Reducing the gender achievement gap in college science: a classroom study of values affirmation.
In many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, women are outperformed by men in test scores, jeopardizing their success in science-oriented courses and careers. The current study tested the effectiveness of a psychological intervention, called values affirmation, in reducing the gender achievement gap in a college-level introductory physics class. In this randomized double-blind study, 399 students either wrote about their most important values or not, twice at the beginning of the 15-week course. Values affirmation reduced the male-female performance and learning difference substantially and elevated women's modal grades from the C to B range. Benefits were strongest for women who tended to endorse the stereotype that men do better than women in physics. A brief psychological intervention may be a promising way to address the gender gap in science performance and learning.
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA. akira.miyake@colorado.edu
Akira
A
Miyake
Lauren E
LE
Kost-Smith
Noah D
ND
Finkelstein
Steven J
SJ
Pollock
Geoffrey L
GL
Cohen
Tiffany A
TA
Ito
D000124:Achievement; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D010825:Physics / Q000193:education*; D012649:Self Concept; D012737:Sex Factors; D012945:Social Values; D013240:Stereotyping; D014495:Universities