Transcript MWAP Achievement Impacts: Cohorts 1 & 2

An Effort to Close Achievement Gaps at Scale
through Student Mindset Interventions
Geoffrey D. Borman
Professor of Education and Sociology
Director, Interdisciplinary Training Program in the Education Sciences
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Research on this paper was supported by grants from the Institute of Education
Sciences, U.S. Department of Education (R305A110136 and R305C050055)
and the Spencer Foundation. Findings and conclusions are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting agencies.
Overview
Madison Writing and Achievement Project (MWAP)
◦Motivation & Background
◦Study Design
MWAP Findings 2011-12 through 2012-13
A Pattern of Disengagement
•African American students lose ground academically as
they progress through school (Benson & Borman, 2010;
Jencks & Phillips 1998; Phillips, Crouse, & Ralph 1998;
Fryer & Levitt 2004; Downey, von Hippel, & Broh 2004)
•Overall, student GPA, motivation, and achievement goals
seem to decline during middle school—with especially
acute drops for minority students (Shim Ryan & Anderson
2008; Anderman 2003)
Defining Stereotype Threat
“Our reasoning is this: whenever African American students perform
an explicitly scholastic or intellectual task, they face the threat of
confirming or being judged by a negative societal stereotype—a
suspicion—about their group's intellectual ability and
competence…. And the self-threat it causes—through a variety of
mechanisms—may interfere with the intellectual functioning of
these students…But as this threat persists over time, it may have the
further effect of pressuring these students to protectively disidentify
with achievement in school and related intellectual domains.”
(Steele & Aronson, 1995: 797)
Model of Stereotype Threat (Hanselman,
Bruch, Gamoran, & Borman, in press)
Stereotype Salience
&
Group Identity
Threat
-Group identity is
challenged by salient
negative stereotypes
Stress
Responses
-Increased vigilance
-Physiological stress
-Decreased working
memory
-Distraction from school
Hanselman, P., Bruch, S.K., Gamoran, A., & Borman, G.D. (in press). Threat in context: School moderation of the
impact of social identity threat on racial/ethnic achievement gaps. Sociology of Education.
Performance
& Learning
-Diminished task
performance
Self-Affirmation May Mitigate Threat
Stereotype Salience
&
Group Identity
Self-affirmation
intervention
Reducing the
experience of
threat
Threat
Stress
Responses
Reducing stress
responses to
threat
Performance
& Learning
Graphical Representation of Self-System (Sherman
& Cohen, 2006)
Goals (e.g.,
health,
academic
success)
Values (e.g.,
humor, religion)
Central beliefs
(i.e., ideology,
political beliefs)
Group identities
(e.g., race,
culture, nation)
,
nation)
Relationships
(e.g., family,
friends)
Roles (e.g.,
student,
parent)
Global Self-Integrity
The Intervention
<Double-click to open>
Replicating and Scaling-up Cohen, Garcia,
Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, & Brzustoski, 2009
• Statistically significant positive impacts on the GPAs of African
American students randomly assigned to the self-affirmation
writing intervention
• Limited to a few classrooms and a few hundred African American
and European American students
• Average effect across 7th and 8th grades cut about 40% of the
Black-White school performance gap on GPA
• Sherman et al.(2013) found similar impacts for Latino middleschool students
Schedule of Self-Affirmation Exercises
(2011-2012)
Cohen et al., 2009 and the Madison
Writing and Achievement Project
MWAP
2011
Cohen et al.
2009
Schools
11
1
Students
1041
133
Teachers
44
4
4
5
79
62
(40)
(25)
Participants:
Self-affirmation:
Administrations
Word Count
External Validity: Analytical Sample is
57% of the Population
Official 3rd Friday 7th Grade
Count
Consent & Assent Before
Exercise 2
Analytical Sample
Count
%
1706
100%
1041
61%
968
57%
Internal Validity: No detectable pretreatment differences by condition
60%
50%
40%
48%
Condition
38%
36%
30%
21%
20%
14%
14%
12%
15%
8%
10%
0%
Self-Affirmation (N = 489)
Comparison (N = 479)
6th Grade
GPA
Self-Affirmation
3.24
Control
3.26
Impacts on African American and Latino
Students’ GPA by Term
7th Grade
Marginal
Effect
Term 1
8th Grade
d
Marginal
Effect
d
0.06
0.09
0.09*
0.13
Term 2
0.03
0.03
0.12**
0.15
Term 3
0.03
0.04
0.17**
0.22
Term 4
0.12**
0.16
0.19***
0.23
Full Year
0.06*
0.08
0.15*
0.19
(Impact models estimated with multilevel school fixed/random effects and random studentlevel effects; covariates (Xci) include: 6th grade GPA, potentially threatened status, gender,
free/reduced lunch, LEP status, & special education status)
Self-Affirmation Impacts GPA at the end of 7th
Grade and Through 8th Grade
3.60
3.40
3.20
3.00
2.80
2.60
2.72
2.66
2.71
2.69
2.78
2.68
2.64
2.70
2.57
2.69
2.74
2.62
2.73
2.56
2.72
2.53
2.40
7th Grade:
Term 1
Term 2
Term 3
Term 4
8th Grade:
Term 1
Term 2
Not Threatened: Comparison
Not Threatened: Self-Affirmation
Threatened: Comparison
Threatened: Self-Affirmation
Term 3
Term 4
Predictive Margins for GPA by Term: Model includes 6th grade GPA, Gender, LEP, Special Education, & FRL Status
Self-Affirmation Negates the GPA Decline for
“Potentially Threatened” Students
𝐺𝑃𝐴𝑡𝑖 = 𝜋0𝑖 + 𝜋1𝑖 𝑇𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑡𝑖 + 𝑒𝑡𝑖
(1)
𝑐=𝑗
𝜋0𝑖 = 𝛽00 + 𝛽01 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖 +
𝛽0𝑐𝑖 𝑋𝑐𝑖 + 𝑟0𝑖
(2)
𝛽1𝑐𝑖 𝑋𝑐𝑖 + 𝑟1𝑖
(3)
𝑐=0
𝛽10 = -0.027* [95% C.I.: -0.052, -0.002]
𝑐=𝑗
𝜋1𝑖 = 𝛽10 + 𝛽11 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖 +
𝑐=0
𝑟1𝑖
𝑟1𝑖 2
𝑡 = 1, … , 8; 𝑉𝑎𝑟 𝑟 =
0𝑖
𝜏
N = 345
𝜏
𝑟0𝑖
𝛽11 = 0.021* [95% C.I.: 0.001, 0.041]
2
(4)
(Model also includes school fixed effects; covariates (Xci) include:
6th grade GPA, gender, free/reduced lunch, LEP status, & special education status)
* p < .05
Summary of Findings
• All students show declines on GPA over time across 7th and 8th grade
• Threatened Latino and African American students’ GPAs decline more than
those of their white counterparts
• The self-affirmation treatment effect is limited to threatened students
• The primary benefit of self-affirmation is to mitigate declines, over time, in
GPA
• By the end of 8th grade, control students grades in their four core classes fall
from 2 “Cs” and 2 “Bs” to 3 “Cs” and 1 “B” whereas treated students’ grades
remain the same
• The 8th grade impact, expressed as an effect size, is equal to about 1/5 SD
Further Questions
• What are some of the possible psychological “gaps” and
mechanisms that self-affirmation may address?
• To what extent do the student-level impacts vary across the 11
schools, and what contextual differences may explain the
variation?
• How was the intervention implemented in this district-wide scale
up, and what challenges and successes resulted?