The Development of Field-Specific Ability Beliefs and Their Relations to Girls’ and Boys’ Math Motivation

• In Event: New Perspectives on the STEM Gender Disparities: Children’s Interlocking Beliefs about Fields and Social Groups

Abstract

The belief that success in STEM fields requires exceptional intellectual talent (“brilliance”) contributes to the persistent gender gaps in these fields (e.g., Leslie, Cimpian, et al., 2015) because women are stereotyped as lacking this trait (e.g., Zhao et al., 2022). However, little is known about when this belief emerges in development and how it relates to gender differences in STEM outcomes.

Here, we investigated the developmental roots of this phenomenon, focusing specifically on children’s beliefs about math (N = 174 students in Grades 1–4; 93 girls; 52% White, 17% Asian, 13% Hispanic/Latinx). Specifically, we asked (1) whether field-specific ability beliefs (FABs) that associate success in math (vs. reading/writing) with brilliance are already present in early elementary school, and (2) whether brilliance-oriented FABs already relate more negatively to girls’ than boys’ math motivation and performance in early elementary school.

We measured FABs about math and reading/writing with 12 items adapted from Gunderson et al. (2017; “To be good at math [reading and writing] in my grade, a kid has to be super smart”; 1 = really not true to 4 = really true; αs > .70). We also administered several measures of students’ motivation and performance in math. Specifically, we measured their interest, self-efficacy, mastery versus performance goals, resilient versus helpless reaction to negative feedback, and performance in a timed assessment.

Using linear mixed-effects modeling, we found that children endorsed more brilliance-oriented FABs for math (M = 2.78) than reading/writing (M = 2.67), b = 0.11, SE = 0.04, p = .004. This difference was moderated by children’s gender, b = −0.18, SE = 0.07, p = .017. Only boys’ FABs differentiated between math and reading/writing (Ms = 2.91 and 2.71, respectively; equivalent to 0.24 SDs), b = 0.20, SE = 0.05, p < .001; girls’ FABs did not (Ms = 2.65 and 2.63; equivalent to 0.03 SDs), b = 0.03, SE = 0.05, p = .62 (see Figure 1). These results suggest that boys (but not girls) in Grades 1–4 view math success at their level as requiring more brilliance than reading/writing.

Additionally, we used structural equation modeling to compute the relations between FABs and children’s motivation and performance in math. We found that FABs’ associations with math motivation were significantly different for girls versus boys. Specifically, more brilliance-oriented FABs predicted lower mastery goals for girls (but not boys; b = −0.41, SE = 0.13, z = −3.15, p = .002), such that girls with more brilliance-oriented FABs were less likely to choose a challenging task they could learn from. In contrast, FABs predicted higher interest in math for boys (but not girls; b = 0.52, SE = 0.23, z = 2.24, p = .025).

Overall, our findings suggest that field-specific beliefs about brilliance emerge as early as 1st grade, at least for boys, and relate positively to the math motivation of boys and negatively to the math motivation of girls at this early grade level, underscoring the need for additional research and interventions to address these beliefs.

Authors

• Jalisha B. Jenifer, Barnard College, Columbia University

• Jilana Jaxon, New York University

• Susan Cohen Levine, University of Chicago

• Andrei Cimpian, New York University
  Presenting Author