Measuring Mindset in Undergraduate STEM Students

测量本科 STEM 学生的心态

• 批准号: 2200485
• 负责人: Lisa Limeri
• 金额: $ 32.24万
• 依托单位: Texas Tech 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: 2021-12-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2200485&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Measuring; Mindset; Undergraduate; STEM; Students

This project aims to develop a rigorous, evidence-based survey to measure the "mindset" of undergraduate STEM students. Mindset is a psychological trait that may influence student success and persistence. The mindset construct refers to whether a student believes that intelligence is a trait that is innate and unchangeable (called a fixed mindset) or malleable and improvable (called a growth mindset). When students struggle academically, it has been shown that those with a growth mindset are more likely to take action to improve their performance, while those with a fixed mindset are more likely to give up or accept low performance. Many student success initiatives have attempted to leverage the effects of mindset to improve student success by conducting interventions to encourage students to adopt a growth mindset. However, these interventions have had varied success. One reason for this variable success may be that the survey used to measure mindset does not work well with undergraduate students. If so, survey results will have limited ability to measure the effectiveness and outcomes of mindset interventions. Preliminary research by the the principal investigator of this project supports the possibility that the existing mindset survey may not work well with undergraduate students. It suggests that the variability results because undergraduates interpret the survey questions in multiple ways. The goal of this project is to develop and validate a new survey to measure mindset in undergraduate STEM students. Additionally, this project will provide support for the principal investigator, a new STEM educational researcher, to learn about the psychometrics needed to conduct this work. This professional development will include graduate classes in statistics and collaboration/mentorship from experts in psychometrics and statistics.The goal of this project is to develop and validate a new mindset scale for use with undergraduate STEM students in accordance with established standards for psychological measurement. This work will be conducted in three phases over two years. First, a large, diverse sample of undergraduate STEM students will be interviewed about how they think about intelligence, to refine the conceptual and operational definitions of mindset at the undergraduate level. Based on these results, survey items will be drafted and refined through cognitive interviews and sorting activities. The internal structure of the measure will be tested by surveying a second, national sample of undergraduate STEM students and conducting item response theory analyses on their responses. Finally, the resulting nomological network (representation of interrelationships between concepts and observations) will be tested by administering the new mindset instrument along with measures of related and unrelated constructs. Testing the nomological network for a construct of interest means that it should be distinct from and related in expected ways to other constructs. This new survey might be used by researchers to answer important questions about mindset in undergraduate students. Alternatively, instructors could use it to learn about the mindsets of undergraduates in their classes and tailor their instruction accordingly. Finally, practitioners could use it to develop and evaluate interventions that aim to increase student success by encouraging students to shift towards a growth mindset. The project is supported through the EHR Core Research: Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (ECR: BCSER) competition that is designed to build individuals' capacity to carry out high quality fundamental STEM education research in STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM fields, and STEM workforce development.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.

该项目旨在制定严格的基于证据的调查，以衡量本科生的“心态”。 心态是一种心理特征，可能会影响学生的成功和持久性。 心态构造是指学生是否认为智力是一种天生和不变的特征（称为固定的心态），还是可延展且可延展的，可延展的（称为增长心态）。当学生在学术上挣扎时，已经表明，那些具有成长心态的人更有可能采取行动来提高表现，而那些具有固定心态的人更有可能放弃或接受低表现。许多学生的成功计划试图通过进行干预措施来鼓励学生采取成长心态来利用思维方式的影响来改善学生的成功。但是，这些干预措施取得了不同的成功。这种可变成功的原因之一可能是用于测量思维方式的调查与本科生无法很好地奏效。 如果是这样，调查结果将具有有限的衡量思维方式干预措施的有效性和结果的能力。该项目的主要研究者的初步研究支持了现有的心态调查可能与本科生无法正常工作的可能性。 它表明可变性会导致，因为大学生以多种方式解释调查问题。该项目的目的是开发和验证一项新的调查，以衡量本科生的思维定势。此外，该项目将为新的STEM教育研究人员提供支持，以了解开展这项工作所需的心理计量学。这一专业发展将包括精神计和统计专家的统计和协作/指导研究生课程。该项目的目的是根据既定的心理测量标准开发和验证与本科STEM学生一起使用的新的心态量表。这项工作将在两年内分为三个阶段。首先，将采访大量的，多样化的本科生样本学生，以了解他们如何看待智力，以完善本科生的思维方式的概念和操作定义。基于这些结果，调查项目将通过认知访谈和分类活动来起草和完善。该措施的内部结构将通过调查第二个本科生的全国样本，并对其反应进行项目响应理论分析。最后，将通过管理新的心态仪器以及相关和无关构造的量度来测试所得的法律网络（概念和观察之间的相互关系的表示）。测试有影响力的构造的法令网络意味着它应该与其他结构的预期方式不同并相关。研究人员可以使用这项新调查来回答有关本科生心态的重要问题。另外，讲师可以使用它来了解本科生在课堂上的思维方式，并相应地量身定制他们的教学。最后，从业者可以利用它来开发和评估旨在通过鼓励学生向成长心态转向学生成功的干预措施。通过EHR核心研究支持该项目：STEM教育研究（ECR：BCSER）竞争的建立能力，旨在建立个人在STEM学习和学习环境中进行高质量的基本STEM教育研究的能力，在STEM领域的参与以及STEM Formforce的参与以及STEM Formforce Developments的参与以及NSF的法定任务的审查范围进行了审查，并通过评估范围来进行评估。