Whose Beliefs Matter? The Impact of Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Instructors’ and Peers’ Field-Specific Ability Beliefs

• In Event: Investigating Field-Specific Ability Beliefs: How Do They Matter and for Whom?

Abstract

Objectives
The goal of this study was to investigate causal relations between students’ perceptions of instructors’ and peers’ field-specific ability beliefs and students’ motivation, psychological experiences, and academic behaviors.
Theoretical Framework
Field-specific ability beliefs (FABs) are the beliefs that certain fields require brilliance to succeed. Prior research has explored how instructors’ self-reported FABs are related to the representation of women and underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities in their fields (Leslie et al., 2015; Muradoglu et al., 2023). A recent study found that when students perceive their faculty to have high FABs, they anticipate worse psychological experiences and lower motivation in their fields (Authors, under review). However, this study was correlational and thus cannot make any causal claims. Additionally, instructors are not the only people who make up the classroom culture. A large body of research has demonstrated the critical role that peers play in students’ experiences of the classroom environment, their motivation, and academic behaviors (Sheffler & Cheung, 2020). Students’ perceptions of peers’ beliefs have also been associated with students’ psychological and academic outcomes (Muenks et al., 2021). Therefore, it is important to look at both instructors’ and peers’ FABs and investigate the causal relations between such beliefs and students’ outcomes.
Methods
Through a 2 x 2 experimental design, we manipulated participants’ (N = 498) perceptions of instructors’ and peers’ FABs using hypothetical scenarios. To assess the impact of contextual field-specific ability beliefs on motivational, psychological, and self-reported behavioral outcomes we used a two-way ANCOVA. These ANCOVAs tested for the effects of the peer FABs condition, the instructor FABs condition, and their interaction on students’ outcomes, with the students’ own FABs as a covariate.
Results (See Tables & Figures)
The high instructor FABs condition had a negative main effect on self-efficacy, belonging, and mastery approach goals, as well as a positive main effect on emotional cost, imposter feelings, and academic procrastination. The high peer FABs condition had a negative main effect on self-efficacy, belonging, and effort regulation, as well as a positive main effect on emotional cost, imposter feelings, and academic procrastination. The interaction between peer and instructor FABs had a significant effect on the motivational variables: self-efficacy and emotional cost.
Significance
Our study is the first to provide experimental evidence that perceived instructors’ and peers’ field-specific ability beliefs can impact students’ motivation, psychological experiences, and academic behaviors. Second, our findings suggest that it is also important to understand how students perceive the FABs of relevant members of their fields (Muradoglu et al., 2023). If undergraduate students perceive these maladaptive beliefs from others, this could ultimately affect their career advancement. Lastly, this is the first study to our knowledge that has looked at both perceived faculty and perceived peer FABs in the same study, which allowed us to examine multiple socializers and how perceptions of their beliefs work to affect students. Our results indicate that students may perceive the message from faculty and peers differently and one may impact specific outcomes more than the others.

Authors

• Yiqiu Yan, University of Texas at Austin

• Nathaniel Woznicki, New York University

• Katherine M. Muenks, University of Texas at Austin