap in STEM-related fields, a critical educational problem. Further the results of this study will facilitate the development of pedagogical strategies, and cost-effective teaching and curriculum strategies that benefit minority achievement and participation in STEM-related fields and beyond.
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0.97 |
2011 — 2015 |
Cohen, Geoffrey (co-PI) [⬀] Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie Cook, Jonathan |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap in Stem: a Social-Neurobiological Investigation and Values-Affirmation Intervention
The research focus of this project is the concept of social identity threat, i.e., academically at-risk minority students are concerned that they could be negatively judged in light of stereotypes of others about their racial group's intellectual ability. Social identity threat has been shown to impair performance of minorities in STEM. The research hypothesizes that social identity triggers a physiological threat response, which involves hormonal and immune-system reactions to threatening situations which can undermine a student's ability to engage in higher level cognitive processing required for success in learning.
The PIs propose studies over three years to: (1) examine the role of social psychological and neurobiological processes in understanding the racial achievement gap between White, Black and Latino college students in STEM educational attainment, (2) implement a social-psychological intervention approach to improve performance, (3) test a new theory-informed version of the intervention, (4) test an online intervention delivery system that could facilitate widespread national dissemination.
Using psychological and neurophysiological levels of analysis, this research will test: (1) how the threat of confirming negative stereotypes "gets under the skin" to impair cognitive functioning for minority students in STEM, and (2) whether a well-validated values-affirmation intervention works because it reduces the physiological stress of identity threat
The ultimate project goal is to provide a powerful, cost-effective, and easily-implemented intervention to reduce the effect of identity threat on minority college student academic functioning, thereby reducing the racial achievement gap in STEM fields and increasing and diversifying the pool of STEM workers.
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0.97 |
2014 — 2017 |
Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie Muresan, Smaranda (co-PI) [⬀] Cohen, Geoffrey (co-PI) [⬀] Cook, Jonathan |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Reducing Racial and Gender Achievement Gaps in Stem: Use of Natural Language Processing to Understand Why Affirmation Interventions Improve Performance
Addressing issues related to reducing the size of the achievement gaps in STEM disciplines among subpopulations of students is important to helping the Nation meet its 21st Century science and technology needs. Research shows that causes of achievement gaps in STEM arise from reciprocal interactions between societal, social, and environmental factors that might suppress students' true academic potential in challenging academic STEM domains. This project focuses on environmental factors (identified as social identity threats) that devalue, marginalize, or discriminate against students based on a social identity like race, gender, disability status, or socioeconomic status; such factors can eventually lead students to withdraw and disengage in STEM learning and careers. The objectives of this research are to: (1) synthesize and systematically analyze data from interventions (affirmation writing essays) shown to help reduce the impact of social identity threats on student participation in STEM; and (2) apply results of the synthesis and analyses to enhance existing interventions (e.g., maximize impact on subpopulations of students whose achiement in STEM fields is below their potential).
The research project will proceed in two phases. First, the investigators will create an encrypted online repository of data from more than 2,500 affirmation writing essays, previously collected through randomized double-blind experiments involving approximately 1,400 students who vary by race, ethnicity, age, gender, and social class. The researchers will link this online repository of information to academic and psychological outcomes for middle school and college students. Using natural language processing (NLP), topic modeling, and other methods the investigators will identify sematic content and essay structure processes that mediate affirmation effects and highlight meaning of the effectiveness of the essay writing interventions.
Results of these analyses will be used to develop and test a more robust intervention for reducing social identity threats involving African Americans, White, and female students. One hundred eighty (180) students (90 females and 90 males) will participate in two separate laboratory studies. One, conducted at Columbia University, will focus on race as a social factor; the second, conducted at Penn State University, will focus on gender. The ultimate goal of this work is to uncover and address psychological factors that might otherwise hinder students' participation in STEM careers.
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0.97 |