Measuring Chemistry-Specific Mindset Beliefs of Students in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses

测量本科化学课程学生的化学特定心态信念

• 批准号: 2111194
• 负责人: Jack Barbera
• 金额: $ 16.75万
• 依托单位: Portland State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2111194&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Measuring; Chemistry; Specific; Mindset; Beliefs

College students’ beliefs about intelligence and learning can impact their academic achievement and success. Students with fixed mindset beliefs view their intelligence as unchangeable, while students with growth mindset believe they can improve their intelligence with time and effort. Growth mindset beliefs are associated with better academic performance and achievement in STEM, including for students from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields. However, there is limited understanding of the role of domain-specific mindset beliefs in students’ success in introductory college chemistry courses, which is pivotal for retaining students in many STEM majors. With support from NSF’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, this project seeks to serve the national interest by developing a valid and reliable measure of chemistry-specific mindset beliefs. In addition, the project team will investigate the relationships between these mindset beliefs and student outcomes in general chemistry and organic chemistry courses. Being able to measure chemistry-specific mindset beliefs will assist researchers and instructors in better understanding what interventions are effective for supporting students’ success in STEM.A team of researchers at Georgia State University and Portland State University will investigate students’ implicit beliefs about chemistry intelligence and develop a measure of these beliefs. Theories of implicit beliefs about intelligence posit that students with fixed mindset beliefs tend to avoid challenging situations while students with growth mindset are more likely to choose challenging tasks and engage in behaviors that lead to success. However, the role student mindset beliefs play in chemistry courses is not well studied. To this end, three specific objectives will guide this project. First is to characterize the chemistry-specific mindset beliefs of students in general and organic chemistry courses. Second is to develop and psychometrically evaluate an appropriate measure of chemistry mindset beliefs for undergraduate students. And third is to understand the relations between chemistry mindset and various affective and cognitive outcomes for chemistry courses. To accomplish these objectives, the project team will conduct qualitative interviews with students to understand their implicit beliefs about intelligence as it relates to chemistry. The team will also conduct cognitive interviews to assess the interpretation and readability of newly-designed items to measure chemistry-specific mindsets. In addition, the data generated by this project will be subjected to psychometric analyses to assess validity and reliability. The project team will collect data from Georgia State University, a large minority-serving institution, as well as from Georgia Gwinnett College, Georgia Southern University, and Spelman College. This will provide substantial input from students from diverse and underrepresented groups in STEM, which is expected to enhance the ability of this project to widely inform STEM education nationally. An advisory board of experts external to the project will provide feedback on the research findings and present recommendations for broader impacts. The project team will widely disseminate the results in discipline-specific and STEM-wide education journals, and will also seek opportunities to present webinars and workshops through the American Chemical Society Chemistry Education Research Committee and the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. Moreover, the final mindset measure will be made publicly available through the Chemistry Instrument Review and Assessment Library (CHIRAL) portal. The development of this chemistry-specific mindset measure will provide the chemistry education community with a theoretically grounded measure to advance the understanding of domain-specific mindset beliefs and provide an appropriate measure to assess the impact of chemistry-specific mindset interventions. This work will also provide a model for developing and measuring domain-specific mindset beliefs in other STEM disciplines.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

大学生对智力和学习的信念会影响他们的学术成就和成功。具有固定思维信念的学生认为自己的智力是不变的，而具有成长心态的学生认为他们可以通过时间和精力来改善自己的智慧。成长心态认为，STEM的学习成绩和成就更好，包括来自STEM领域中传统上代表性不足的团体的学生。但是，人们对特定领域的思维信仰在学生成功中的大学化学课程中的作用有限，这对于保留许多STEM专业的学生至关重要。在NSF改善本科STEM教育（IUSE）计划的支持下，该项目试图通过制定有效可靠的化学特定心态信念来服务于国家利益。此外，项目团队将研究这些心态信念与一般化学和有机化学课程中学生成果之间的关系。能够衡量特定于化学的心态相信将帮助研究人员和讲师更好地了解哪些干预措施有效地支持学生在STEM中的成功。关于情报的隐性信念的理论主张，具有固定思维的学生认为倾向于避免挑战情况，而具有成长心态的学生更有可能选择挑战任务并从事导致成功的行为。但是，学生心态认为在化学课程中发挥的作用不是很好。为此，三个具体目标将指导该项目。首先是表征一般学生和有机化学课程的学生特定于化学的心态信念。其次是开发和心理评估化学心态的适当度量，以理解学生。第三是了解化学思维方式与化学课程的各种情感和认知结果之间的关系。为了实现这些目标，项目团队将对学生进行定性访谈，以了解与化学有关的智力的隐性信念。该团队还将进行认知访谈，以评估新设计的项目的解释和可读性，以衡量特定于化学的思维方式。此外，该项目生成的数据将进行心理测量分析，以评估有效性和可靠性。该项目团队将收集佐治亚州立大学的数据，这是一家大型少数族裔服务机构，以及佐治亚州格温内特学院，佐治亚州南部大学和斯佩尔曼学院。这将为STEM中潜水员和代表性不足的群体的学生提供大量意见，这有望增强该项目在全国范围内广泛告知STEM教育的能力。该项目外部的专家顾问委员会将为研究结果提供反馈，并提出有关更广泛影响的建议。项目团队将在特定于纪律和跨干教育期刊中广泛传播结果，并将寻求机会通过美国化学学会化学教育研究委员会和两年一次的化学教育会议提出网络研讨会和讲习班。此外，最终的心态测量将通过化学仪器审查和评估图书馆（Hiral）门户公开提供。该化学特定的心态测量的发展将为化学教育社区提供理论上的基础测量，以促进对特定领域的心态信念的理解，并提供适当的措施来评估化学特异性思维干预的影响。这项工作还将提供一个模型，用于在其他STEM学科中开发和衡量特定领域的心态信念。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响来审查标准，被认为是通过评估而被视为珍贵的支持。