“Wise” Educational Interventions: How Understanding Stereotyped Students’ Subjective Construals Can Improve Motivation and Performance

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

Recent experiments have found that seemingly small “wise” interventions (Steele, 1998) in education—that is, brief exercises that target students’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in and about school—can lead to large gains in student achievement and sharply reduce achievement gaps even months and years later. In this symposium, we present research that extends the scope of such interventions. Each of the four papers conducts a randomized field experiment with negatively-stereotyped students, and each shows that a change in students’ subjective construals of school can affect their motivation and performance. These papers focus on (1) subjective openness of college pathways, (2) the identity-congruence of academic success, (3) stereotype threat among female surgeons, and (4) perceptions of bias after critical feedback.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Motivation in Education

Chair

• David Scott Yeager, Stanford University

Papers

• How to Excite School Motivation With Open Pathways to Future Goals - Mesmin Destin, Northwestern University; Daphna Oyserman, University of Michigan

• If “We” Can Do It, Then So Can “I”: Identity-Based Motivation and Gender in the Classroom - Kristen C. Elmore, University of Michigan; Daphna Oyserman, University of Michigan

• The Cutting Edge: Values Affirmations in Surgical Training - Arghavan Salles, Stanford University; Claudia Mueller, Stanford University; Geoffrey L. Cohen L. Cohen, Stanford University

• Invoking High Standards and Assurance Increases African-American Students’ Motivation and Achievement - David Scott Yeager, Stanford University