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When we think about who does well in school – who gets the best grades, or seems to know all the answers to the teacher’s questions – we tend to think about people that we consider to be smart. Whether it’s the quiet kid who aces every test or the vocal student with strong opinions, we’ve all had a situation where we’ve sat back and thought, “Wow, that person is really smart!”. This kind of thinking implies that the person was born with some kind of innate ability, that they are merely expressing an inborn genius. Yet, does this mean that the child struggling in his or her math class is simply not gifted in math? That he or she cannot do well and will never be able to do well because he or she doesn’t “have what it takes”? The common mindset with which many approach math and the sciences – that one is talented in the subjects or one is not – could be holding back students from pursuing STEM.
The Gift Mentality
As it turns out, the mentality with which one approaches learning is key to future success. In her essay “Is Math a Gift? Beliefs That Put Females At Risk”, Carol S. Dweck describes studies that measure the effects that mindset can have on learning ability, grades, and motivation to learn.
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There was a general split in the attitudes that students held towards intellectual ability. In each study Dweck describes, one group views intellectual ability as something that can be taught, learned, and improved upon with hard work. In the other, intellectual ability is viewed simply as a gift. During the transition to junior high, when stress levels are high and grades tend to plummet, the study found that students who viewed their intellectual ability as earned, not innate, had significantly higher grades and motivation levels over the following 2 years (Dweck 48-49).
How does this relate to gender?
There is also an interesting gender component to the experiments Dweck describes. In a previous experiment, conducted in 1984, half of fifth grade students were given a test with a confusing section at the beginning. Dweck found that girls, especially girls with the highest IQs, did not cope well with the confusion and were more likely to be unable to learn the material later on in the test. Boys, on the other hand, were not so affected by the confusing section of the exam (Dweck, 47-48). So, what does this mean?
In essence, girls are more vulnerable to a loss of confidence. When the going gets tough, girls are more likely to turn their backs on a previous interest (such as STEM) and pursue something they consider to be easier. In another study, Columbia students taking a difficult calculus class were asked periodically throughout the semester a series of questions. One question asked if they believe gender stereotyping was present in the classroom. The answer to this question was a consistent and overwhelming “yes”. The other question asked about their sense of belonging and comfort in a mathematics classroom. Interestingly, those girls who believed that ability in math was a gift felt a lesser sense of belonging, especially as the semester progressed, and were less likely to want to pursue math in the future. Possessing the mindset that intellectual ability is fixed caused the girls to be more vulnerable to gender stereotyping in a classroom setting (Dweck, 50).
Pulling It All Together
The studies that Dweck described in her essay served to illustrate a number of different points:
- Girls have equal ability to do well as boys, but are more likely to lose confidence when they hit confusion or difficulty.
- Those students who view intellectual ability as earned, rather than as a gift, score higher and have an increased motivation to learn.
- Viewing intellectual ability as earned, rather than as a gift, can reduce girls’ susceptibility to stereotypes and gender biases in STEM areas and can close the performance gap between genders in experimental situations.
I tend to agree with Dweck’s points on the importance of mindset. Yet, it can be hard for me to accept (and I am sure this goes for others as well) that there are no innate biological differences between people that contribute to their successes or failures. In her essay, Dweck includes a quotation from one of the Polgar sisters, one of the best chess players of all time: “My father believes that innate talent is nothing, that [success] is 99% hard work. I agree with him,” (Flora, 2005, p. 82). This implies that we all start out as blank slates, that our environment and how hard we work are the sole factors that do (or do not) result in success. If this is the case, why do some students have to work harder than others to obtain the same grade or level of understanding? By saying that our success relies solely on how hard we work, are we saying that the child struggling in his math class simply isn’t putting in enough effort? This viewpoint is interesting in that it brings a new level of responsibility to the learner; a student would not be able to say that he or she is not doing well at math simply because he or she “isn’t smart” or isn’t “biologically designed” to do math well. Instead, our conscious decisions hold the sole responsibility for if we succeed or not.
Regardless of whether or not there are innate biological factors that contribute to success or ease of learning, Dweck’s data is very conclusive. Intervention programs that she mentions in her essay – in which students are educated about the brain and the nature of ability – increased motivation to learn and eliminated the gender gap in math scores (Dweck, 52). I believe that intervention programs of this kind, at an early age, would be an effective method in reducing the overall STEM gender gap. The effectiveness of these programs relies on some assumptions, however, that are not mentioned in Dweck’s essay. One is that boys and girls have equivalent interests in math and science. While intervention programs can help girls maintain motivation to pursue a STEM subject they are already interested in, it cannot coerce them into finding interest in STEM where none exists. If there is a gap between boys and girls relating to interest in STEM, an intervention program will not have much of an effect on it. So while the long-term effects of intervention programs on the STEM gender gap remain in question, it is still very likely that they can have positive effects on student grades, ability to cope with confusion and difficulty, and motivation to learn.
References:
Dweck, C. S. (2007). “Is math a gift? Beliefs that put females at risk”. Why Aren’t More Women In Science? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.