Cognitive and Motivational Predictors of First-Year Science Grades

• In Event: Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: Cognition and Motivation in STEM

Abstract

There is increasing interest in the contribution of motivation to science achievement above and beyond cognition. We measured various motivational constructs including test anxiety, entity/incremental self-beliefs, epistemological beliefs, and stereotype threat and bias. We gathered two waves of data from 273 biology students. In a regression of final course grade we found 5 significant predictors: college year, high school GPA, biological reasoning scores, entity beliefs, and justification personal(R2 = .32). Motivation explained significant additional variance in course grades above and beyond cognition. Most interesting is that students who began the semester believing they had more fixed biology ability earned higher final grades, and students who ended the semester believing they had less fixed biology ability earned higher grades.

Authors

• Jennifer G. Cromley, Temple University

• Erin McNamara Horvat, Temple University

• Tony C. Perez, Duke University

• Emily Tancredi-Brice Agbenyega, Temple University

• Theodore W. Wills, Temple University

• Jacqueline Tanaka, Temple University

• Denis Dumas, University of Maryland - College Park

• Reham Raja, Temple University

• Dar Sheth, Temple University