Prompts to Promote Success: Evaluating Utility Value and Growth Mindset Interventions on General Chemistry Students’ Attitude and Academic Performance

Abstract

Some students struggle with chemistry because they do not find the relevance between chemistry content and their lives or they perceive their intelligence as fixed. Social-psychological interventions (SPIs), brief interventions that target students’ subjective experiences, were developed to address these issues. As a result, SPIs have been associated with gains in students’ academic performance, attitude, and persistence in various instructional settings; however, only a limited number of studies have explored SPIs within a chemistry context. This study evaluated the effectiveness of two SPIs, a growth mindset intervention (GMI) and a utility value intervention (UVI), on promoting students’ academic performance and attitude in a general chemistry course with a large class size. This study also explored a theoretical explanation for the relationship among SPIs, attitude, and academic performance. Each SPI was designed to facilitate instructional adoption and was implemented by posting three prompts incorporated into homework assignments. The results show that the UVI led to a consistent improvement in student achievement, and among students who begin the course with lower attitudes toward chemistry, the UVI led to an improvement in students’ emotional satisfaction and utility value. The UVI’s improvement in academic performance was also observed with a group of students who have been underrepresented in the sciences, although a smaller sample size prevented finding statistical significance. The GMI improved academic performance relative to a comparison group but not to the extent observed with the UVI. The cost-to-benefit ratio associated with adopting SPIs within chemistry instruction seems highly favorable and thus warrants strong consideration among chemistry instructors.

Efficacy and Insights Gained from a Utility Value Intervention with Inorganic Chemistry Students

“…The data comprised students’ test scores used to answer the first research question and students’ written responses to the UVI prompts to answer the second and third research questions. The reliance on three prompts and the design of the utility value and construct summary prompt were similar to Wang et al; however, the use of extra credit as an incentive differed from the prior work which integrated the prompts into homework assignments.…”

“…An extensive literature base supports the effectiveness of UVIs in terms of improving students’ course achievement, persistence, and affective outcomes (e.g., students’ interest). ,− The settings vary from high school to college level classes including courses such as psychology, physics, algebra, biology, and chemistry. ,,,, Recently, the effectiveness of UVIs in several studies conducted in college level STEM courses was summarized by Wang et al . However, only two studies have implemented UVIs within chemistry courses.…”

“…The study embedded the UVI within a suite of other motivational components and did not seek to evaluate the isolated impact of the UVI. Second, Wang and colleagues implemented a UVI in second-semester general chemistry courses where students were randomized to a utility value group and a content summary group, serving as a comparison group. Each group of students was assigned a brief prompt, spaced to occur three times throughout the semester.…”

“…In doing so, the interventions drive students’ motivation to engage with the materials and thus improve students’ performance in the course . The effectiveness of this intervention has already been demonstrated in introductory STEM courses; however, only limited work is found in chemistry settings or in upper-level STEM courses . The current study advances the literature by evaluating the effectiveness of UVIs in inorganic chemistry, an upper-level chemistry course.…”

Exploring Teachers’ Experiences in the Delivery of Flexible Learning Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Based on studies, immediate feedback to students is the most beneficial rather than a few days, weeks, or months later (Schmulian & Coetzee, 2019). In Wang et al, (2021) study, they discovered that individuals who got prompt feedback improved their academic performance much more than those who received delayed feedback. Similarly, Dhawan (2020), confirmed that students who received a lot of instant feedback were better able to grasp their lessons.…”