What (De)Motivating Messages Are Children Receiving From Books About Scientists? Implications for Diversifying STEM

• In Event: Motivational Messages to Broaden Participation in STEM: Important Features of Messages and Messengers

Abstract

Objectives and Framework
There are substantial gender and race/ethnicity imbalances in the STEM workforce (e.g., National Center for Education Statistics, 2015; 2019), raising concerns about equitable access to this lucrative segment of the job market. Increased public awareness about these issues has recently fueled an explosive growth in materials intended to foster children’s interest in STEM—prominent among which are biographies of famous scientists. Children’s books are often the first exposure that children have to STEM topics, and the messages that children hear about scientists presented as role models (e.g., whether they were innately gifted vs. developed their abilities) may influence children’s own STEM motivation. Given the popularity of children’s science biographies, it is critical to evaluate their portrayals of scientists against the latest evidence and theories of motivation. Thus, the first aim of this project was to provide a theoretically-informed description of the motivational messages present in children’s science biographies. To address the issue of diversity in STEM, our second aim was to investigate whether the motivational messages differ based on the gender and race/ethnicity of the scientists in the book.

Methods and Materials
The sample consisted of 242 best-selling children’s science biographies, as ranked by Amazon.com (42% female scientists; 75% White scientists). We coded for two key motivational messages: (1) growth vs. fixed mindsets about ability (i.e., whether the scientist’s ability in STEM is portrayed as malleable vs. early-developing and stable; Dweck, 2006) and (2) growth vs. fixed mindsets about interest (i.e., whether the scientist’s interest in STEM is portrayed as malleable vs. early-developing and stable; O’Keefe et al., 2018).
For each book, two independent coders rated each mindset message on a scale from 0 = Not present to 3 = Explicit and present more than once (Table 1). The coders were trained to reliability (ICCs > .75; Cicchetti, 1994) on a separate set of 50 books. The two coders’ scores for each mindset message were averaged, except when their scores were ≥2 points apart. These disagreements were resolved via discussion.

Results
Messages about the sources of STEM ability were present in about half of the biographies; fixed and growth messages about ability were equally common (Figure 1A-B). Messages portraying STEM interest as fixed were more common than messages portraying it as malleable (Figure 1C-D). A linear mixed-effects model revealed that fixed and growth messages about STEM ability were discussed more often in books about scientists of color vs. White scientists, B = −0.22, p = 0.02 (Figure 2). This difference suggests that authors feel more of a need to explain why a scientist of color was successful, whereas White scientists’ success is expected and thus needs less explanation. We also observed that male scientists’ STEM interest is portrayed as less malleable than female scientists’ interest, B = 0.27, p = 0.04 (Figure 3), consistent with stereotypes portraying STEM as a masculine domain (Boston & Cimpian, 2008).

Scholarly Significance
This research raises doubt about whether children’s science biographies provide an effective tool for increasing diversity in STEM.

Authors

• Jessica R. Gladstone, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Tomas R Alejandro Alegria, New York University

• Gabrielle R Applebaum, New York University

• Ishika Choksi, University of Texas at Austin

• Edward R Foran, New York University

• Diego Martínez Ortiz, New York University

• Julia Murillo, New York University

• Maya Sacasa, New York University

• Andrei Cimpian