Measuring Chemistry-Specific Mindset Beliefs of Students in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses

大学生对智力和学习的信念会影响他们的学业成就和成功。固定心态的学生认为他们的智力是不可改变的，而成长心态的学生认为他们可以通过时间和努力来提高他们的智力。成长心态信念与STEM领域更好的学习成绩和成就有关，包括来自传统上在STEM领域代表性不足的群体的学生。然而，对于特定领域的心态信念在学生成功完成大学化学入门课程中的作用，人们的理解有限，而这对于在许多STEM专业留住学生至关重要。在美国国家科学基金会（NSF）改善本科STEM教育（IUSE）计划的支持下，该项目旨在通过开发一种有效可靠的化学特定思维信念测量方法来服务于国家利益。此外，项目团队将调查这些思维观念与学生在普通化学和有机化学课程中的成绩之间的关系。能够测量化学特定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对支持学生在STEM中取得成功是有效的。乔治亚州立大学和波特兰州立大学的一组研究人员将调查学生对化学智力的内隐信念，并开发出一种衡量这些信念的方法。关于智力的内隐信念理论认为，具有固定心态信念的学生倾向于避免具有挑战性的情况，而具有成长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的作用却没有得到很好的研究。为此，本项目将遵循三个具体目标。首先是表征学生在普通化学和有机化学课程中的特定化学思维信念。二是开发一套适合大学生化学心态信念的测量方法，并对其进行心理计量学评价。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，以了解他们对与化学有关的智力的内在信念。该团队还将进行认知访谈，以评估新设计项目的解释和可读性，以衡量化学特定的心态。此外，本项目产生的数据将进行心理测量分析，以评估效度和信度。项目团队将从佐治亚州立大学（一个为少数族裔服务的大型机构）、佐治亚格温内特学院、佐治亚南方大学和斯佩尔曼学院收集数据。这将为来自STEM中不同和代表性不足群体的学生提供大量投入，有望提高该项目在全国范围内广泛传播STEM教育的能力。由项目外部专家组成的咨询委员会将对研究结果提供反馈，并就更广泛的影响提出建议。项目团队将在特定学科和stem教育期刊上广泛传播研究成果，并将通过美国化学会化学教育研究委员会和两年一次的化学教育会议寻找机会举办网络研讨会和研讨会。此外，最终的心态测量将通过化学仪器审查和评估库（CHIRAL）门户网站公开提供。这种特定化学思维方式的发展将为化学教育界提供一个理论基础的措施，以促进对特定领域思维方式信念的理解，并为评估特定化学思维方式干预的影响提供一个适当的措施。这项工作还将为在其他STEM学科中开发和测量特定领域的心态信念提供一个模型。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。

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.