Faculty Mind-Sets: How Professors' Beliefs About Ability Relate to Students' Experiences and Achievement in STEM

• In Event: Family, Friends, and Faculty: How Actual and Perceived Beliefs of Others Shape Students’ STEM Motivation

Abstract

Objective
We explore how STEM professors’ beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of ability relate to end-of-semester student evaluations and achievement in STEM.

Theoretical Framework
We propose that STEM professors’ mindsets—beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of ability (Dweck, 1999)—may influence students’ experiences and achievement in STEM courses. We hypothesize that faculty who endorse a fixed mindset might, unwittingly, communicate that “some students have it” and “some don’t”. This mindset can in turn create a “chilly climate” for underrepresented minority (URM) students if they are aware of cultural stereotypes that link their particular social identity to less STEM ability (Murphy & Dweck, 2010; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). URM students might infer that their professor believes that they—as a group—lack the requisite skills and inherent ability needed to succeed in STEM which might lead them to perform more poorly relative to non-stereotyped groups.

Methods
We surveyed over 700 faculty at a large, public Midwestern university about their mindset. In Study 1, we examined average end-of-semester student evaluations at the course level for all courses taught by these faculty members for the previous 4 semesters (4470 courses, nested within 737 faculty). Students answered 3 standardized questions (i.e., “How much did the instructor motivate you to do your best work?”, “How much did the instructor emphasize student learning and development?”, “How likely would you be to recommend this course with this instructor?”) on a 1 (“not at all”) to 4 (“a lot”/ “very likely”) scale. In Study 2, we obtained course grades for all students in all STEM courses taught by these faculty members for the previous 9 semesters. We tested a three-level model in which student observations (n = 16,786) were nested within course sections (n = 416) which were nested within STEM faculty members (n = 104).

Results
In study 1, we found that STEM faculty with more of a fixed mindset received more negative end-of-semester course evaluations. Specifically, students thought that STEM professor’s with a fixed mindset were less motivating, b = .13, t = 3.44, p < .001, and were less likely to emphasize learning and development, b = .10, t = 3.60, p < .001, than non-STEM professors and STEM professors with a growth mindset (Fig. 2). Moreover, students were less likely to recommend STEM (vs. non-STEM) instructors with more of a fixed mindset to their friends, b = .09, t = 3.63, p < .001. In study 2, we found that URM students performed more poorly in STEM courses with faculty members who endorsed more of a fixed (vs. growth) mindset about ability, b = .06, t = 2.36, p = .02 (Fig. 3).

Significance
The present research extends previous work showing that the mindsets of powerful others can create a climate that influences people’s motivation and behavior (Murphy & Dweck, 2010). Our findings suggest that faculty mindsets predict students’ experiences in STEM courses and may contribute to the achievement gap in STEM between URM and white college students.

Authors

• Elizabeth Ann Canning, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Katherine Marie Muenks, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Dorainne Green, Indiana University

• Mary C. Murphy, Indiana University