Students' General and Specific Perceptions of Faculty Intelligence Mind-Sets in STEM and Non-STEM Classrooms

• In Event: Exploring the Domain-Specific Versus Domain-General Influences of Grit, Mind-Sets, and Motivation on Academic Outcomes

Abstract

Objectives
In this study, we examine the extent to which college students’ perceptions of their professors’ intelligence mindsets predicted their motivation, affect, and social belonging in their STEM and non-STEM classes. Perceived mindsets were measured at different levels of specificity (e.g., perceptions of the mindsets of specific faculty in whose courses students were currently enrolled versus perceptions of the mindsets of faculty in general) and across different domains (STEM versus non-STEM).

Theoretical framework
Much previous work has found that the actual and perceived intelligence mindsets of parents, teachers, and peers—defined as their beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of intelligence—can influence students’ motivation, affect, and feelings of social belonging (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016; Molden & Dweck, 2006; Murphy & Dweck, 2010). However, relatively little is known about how the domain- and target-specificity of these beliefs influences their association with students’ psychological outcomes.

Methods
Participants were 291 undergraduate students (Mage = 18.2; 59.8% female). At the beginning of the semester, students reported their perceptions of each of their professors’ mindsets (e.g., “The professor in this class seems to believe that students either ‘have it’ or they don’t”; α = .86 to .93). Students also reported their perceptions of the mindsets of STEM (α = .89) and non-STEM (α = .90) faculty, in general, at their university (e.g., “To be honest, most math and hard science [social sciences and humanities] professors seem to believe that students can’t really change how intelligent they are”). Following the survey session, students participated in an experience-sampling study in which they reported their self-efficacy, cognitive fatigue, positive affect, negative affect, and social belonging immediately following their STEM and non-STEM classes on an iPod touch programmed specifically for each student’s schedule.

Results
We conducted a series of regression analyses with self-efficacy, cognitive fatigue, positive affect, negative affect, and social belonging in STEM and non-STEM classes as the dependent measures. The four faculty mindset measures were entered as simultaneous predictors in each analysis (see Table 1). We found that students’ perceptions of both general and specific faculty mindsets in STEM only predicted students’ psychological experiences in the corresponding domain (STEM or non-STEM), such that students who perceived that faculty endorsed a fixed mindset reported lower motivation, greater negative affect, and less belonging. In STEM classes, both general and specific perceptions of STEM faculty’s mindsets similarly predicted students’ experiences; but, in non-STEM classes, general perceptions of non-STEM faculty’s mindsets were stronger predictors of students’ psychological experiences than students’ perceptions of the mindsets of the specific non-STEM faculty in whose classes they were enrolled.

Significance
This study is the first to demonstrate that domain-specific perceptions of faculty mindsets uniquely predict motivation, affect, and social belonging in the corresponding domain. Additionally, our results suggest that when students report on their perceptions of general faculty mindsets, they may be relying on different information—such as stereotypes about professors within a particular domain—than when they are reporting the mindsets of specific faculty members with whom they have personal contact and knowledge.

Authors

• Katherine Marie Muenks, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Mary C. Murphy, Indiana University