Gender, Learning Curves, and Intellectual Functioning

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There are few things as vital to a young person's ability to succeed in modern U.S. society as academic success. It is common knowledge that poor grades and/or poor standardized test scores effectively seal off vast portions of potential opportunity. Unfortunately, poor academic performance is not evenly distributed among individuals. With respect to math and science performance, for example, the scores of academically stigmatized persons (e.g., female and African-American students) on standardized tests are typically lower than their non-stigmatized counterparts (males and whites, respectively). Recently, several investigators have suggested a social psychological explanation for these differences: academic situations (e.g., exam situations) are especially threatening to women and African-Americans due to the potential these situations are perceived to have in confirming the negative stereotype of low ability associated with these individuals. As difficulty is experienced in these situations, the threat of confirming the negative stereotype presumably evokes anxiety and self-doubt, thus interfering with intellectual functioning, which in turn leads to poor performance. Based on this logic, the proposed research will test the theoretical proposition that a stigmatized person's awareness of the improvement and mastery experienced on a set of study problems -- a pattern of performance described by the typical learning curve -- prior to taking an exam will improve the person's performance on the exam. Awareness of improvement and mastery is hypothesized to reduce the anxiety and self-doubt that is believed to impair the intellectual performance of stigmatized individuals (specifically, women and African Americans) in standardized and classroom testing situations in two ways. First, such awareness acts to provide a proximal and vivid example of one-s success in dealing effectively with difficult exam situations. Second, improvement as a result of practice tells the student that performance on the real exam is the result of a malleable skill, as opposed to a fixed ability. Thus, poor performance may be attributed to lack of sufficient practice, rather than poor native ability. The ultimate goal of this program of research is to provide scientists, educators, and students with a practical understanding of the relationship between preparation and academic performance in academically stigmatized (and possibly, math anxious) populations. Armed with such an understanding, academic performance among traditionally low-achieving groups can be markedly improved.