Increasing Participation in STEM Through Growth Mindset Principles: An Examination of Black Undergraduate STEM Engagement

• In Event: Unpacking the Learning and Benefits of STEM Engagement Across Formal and Informal Learning Contexts

Abstract

Objectives: According to Chawla (2020), STEM students are more likely to drop out during their freshmen year due to “weed out” courses, suggesting that courses focus on capacity building for first-year STEM students to experience success. The Utilitarian Scientific Literacy (USL) course was created, with a focus on students developing a growth mindset, to help HBCUs combat high attrition rates amongst students. In this paper, the authors examine how participation in USL shapes students' understandings and actions to be successful and persist in a STEM major through their sophomore year. We seek to understand how Black STEM undergraduate students describe their approaches to “success” after participating in the USL course at an HBCU.
Perspectives: Research consistently demonstrates that Black undergraduate STEM scholars encounter a variety of risks and challenges as they pursue STEM degrees and careers (Riegle-Crumb et al., 2019), such as race-based microaggressions (McGee, 2021) and a lack of exposure to African Americans in STEM fields (Bottia et al., 2021) that in turn, contributes to low retention rates. Researchers discovered that a growth mindset assists in reducing educational stress and promotes self-regulation, which may support resilience to other stress-induced challenges that can emerge, especially during a global pandemic (Mosanya, 2021). However, there is a scarcity of research examining the effectiveness of growth mindset interventions in STEM education at HBCUs.
Conceptual Framework: Spencer’s Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) is an identity-focused theory concerned with contextual factors that emphasize an individual’s meaning-making processes and coping responses to complex systems of power and oppression. PVEST allowed the authors to interrogate an individual’s ability to comprehend bias, stereotypes, and societal expectations, whether endorsed or self-fulfilled, during recursive acts (i.e., re-thinking), to make meaning. The authors used PVEST to understand student interactions and reactions that shape adaptive and maladaptive behaviors in college.
Methods: The authors used a multisite exploratory case study (Yin, 2014) design with the primary unit of analysis being the growth mindset curriculum and embedded units of analysis being 33 freshmen taking the USL course concurrently at two HBCUs. Data were collected from multiple focus groups, course assignments, and a questionnaire. We used Corbin and Strauss’ (2014) methods of open, axial, and selective coding to identify a final coding scheme that best represents the perspectives of our participants.
Findings: Results suggest that incorporating growth mindset principles were critical for supporting student engagement and success in transitioning to an in-person, postsecondary learning experience. In brief, three themes (positive affirmations, increased self-awareness, and perceptual shift) were associated with increasing student engagement and persistence in STEM. The results provide insights into the effectiveness of these principles and the implications on student retention in STEM.
Scholarly Significance: The current study suggests developing a growth mindset facilitates self-awareness creating moments of agency and resilience for STEM students. Identification of contextual factors that directly and indirectly shape academic outcomes is critical. Failure to do so could decrease Black student engagement in STEM courses, and subsequently, their desire to pursue STEM furthering disparate outcomes in Black-White persistence.

Authors

• Adrian Neely, Morehouse College
  Presenting Author

• Brittany Chambers, WestEd
  Non-Presenting Author