Context Matters: Social Psychological Factors That Underlie Academic Performance across Seven Institutions

Abstract

Findings presented here demonstrate that institutional context plays an important role in the mechanisms underlying performance gaps in undergraduate biology and may affect how social psychological interventions impact performance across different learning environments.

Exploring the pre-instruction gender gap in physics

“…It is unclear the extent to which test anxiety plays a role in assessment demographic gaps. We suspect this is somewhat sensitive to the nature of the assessment and population as shown in previous works [ 28 ], and thus may not be replicated for other assessment environments.…”

Relative Impact of Values-Oriented and Mindset-Oriented Interventions on Academic Success of Introductory Biology Students Attending 2-Year or 4-Year Institutions

“…To our knowledge, ours is the first report of outcomes from such interventions on a regional research university campus, and one of a very small number of studies conducted at a community college. Indeed, in the few investigations of values-affirmation intervention effects on community college STEM students, the investigators observed similar null results ( 34 , 35 , 44 ). Moreover, when investigators surveyed community college faculty about their colleges’ values and norms and asked students at the same institutions about their motivations for attending college, they found these two measures to be closely aligned, suggesting students experienced low levels of identity threat and had a relatively high sense of belonging ( 35 ).…”

“…Context matters when implementing values-affirmation interventions, at the level of individual students and the institutional setting. For these interventions to be most effective at reducing academic disparities, educators and researchers should first develop an accurate picture of the social-psychological status of students considering the norms typical for the institution they attend, and then strategically target interventions that best align with students’ experiences and needs ( 33 , 34 , 40 , 41 , 43 , 44 ).…”

The PULSE Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Rubric: a Tool To Help Assess Departmental DEI Efforts

“…Analyzing disaggregated data is important because it assists departments in identifying equity gaps and developing specific strategies to improve student performance ( 39 ). Ample evidence exists that PEERs generally underachieve in STEM courses compared with non-PEERs ( 40 ), but this is not the case in every institution ( 41 ). Therefore, it is necessary for each department to disaggregate student achievement data to determine whether there are disparities in outcomes that need to be addressed.…”