skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Enhancing Undergraduate Student Success in STEM Fields through Growth-Mindset and Grit
Concern about graduation rates in higher education has led universities to offer courses that help students develop success skills. Scientist Life Skills, a new course for freshman at Florida A&M University, focuses on helping students matriculate into majors via development of growth mindset, grit, and critical thinking. Here, we assessed the outcomes of this course and explored the associations between building life skills and student success. A series of mindset, grit, and critical-thinking assessment measures were used to collect data before and after the course. Our results showed that the new course achieved its intended goals of providing STEM students with a set of tools that help them seamlessly transition into the university and successfully matriculate through their majors. Specifically, the course design significantly moved students toward a growth-mindset, increased their critical thinking, and their second-semester grade point averages (GPAs). This model life skills course can be adopted in non-STEM areas as well.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1719546 1824267
PAR ID:
10222341
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Education Sciences
Volume:
10
Issue:
10
ISSN:
2227-7102
Page Range / eLocation ID:
279
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; (, Proceedings of the forty-fifth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2). University of Nevada, Reno.)
    Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)
    Math anxiety refers to feelings people get when facing computational challenges. The fear of failure often causes people to avoid activities, like taking challenging mathematics courses or choosing majors that require mathematics. Grit describes how people persist or persevere in the wake of failure. This article looks at factors that contribute to a person having grit and the interaction of grit and math anxiety. Students (N = 258) enrolled in college math classes at a large university completed a set of surveys that indicated their levels of self-compassion, mindfulness, self-efficacy, math anxiety, and grit. The analyses of the data found that grit predicted math anxiety, and that self-compassion, mindfulness, and self-efficacy predicted grit. The results of this study suggest that promoting factors that help students develop grit can in turn affect their math anxiety and thus their persistence in mathematics courses and STEM majors. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; (, MRS Advances)
    ABSTRACT There is a need to expand the fundamental skills in science and engineering to include innovation & entrepreneurship (I&E) skills as core competencies. To better prepare the future Nanotechnology workforce, the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez Nanotechnology Center, broadened the educational content beyond traditional skills in science and engineering. The Center, offers a rich educational program for materials and nano scientists that aims to create the next generation of knowledgeable, experienced professionals, and successful entrepreneurs, who can develop value-added innovations that can spur economic growth and continue to impact the quality of life for society. Within the educational program an Entrepreneurship Education Co-Curricular Program (EEP) incorporates I&E training into the Materials Science, Nanotechnology, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) faculty and student experiences. The EEP consists of a two-year series of workshops that seek to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, including five key topics: 1) Generation of Ideas, 2) Entrepreneurial Vision, 3) Early Assessment of Ideas, 4) Identification of Opportunities, and 5) Strategic Thinking. The EEP goals, target audience, and implementation strategy, is described with an evaluation tool to assess the program’s success in developing an entrepreneurial mindset. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida)
    The current state of math education at a tribal college / university, TCU, will be presented, particularly with respect to entry into STEM majors. The alternative developmental math curriculum offered at a TCU institution using a modified pedagogical delivery system offers sound mathematical principals based on life-skills with relevant problem-solving, while explicitly addressing other holistic needs of the student such as math anxiety, persistence, mindset, and the value of collaboration (group work). This cooperative work is intended to create a community of learning which is in tune with traditional Native American cultural practices. Students learn to be responsible for their learning, engage in team work, and develop a “can-do” attitude towards mathematics. Implementation of two separate approaches at two separate institutions will be presented. 
    more » « less
  4. ; (, 2016 Annual Conference & Exposition)
    SPARK is the first project at Texas State University designed to recruit and retain low income, female, first year students who show an early interest in majoring in engineering and computer science (ECS). Female students who show an initial extrinsic interest in these majors can be driven away far too easily by their experiences. SPARK has two primary goals: (1) create an environment where belonging to a like-minded cohort nurtures a strong sense of self, and (2) deliver high quality, high impact practices that engender female students’ success and retention in ECS. Guided by Albert Bandura and Frank Pajares’ research on self-efficacy in theory and practice, the SPARK project sheds light on self-efficacy and confidence as predictive of persistence for female students in ECS. Additionally, the effect of SPARK students’ spatial visualization skills was assessed and tracked throughout the life of the project, utilizing Sheryl Sorby’s research correlating spatial visualization skills to STEM success. Current research-based approaches to student engagement provide good evidence that mattering and sense of belonging are also highly correlative with persistence, particularly for first year students. This is important because the national conversation on what works to mend the gender gap in STEM is currently wedged between Sheryl Sandberg’s “leaning in” and Angela Duckworth’s views on “grit” as an indicator of persistence. In this paper, we will discuss the context and history of the SPARK program, present assessment outcomes about impact to date, share lessons learned, and consider future directions. This work will contribute to the growing body of research on retaining females in ECS by developing and analyzing student motivation; recognizing factors that may contribute to aspirational deficient, attrition, and marginalization; and designing and assessing activities that strengthen self-confidence, self-efficacy, and persistence in retention programs for females in ECS. 
    more » « less
  5. ; (, IEEE Frontiers in Education)
    This innovative practice full paper examines mindset understandings of three cohorts of first-year student scholars in a College of Computing at a private technical Carnegie-classified Doctoral University in the northeastern United States. Grounded in theories of intelligence, a growth mindset posits that intelligence and skills can be developed through continued practice and learning, while a fixed mindset situates one with the skills they have at birth, never to evolve or grow. Thirty-two undergraduate students across three years (10 students in year one, cohort one; 10 students in year two, cohort two; and 12 students in year three, cohort three) participated in a holistic growth mindset program that included three pillars: (a) faculty-student mentoring infused with growth mindset, (b) growth-mindset augmentations to the introductory programming course and (c) a growth mindset-scholar seminar - a series of meetings where each cohort met as a group to discuss and practice activating a growth mindset. Previous work with students has focused on more limited growth mindset interventions rather than a holistic approach. Prior to the scholars arriving on campus, the faculty involved in each of the pillars were part of a Community of Practice to learn about and activate their own growth mindset. At the end of their first semester in the project, each of the student cohorts participated in a focus group to learn about their understanding and application of growth and fixed mindset. We report findings from the student scholar data after one semester of participating in the three programmatic pillars in the context of growth mindset: mentoring, programming instruction, and the scholar seminar. Summary findings from the student perspectives are described including the use of illustrative quotes, in the students' own words, serving as a powerful reminder of the importance of growth mindset and relationship building. This has implications for addressing mindset in the future by considering how the innovative practice of embedding a growth mindset holistically into mentoring, instruction and a student seminar can provide support for students that standalone interventions cannot. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email