An Effort to Close Achievement Gaps at Scale through Student Mindset Interventions

• Geoffrey D. Borman• Professor of Education and Sociology• Director, Interdisciplinary Training Program in the Education Sciences• University of Wisconsin—Madison

Research on this paper was supported by grants from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education (R305A110136 and R305C050055) and the Spencer Foundation. Findings and conclusions are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting agencies.

Overview

Madison Writing and Achievement Project (MWAP)◦Motivation & Background◦Study Design

MWAP Findings 2011-12 through 2012-13

A Pattern of Disengagement•African American students lose ground academically as they progress through school (Benson & Borman, 2010; Jencks & Phillips 1998; Phillips, Crouse, & Ralph 1998; Fryer & Levitt 2004; Downey, von Hippel, & Broh 2004)

•Overall, student GPA, motivation, and achievement goals seem to decline during middle school—with especially acute drops for minority students (Shim Ryan & Anderson 2008; Anderman 2003)

Defining Stereotype Threat “Our reasoning is this: whenever African American students perform an explicitly scholastic or intellectual task, they face the threat of confirming or being judged by a negative societal stereotype—a suspicion—about their group's intellectual ability and competence…. And the self-threat it causes—through a variety of mechanisms—may interfere with the intellectual functioning of these students…But as this threat persists over time, it may have the further effect of pressuring these students to protectively disidentify with achievement in school and related intellectual domains.”

(Steele & Aronson, 1995: 797)

Model of Stereotype Threat (Hanselman, Bruch, Gamoran, & Borman, in press)

-Group identity is challenged by salient negative stereotypes

-Increased vigilance-Physiological stress-Decreased working memory-Distraction from school

-Diminished task performance

ThreatStress

ResponsesPerformance & Learning

Stereotype Salience &

Group Identity

Hanselman, P., Bruch, S.K., Gamoran, A., & Borman, G.D. (in press). Threat in context: School moderation of the impact of social identity threat on racial/ethnic achievement gaps. Sociology of Education.

Self-Affirmation May Mitigate Threat

ThreatStress

ResponsesPerformance & Learning

Stereotype Salience &

Group Identity

Reducing the experience of threat

Reducing stress responses to threat

Self-affirmation intervention

Graphical Representation of Self-System (Sherman & Cohen, 2006)

Global Self-Integrity

Roles (e.g., student, parent)

Central beliefs (i.e., ideology,

political beliefs)

Goals (e.g., health,

academic success)

Values (e.g., humor, religion)

, nation)

Group identities (e.g., race,

culture, nation)

Relationships (e.g., family,

friends)

The Intervention

<Double-click to open>

Replicating and Scaling-up Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, & Brzustoski, 2009• Statistically significant positive impacts on the GPAs of African

American students randomly assigned to the self-affirmation writing intervention

• Limited to a few classrooms and a few hundred African American and European American students

• Average effect across 7th and 8th grades cut about 40% of the Black-White school performance gap on GPA

• Sherman et al.(2013) found similar impacts for Latino middle-school students

Schedule of Self-Affirmation Exercises (2011-2012)

Cohen et al., 2009 and the Madison Writing and Achievement Project

MWAP 2011

Cohen et al. 2009

Participants: Schools 11 1 Students 1041 133 Teachers 44 4Self-affirmation: Administrations 4 5 Word Count 79 62

(40) (25)

External Validity: Analytical Sample is 57% of the Population

Count %

Official 3rd Friday 7th Grade Count 1706 100%

Consent & Assent Before Exercise 2 1041 61%

Analytical Sample 968 57%

Internal Validity: No detectable pre-treatment differences by condition

Female

Free/Reduce

d Lunch

Limite

d English Pro

ficiency

Special E

ducation

Potentially Threatened

Asian

Black

Hispanic

Multiracial

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

48%

38%

14% 14%

36%

12%

21%

15%

8%

Self-Affirmation (N = 489) Comparison (N = 479)

Condition 6th Grade GPA

Self-Affirmation 3.24Control 3.26

Impacts on African American and Latino Students’ GPA by Term

7th Grade 8th Grade

Marginal Effect d

Marginal Effect d

Term 1 0.06 0.09 0.09* 0.13Term 2 0.03 0.03 0.12** 0.15Term 3 0.03 0.04 0.17** 0.22Term 4 0.12** 0.16 0.19*** 0.23

Full Year 0.06* 0.08 0.15* 0.19

(Impact models estimated with multilevel school fixed/random effects and random student-level effects; covariates (Xci) include: 6th grade GPA, potentially threatened status, gender, free/reduced lunch, LEP status, & special education status)

Self-Affirmation Impacts GPA at the end of 7th Grade and Through 8th Grade

7th Grade: Term 1

Term 2 Term 3 Term 4 8th Grade: Term 1

Term 2 Term 3 Term 42.40

2.60

2.80

3.00

3.20

3.40

3.60

2.66 2.69 2.64 2.572.69

2.622.56 2.53

2.72 2.71 2.68 2.70

2.78 2.74 2.732.72

Not Threatened: Comparison Not Threatened: Self-AffirmationThreatened: Comparison Threatened: Self-Affirmation

Predictive Margins for GPA by Term: Model includes 6th grade GPA, Gender, LEP, Special Education, & FRL Status

Self-Affirmation Negates the GPA Decline for “Potentially Threatened” Students

 = -0.027* [95% C.I.: -0.052, -0.002]

0.021* [95% C.I.: 0.001, 0.041]

N = 345

(Model also includes school fixed effects; covariates (Xci) include: 6th grade GPA, gender, free/reduced lunch, LEP status, & special education status)

* p < .05

Summary of Findings• All students show declines on GPA over time across 7th and 8th grade

• Threatened Latino and African American students’ GPAs decline more than those of their white counterparts

• The self-affirmation treatment effect is limited to threatened students

• The primary benefit of self-affirmation is to mitigate declines, over time, in GPA

• By the end of 8th grade, control students grades in their four core classes fall from 2 “Cs” and 2 “Bs” to 3 “Cs” and 1 “B” whereas treated students’ grades remain the same

• The 8th grade impact, expressed as an effect size, is equal to about 1/5 SD

Further Questions• What are some of the possible psychological “gaps” and

mechanisms that self-affirmation may address?

• To what extent do the student-level impacts vary across the 11 schools, and what contextual differences may explain the variation?

• How was the intervention implemented in this district-wide scale up, and what challenges and successes resulted?