Closing Achievement Gaps With a Utility-Value Intervention: Disentangling Race and Social Class
Closing Achievement Gaps With a Utility-Value Intervention: Disentangling Race and Social Class
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DOI：
10.1037/pspp0000075
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发表时间：
2016-11-01
影响因子：
7.6
通讯作者：
Hyde, Janet S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Harackiewicz, Judith M.;Canning, Elizabeth A.;Hyde, Janet S.
许多大学生在面对具有挑战性的入门级科学课程时，放弃了完成科学，技术，工程或数学（STEM）学位的目标。在美国，这一趋势在代表性不足的少数民族（URM）和第一代（FG）学生中更为明显，并导致高等教育中持续存在种族和社会阶层的成就差距。以前的干预研究只关注种族或社会阶层，但没有研究这两个因素如何混淆和相互作用。因此，本研究调查的独立和互动的影响，种族和社会阶层作为主持人的干预，旨在促进性能，测量等级的过程中。在一项为期4个学期的生物学导论课程（N = 1，040）的双盲随机实验中，我们测试了效用价值干预的有效性，其中学生撰写了课程材料的个人相关性。效用价值干预成功地将FG-URM学生的成绩差距缩小了61%：FG-URM学生的成绩差距，相对于继续一代（CG）-多数学生，在对照条件下较大，0.84成绩点（d = 0.98），FG-URM学生的治疗效果为0.51成绩点（d = 0.55）。紫外线干预帮助学生从所有群体中找到实用价值的课程内容，和中介分析表明，写实用价值的过程是特别强大的FG-URM学生。结果强调了在评估缩小成就差距的干预措施及其运作机制时，交叉性在检查种族和社会阶层的独立和互动影响方面的重要性。
Many college students abandon their goal of completing a degree in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) when confronted with challenging introductory-level science courses. In the U.S., this trend is more pronounced for underrepresented minority (URM) and first-generation (FG) students, and contributes to persisting racial and social-class achievement gaps in higher education. Previous intervention studies have focused exclusively on race or social class, but have not examined how the 2 may be confounded and interact. This research therefore investigates the independent and interactive effects of race and social class as moderators of an intervention designed to promote performance, measured by grade in the course. In a double-blind randomized experiment conducted over 4 semesters of an introductory biology course (N = 1,040), we tested the effectiveness of a utility-value intervention in which students wrote about the personal relevance of course material. The utility-value intervention was successful in reducing the achievement gap for FG-URM students by 61%: the performance gap for FG-URM students, relative to continuing generation (CG)-Majority students, was large in the control condition, .84 grade points (d = .98), and the treatment effect for FG-URM students was .51 grade points (d = 0.55). The UV intervention helped students from all groups find utility value in the course content, and mediation analyses showed that the process of writing about utility value was particularly powerful for FG-URM students. Results highlight the importance of intersectionality in examining the independent and interactive effects of race and social class when evaluating interventions to close achievement gaps and the mechanisms through which they may operate.