A Cultural Growth-Mindset Approach to Interest: Implications for Gender Gaps in Computer Science Participation

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This EHR Core Research award is focused on broadening participation in computer science by investigating whether reframing academic interest as something malleable that must be discovered (i.e., a growth mindset of interest) helps remedy gender gaps in computer science. Despite the overall narrowing of the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the percentage of women computer science majors has remained less than 20% and has even decreased in recent decades. The near absence of women in computer science is troubling for several reasons. Technology-focused areas are the largest and most important STEM fields in which employment opportunities are growing, and women's exclusion means they are missing out on lucrative and flexible job opportunities. Similarly, computer science is missing out on talented women who would make valuable contributions to the discipline and the technological workforce. The researchers will investigate whether a mindset that does not seem gendered on its surface - the cultural belief that academic interest is fixed - contributes to gender gaps in computer science participation. The research will further examine whether changing educational environments to foster a growth mindset about interest and pairing it with information about a welcoming computer science culture reduces gender gaps in computer science. The findings may suggest relatively simple changes to educational environments, policies and practices that may encourage women to more readily consider computer science as an option.This research will develop and test a theoretical model that examines the idea that students have fixed or growth mindsets not only about intelligence but also about academic interests. To test the theory that a fixed mindset of interest limits girls' and women's participation in computer science, two surveys and three behavioral experiments will be conducted. In Year 1, two surveys will examine whether university, community college, and high school students endorse a fixed mindset of interest, and whether endorsement correlates with girls' and women's lower intentions to pursue computer science. The survey will further examine whether effects of a fixed mindset are prominent among groups that are typically disadvantaged in education (e.g., African American women, Latinas, women and girls from lower SES backgrounds) and how beliefs about the gendered culture in computer science moderate effects. In Year 2, university and community college students will learn either a growth mindset of interest or a control mindset. The research predicts that fostering a growth mindset of interest will increase women's and girls' interest in computer science. In Year 3, a large-scale field experiment will test whether structural changes to college advising meetings increases women's computer science course taking.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.