A Purpose for Learning Increases Students’ Persistence in STEM Learning

• In Event: Increasing Students’ Academic Motivation Through Social-Psychological Interventions

Abstract

The present research proposes that a purpose—a self-relevant goal that is seen as having positive consequences beyond the self—can create in learners a mindset in which tedious skill-building tasks are re-construed as relevant for accomplishing higher-order goals.
One roadblock to math and science achievement is the tedium of mastering foundational skills. A common approach to removing this barrier is to change the educational environment so that it makes connections to intrinsic interests (e.g., “you can use Algebra to understand baseball statistics”). Yet such approaches are limited because foundational schoolwork is often unavoidably tedious and uninteresting. It is important then to know whether in the absence of objective environmental cues regarding the relevance of a task learners can be taught to mentally transform their own tedious assignments from things that feel aversive and meaningless into things that feel motivating and fulfilling.
When viewing tedious academic tasks through the lens of a pro-social purpose, learners may exhibit greater grit—or persistence on these tasks even in the face of appealing alternatives—and may ultimately acquire more skills and perform at higher levels over time. Three studies test this hypothesis. Study 1 was a survey study with 1,300 high school seniors attending urban, low-income charter schools. A beyond-the-self purpose for learning was a strong predictor of grit and self-control, assessed both via self-reports and behaviorally, on a boring math task. This relation held when controlling for other, related motives, such as a desire to pursue one's interests, a desire to have a "good job," and a desire to make family proud. Study 2 was a randomized experiment with over 450 students. It found that a brief writing exercise meant to elicit thinking about one's beyond-the-self purposes for learning--a "purpose intervention"--could increase by 33% the number of boring math problems students completed, and decrease by 50% the number of time-wasting videos students watched during a laboratory task. Study 3 was a field experiment with 340 9th grade students that examined the effect of the purpose intervention on high school students' STEM-course grades. It found that a one-time exposure to the beyond-the-self purpose for learning intervention--lasting only 30 minutes--could increase overall GPA in math and science courses 6 weeks later by .10 grade points. Among students with a C or below average at baseline, the effect was twice as large, .20 grade points, and highly significant. This research shows that allowing students to generate prosocial reasons for learning can be a powerful tool for empowering them with the self-regulation needed to complete tedious math and science tasks and result in greater achievement over time.

Authors

• David Scott Yeager, Stanford University

• Marlone Henderson, University of Texas At Austin

• David Paunesku, Stanford University

• Angela L. Duckworth, University of Pennsylvania

• Sidney K. D'Mello, University of Notre Dame

• Brian Spitzer, New York University

• Gregory Mariotti Walton, Stanford University