Stereotype Threat Effects and Deaf and Hard of Hearing College Students' Mathematics Problem Solving Performance

这个广泛参与的研究项目将有助于了解失聪和听障本科生在数学表现方面所面临的潜在威胁。我们迫切需要确定如何更好地教育失聪和听力障碍的大学生STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）。这群学生代表了一种未开发的潜力，可以为STEM劳动力做出贡献，并更好地学习在我们这个技术驱动的社会中工作所需的STEM技能。在美国，聋人占合格劳动力的3.5%，但在STEM专业的聋人本科生中，聋人只占0.8%，在STEM专业的博士学位获得者中，聋人占不到0.2%。了解这些学生在大学STEM教育中遇到的威胁是至关重要的，最终，实施适当的教育实践和干预措施，这将导致更多的聋哑和听力障碍的本科生主修STEM并在STEM领域工作。罗切斯特理工学院和罗切斯特大学的项目负责人将调查对聋哑和听力障碍大学生的负面刻板印象的性质和存在，并研究刻板印象威胁对这一学生群体的数学问题解决的影响。以社会认同理论为基础，研究人员将进行三项研究。第一项研究将采用改进的内隐联想任务来研究聋人与听力障碍者对数学的刻板印象。第二个实验研究将涉及测试在逻辑、估计和抑制执行计算倾向的行动的数学问题的表现中的刻板印象威胁条件。第三项研究将考察聋人和听力障碍受试者的刻板印象威胁如何降低与完成数学问题有关的工作记忆。这些研究的结果有望在专业出版物上与教育研究人员和公众分享。

This broadening participation research project will contribute to foundational knowledge about the hidden threats to mathematics performance that undergraduate students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing experience. There is a significant need to determine how to better educate deaf and hard-of-hearing college students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). This group of students represents an untapped potential for contributing to the STEM workforce and for better learning the STEM skills needed to work in our technology-driven society. Deaf individuals represent 3.5% of the eligible workforce in our country, but only 0.8% of deaf undergraduate students major in STEM and less than 0.2% of doctoral recipients in STEM are deaf. It is essential to understand the threats these students experience in college STEM education and, eventually, to implement the appropriate educational practices and interventions that will result in more deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduate students majoring in STEM and working in STEM fields. Project leaders at Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester will investigate the nature and existence of negative stereotypes towards deaf and hard-of-hearing college students, and study the impact of stereotype threat on the mathematical problem solving of this student cohort. Using social identity theory as the grounding for their work, the researchers will conduct three studies. The first investigation will involve the use of a modified implicit association task to study the stereotypes of the deaf and hard-of-hearing related to mathematics among both hearing and deaf subjects. The second experimental study will involve testing stereotype threat conditions during performance of mathematics problems involving logic, estimation and actions that inhibit the tendency to perform calculations. The third study will examine how stereotype threat in deaf and hard-of-hearing subjects may degrade working memory as it relates to completing mathematics problems. Results of these studies are expected to be shared with education researchers and the public in professional publications.