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看法会影响他们的学业成就和成功。思维定势的学生认为他们的智力是不会改变的，而成长思维的学生认为他们可以通过时间和努力来提高自己的智力。成长心态信念与STEM更好的学业成绩和成就相关，包括来自STEM领域传统上代表性较低的群体的学生。然而，对于特定领域的心态信念对学生在大学化学入门课程中的成功所起的作用的理解有限，这对留住许多STEM专业的学生至关重要。在NSF改善本科生STEM教育(IUSE)计划的支持下，该项目寻求通过开发一种有效和可靠的测量特定于化学的心态信念来服务于国家利益。此外，项目团队将调查普通化学和有机化学课程中这些心态信念与学生成绩之间的关系。能够测量特定于化学的心态信念将有助于研究人员和教师更好地了解哪些干预措施可以有效地支持学生在STEM中的成功。佐治亚州立大学和波特兰州立大学的一个研究小组将调查学生对化学智力的内隐信念，并制定这些信念的测量标准。关于智力的内隐信念理论认为，具有固定心态的学生倾向于避免具有挑战性的情况，而具有成长型心态的学生更有可能选择具有挑战性的任务，并参与导致成功的行为。然而，学生的心态信念在化学课程中扮演的角色并没有得到很好的研究。为此，本项目将以三个具体目标为指导。首先是在普通化学和有机化学课程中描述学生特定的化学思维信念。第二，为本科生制定和评估适当的化学思维信念测量方法。三是了解化学思维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，以了解他们对智力的隐含信念，因为它与化学有关。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，以衡量化学特定的心态。此外，该项目产生的数据将接受心理测量分析，以评估有效性和可靠性。该项目团队将从为少数族裔服务的大型机构佐治亚州立大学以及佐治亚州格温尼特学院、佐治亚州南方大学和斯佩尔曼学院收集数据。这将为STEM中来自不同和代表性不足群体的学生提供大量投入，预计将增强该项目在全国范围内为STEM教育提供广泛信息的能力。项目外部的专家咨询委员会将就研究结果提供反馈，并就更广泛的影响提出建议。项目小组将在特定学科和STEM范围的教育期刊上广泛传播成果，并将通过美国化学学会化学教育研究委员会和化学教育双年度会议寻找机会举办网络研讨会和研讨会。此外，最后的心态措施将通过化学仪器审查和评估图书馆(手性)门户网站公开提供。这一特定于化学的心态测量的发展将为化学教育界提供一个理论上有基础的措施，以促进对特定领域的心态信念的理解，并提供一个适当的措施来评估特定于化学的心态干预的影响。这项工作还将为在其他STEM学科中发展和衡量特定领域的心态信念提供一个模型。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。