by Lily Van Cheng, PharmD, PGY1 Community Pharmacy Practice Resident, University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy
As an
underrepresented minority (URM) and first-generation (FG) college student, the
psychosocial factors that influence one’s success at the collegiate level of
education is both fascinating and frightening. FG college students comprise roughly
15-20% of students in American universities today.1 FG students are
more likely to come from working-class backgrounds and face significant
economic and psychosocial barriers that create performance discrepancies called
the “social-class achievement gap.”2 The performance gap might be
the result of poverty, the rigor of high school preparation, parenting practices, and/or
cultural mismatches. None-the-less, it is arguable that the gap between FG
students and continuing-generation (CG) students are merely the results of differences
in baseline academic preparation or readiness.
Martin Leon Barreto for The Chronicle Review |
A tool
that some educators have used to address these challenges has been the values
affirmation (VA) intervention.3,4 VA interventions are designed to
address the students’ perceived “stereotype threat.” FG students are more likely to be confronted
with stereotypes that threaten their identity and self-esteem which affect
their academic performance. The VA intervention technique addresses stereotype
threat by asking students to reflect and write about their most important
values. It is hypothesized that this practice enhances the student’s ability to
cope with internal identity threat and reaffirms their core values to
reestablish their personal integrity and worth. In one study conducted with
middle school students, a VA intervention significantly improved the grades of
Latino students. The grades of white students were not impacted. The VA
intervention thereby partially closed the achievement gap for URM students.5
In a more
recent study conducted at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, researchers
evaluated the role of a VA intervention comparing the performance of FG versus CG
college students in a double-blinded randomized experiment in an introductory
biology course.6 Outcome measures included confidence in their
innate academic abilities and perceived concern about their generational background
on academic success. In addition, the
researchers compared final course grades, overall GPA in other courses
(excluding the biology course), and rate of continuation in the second-semester
biology sequence. Students were randomized in blocks based on a variety of
characteristics, including generational and URM status. In both the VA intervention
and control groups, there were FG and CG students. All students in the VA intervention were
instructed to identify and write about values that were most important to them. Students in the control group were instructed
to identify values least important to them and write about why these values
would be important to someone else.
The results? The researchers found a
significant generational status effect. While FG students obtained lower grades than their CG counterparts in
the same biology class (p < 0.01), the VA intervention led to significant
improvements in the FG students grades (p < 0.05), resulting in a 50%
reduction in the social class achievement gap. In terms of progression into the
second-semester biology course, in the control group, CG students (77.7%) were significantly
more likely to enroll in the second course in comparison to FG students (66.2%). Conversely, in the VA intervention group, FG
students (85.7%) were more likely to enroll than CG students (74.8%). This
represents a 20% increase in enrollment for FG students (p < 0.01) who
participated in the VA intervention. In
contrast, CG students were no more likely to enroll regardless of whether they
were in the intervention or control group (p = 0.41). The results suggest that a
VA intervention can indeed narrow the social class achievement gap, improve the
success for FG students in an introductory biology course and other college
classes, and help keep them on track to progress in the science sequence.
Factors
that threaten a student’s motivation or ability to learn vary from classroom to
classroom, but it is vital that educators identify the variables that might influence
a student’s success. In addition to the generational differences, other
variables such as ethnicity, sex/gender, stress, and cultural mismatch may
influence a student’s ability to academically succeed.7,8 Learners
come from different backgrounds and have individual struggles. Some are pretty obvious
such as ethnicity and language. But others, like generational differences in
educational attainment, are harder to identify and trickier to address. Supporting
our learners so they can succeed to the best of their ability starts with acknowledging
that barriers exist and doing our best to address those barriers. Whether an achievement
gap is the result of stereotype threat or a cultural mismatch, VA interventions
can play a positive role in influencing our learners’ success.
As
healthcare providers, we strive for ways to bridge the health disparities that
exist between people of different social classes. As health professional
educators, shouldn’t we be striving for ways to bridge the academic disparities
that exist? Taking a 10-minute check-in with our students using a VA
intervention could be the difference that a student needs to succeed. I
challenge every educator to try this in their classroom. Take 10 minutes at the
beginning of class every month to have your students identify and write about
what positive traits they value. Is it empathy? Compassion? Athleticism? It
doesn’t matter if it’s for a grade or not. But portray it in a way that the
students realize it is important to really give it honest thought. We spend so
much time teaching what they lack or don’t know. It’s time we start reminding
and reaffirming our students that what they currently know or possess is just
as important. When we help our students reaffirm interdependent values they
perceive as integral to their self-worth, we will see positive improvements in
and out of our grade books.
References
- Saenz, VB.; Hurtado, S.; Barrera, D.; Wolf, D.; Yeung, F. First in my family: A profile of first-generation college students at four-year institutions since 1971. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute; 2007. http://www.heri.ucla.edu/PDFs/pubs/TFS/Special/ Monographs/FirstInMyFamily.pdf
- Snibbe AC, Markus HR. You can’t always get what you want: Educational attainment, agency, and choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2005; 88:703–720.
- Cohen GL, Garcia J, Apfel N, Master A. Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention. Science 2006; 313:1307–1310.
- Sherman, DK.; Cohen, GL. The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. In: Zanna, MP., editor. Advances in experimental social psychology. Vol. 38. San Diego, CA: Academic Press; 2006. p. 183-242.
- Sherman DK, Hartson KA, Binning K, Purdie-Vaughns V, Garcia J, Taborsky-Barba S, Tomassetti S, Nussbaum AD, Cohen G. Deflecting the trajectory and changing the narrative: How self- affirmation affects academic performance and motivation under identity threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2013; 104:591–618.
- Harachiewicz JM, Canning EA, Tibbetts Y, Giffe CJ, Blair SS, Rouse DI, Hyde JS. Closing the Social Class Achievement Gap for First-Generation Students in Undergraduate Biology. Journal of Educational Psychology 2014; 106(2): 375-389.
- Smart-Richman L, Leary MR. Reactions to discrimination, stigmatization, ostracism, and other forms of interpersonal rejection: A multimotive model. Psychological Review 2009; 116:365–383.
- Steele CM, Aronson J. Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality And Social Psychology 1995; 69:797–811.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comment to the Educational Theory and Practice blog. It will be submitted for review and approval. Only those comments that substantially enhance the value of the blog site will be released and posted.