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.

该项目旨在开展一项严格的、基于证据的调查，以衡量STEM本科生的“心态”。心态是一种可能影响学生成功和坚持的心理特征。心态结构指的是学生是否认为智力是一种天生的、不可改变的特质（称为固定心态），还是一种可塑的、可改进的特质（称为成长心态）。当学生在学业上挣扎时，研究表明，那些拥有成长型心态的人更有可能采取行动来提高他们的表现，而那些拥有固定心态的人更有可能放弃或接受低表现。许多学生成功计划都试图通过干预来鼓励学生采用成长型心态，从而利用心态的影响来提高学生的成功。然而，这些干预措施取得了不同程度的成功。这种不同成功的原因之一可能是用于衡量心态的调查并不适用于本科生。如果是这样，调查结果将有有限的能力来衡量心态干预的有效性和结果。该项目的首席研究员进行的初步研究表明，现有的心态调查可能不适用于本科生。这表明，变异的结果是因为大学生以多种方式解释调查问题。该项目的目标是开发和验证一项新的调查，以衡量本科STEM学生的心态。此外，该项目将为首席研究员（一名新的STEM教育研究员）提供支持，以了解开展这项工作所需的心理测量学。这一专业发展将包括统计学研究生课程以及心理测量学和统计学专家的合作/指导。该项目的目标是根据既定的心理测量标准，开发和验证一种新的心态量表，供STEM本科学生使用。这项工作将在两年内分三个阶段进行。首先，将对大量不同样本的STEM本科生进行访谈，了解他们对智力的看法，以完善本科生层面思维模式的概念和操作定义。根据这些结果，将通过认知访谈和整理活动来起草和完善调查项目。测量的内部结构将通过调查第二份全国STEM本科生样本并对他们的回答进行项目反应理论分析来测试。最后，将通过管理新的心态工具以及相关和不相关结构的测量来测试由此产生的法则网络（概念和观察之间相互关系的表示）。为感兴趣的构念测试法网络意味着它应该与其他构念不同，并以预期的方式与之相关。这项新的调查可能会被研究人员用来回答关于大学生心态的重要问题。或者，教师可以用它来了解他们课堂上本科生的心态，并相应地调整他们的教学。最后，从业者可以使用它来开发和评估旨在通过鼓励学生转向成长型思维模式来提高学生成功的干预措施。该项目得到了EHR核心研究：STEM教育研究能力建设（ECR: BCSER）竞赛的支持，该竞赛旨在培养个人在STEM学习和学习环境中开展高质量基础STEM教育研究的能力，扩大STEM领域的参与，以及STEM劳动力的发展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。