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Huge Study Finds Professors' Attitudes Affect Students' Grades (arstechnica.com)
A huge study at Indiana University, led by Elizabeth Canning, finds that the attitudes of instructors affect the grades their students earned in classes. The researchers conducted their study by sending out a simple survey to all the instructors of STEM courses at Indiana University, asking whether professors felt that a student's intelligence is fixed and unchanging or whether they thought it could be developed. Then, the researchers were given access to two years' worth of students' grades in those instructors' classes, covering a total of 15,000 students. Ars Technica reports: The results showed a surprising difference between the professors who agreed that intelligence is fixed and those who disagreed (referred to as "fixed mindset" and "growth mindset" professors). In classes taught by fixed mindset instructors, Latino, African-American, and Native American students averaged grades 0.19 grade points (out of four) lower than white and Asian-American students. But in classes taught by "growth mindset" instructors, the gap dropped to just 0.10 grade points. No other factor the researchers analyzed showed a statistically significant difference among classes -- not the instructors' experience, tenure status, gender, specific department, or even ethnicity. Yet their belief about whether a students' intelligence is fixed seems to have had a sizable effect.
The students' course evaluations contain possible clues. Students reported less "motivation to do their best work" in the classes taught by fixed mindset professors, and they also gave lower ratings for a question about whether their professor "emphasize[d] learning and development." Students were less likely to say they'd recommend the professor to others, as well. Is it possible that the fixed mindset professors just happen to teach the hardest classes? The student evaluations also include a question about how much time the course required -- the average answer was slightly higher for fixed mindset professors, but the difference was not statistically significant. Instead, the researchers think the data suggests that -- in any number of small ways -- instructors who think their students' intelligence is fixed don't keep their students as motivated, and perhaps don't focus as much on teaching techniques that can encourage growth. And while this affects all students, it seems to have an extra impact on underrepresented minority students.
The students' course evaluations contain possible clues. Students reported less "motivation to do their best work" in the classes taught by fixed mindset professors, and they also gave lower ratings for a question about whether their professor "emphasize[d] learning and development." Students were less likely to say they'd recommend the professor to others, as well. Is it possible that the fixed mindset professors just happen to teach the hardest classes? The student evaluations also include a question about how much time the course required -- the average answer was slightly higher for fixed mindset professors, but the difference was not statistically significant. Instead, the researchers think the data suggests that -- in any number of small ways -- instructors who think their students' intelligence is fixed don't keep their students as motivated, and perhaps don't focus as much on teaching techniques that can encourage growth. And while this affects all students, it seems to have an extra impact on underrepresented minority students.
Prove to me that is not because one set of professors actually gives fair grades, while the other artificially inflated them...
This study is why people now think social sciences are bullshit. It made horrible racist assumptions at the outset, and then denied the basic truth that some people are smarter than others, regardless of whether they are back, white, green, or polka dot.
none of this is news, in fact it's well known. The entire reason for institutionalized learning is to make sure people are indoctrinated into a certain world view and this is not a slant at any particular political group. That is how everyone does it.
One of my absolute favorite proofs of this is Seminary. Every time I meet a preacher than talks about attending seminary I ask them. Why did you attend? Then I ask them, if they would have paid any attention to any of the actual Prophets of the Bible... because God would have absolutely without question chose a Prophet that would never have attended seminary and there is a very good reason for that.
God chooses His Prophets and declares whom or what is wise, not other men passing around little pieces of paper.
than taking a required class with 500 of your closest friends and than trying to talk to one of the two TAs who are apparently failing English as a second or third language.
Nobody has to prove shit to you. Convincing dumbasses isn't the point of studying something. You're a moron making wild assumptions from the outset and then crying about exactly that. Your complaints have nothing to do with the study.
I am a college instructor, and can understand the concern here. I will admit to being surprised by the quiet student who does not seem to get the material and then nails the exam.
When looking over people who have "graduated" and what level of actual education was offered?
Want a person who can code?
Who was able to learn to code?
Who entered college with the skills to study and who has the ability to study?
Could pass real exams under exam conditions and show they had real academic ability over years of education?
Who will enter the workforce ready with new skills and the ability to learn new skills?
With a real degree and the ability to code as their professional qualifications show.
Who can be given a new task and do the task given without constant support and help?
vs
A student who entered on non academic considerations?
Who did not have the ability to study.
Who only just passed their "exams" and who needed further consideration over years of study?
What do they bring to your brand? The full wage of an average person with few academic skills?
Cant code? Cant do math? Cant study? Wont study? Wants a huge wage due to their given "education"?
A very average person who will need the full support of your skilled workers everyday?
Skilled workers who get taken away from profit making work to further fully support new average workers?
Education, merit and a professional education was to allow a brand to elect form the best workers.
Not have to wonder if a new person is below average and will need constant supervisions and support at "work".
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
AC the fry cook still has to show they are smart and can pass the needed exams to show they can study at a degree and college level.
Thats why the USA did all that decades of academic and IQ testing.
To ensure every fry cook with academic ability could get a full academic scholarship on merit.
Lots of great smart people did part time and night work to pay for college.
They showed they could study and kept on doing great when at college.
Their professional US qualifications reflected real academic ability for decades.
Now that will be replaced with attendance and a list of non academic consideration?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
None of these types of professors believe that anyone can learn anything without their personal assistance.
the original purpose of institutionalized learning was to prepare farm workers to work in factories. They kept walking off the assembly lines because they couldn't understand the concept of a job that was never done. Plow the fields and plant the crops? Done. Build a widget? Build the next one. This is why we have bells in schools, btw. They're to condition you for factory bells.
Over time education like I described above (intended for the working class) was mixed with principles of an entirely different branch of education: what the ruling class gets. This is where "well rounded" educations came from. The idea was to teach critical thinking skills to people who didn't think critically by nature. You typically did this with the liberal arts instead of STEM because while there's no value in getting a math problem half right there _is_ value in being half right on your critical understanding of a book.
The "well rounded" education is used to make sure your offspring can go off and effectively run your dynasty when your old/dead. You needed them to think critically or they'd get killed by an ambitious member of your court.
In an proper world without the constant meddling of the ruling class everyone would get both a practical (working class) education and the "well rounded" one that was usually reserved for the ruling class. You might not know this, but you want this. You want this a lot. Ignorant people make bad decisions. If you're a member of the ruling class you can exploit those bad decisions for your gain. If you're not those people become an angry mob and kill you. Or you join the mob, which sounds fun until you stop and think about the decades of poverty that lead up to you joining that mob.
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If I can get serious for just a moment, I believed that coming from a place of love and respect made for better student outcomes. I didn't teach STEM or anything, but I was considered a hard grader and expected a fair amount from students (especially grad students). When I was just a newly-minted lecturer, back in the '80s, I had a colleague tell me that it's important to be invested in the success of your students. You're not just pumping gas. That always stuck with me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
for being nerdy or just plain weird & ugly. Growing up a nerd I hung out with nerds but I was relatively normal. I hadn't noticed it but a lot of the extreme nerds (or worse, the LGBTQ kids had it rough) were being actively shit on by their teachers... up to and including the school principal.
It wasn't all the time. The Gym teachers almost always did it. I just happened to be at a school where it didn't happen much, but I was pretty horrified years later when some nerd friends of mine talked about it. It's one thing to get bullied by POS kids. It's a whole new world of hell when your teachers join in.
Post Columbine at least the teachers seem to have stopped. But it literally took a near constant threat of mass murder to do it. Man, what a screwed up world.
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Are they hinting at assessment bias? Are these scores given by professors for written answers, projects, theses - from standardised multi-choice tests - or both?
Why is this not mentioned?
A hint is that the article uses "underrepresented minorities" as a euphemism for lower-intelligence minorities - Asians and Jews not included. So IQ is likely to be key here. If you control for SAT scores, does the racial "bias" disappear? My guess would be "yes".
It is true that intelligence, at least the measurable part, is fairly fixed for individuals, so the professors teaching the hardest subjects (advanced maths and physics) are more likely to express the "fixed mindset", while those teaching the more wishy-washy liberal arts subjects like biology and chemistry, where attitude and hard work achieve more, are more likely to lean in the "growth mindset" direction. This would yield the reported results.
But why speculate when comparing standardised test scores, and aptitude scores (SAT, IQ) would help answer these questions?
Were the authors careful to only compare professors teaching the same subjects?
Was affirmative action involved in the admissions process?
Would the authors prefer hinting at racial bias to giving actual facts?
Far too little information is given to infer a causal relationship between teacher attitude and score gap.
I find it odd that the "growth mindset" instructors didn't have an equal effect on all students. Perhaps they were cutting Latino, African-American, and Native American students a break. Or maybe they made more of an effort to help them because they are minority students. It wouldn't surprise me if it was some of both.
If I understand the article correctly, the grades that are being compared were issued to the students by the very same professors who were being categorized as "fixed" or "growth" mindset.
I expect that a "fixed mindset" professor would obviously assign a lower grade to students they considered of lower intelligence.
If that really is the takeaway from this study then I fail to see cause for surprise in the result.
I got my BA in '81 or so.
Teachers that took attendance every day and docked you for absences tended to be the teachers who's handouts were copies of copies of copies of 20 year old crap. Not to mention the lectures were useless. Best plan was to find out when the tests and quizzes were and what they covered, and skipped class. But skipping class cost you big time.
Teachers who's lectures were not to be missed. Fark the tests and quizzes, if you wanted to understand the subject you went to the lectures.
Goes without saying the first group of teachers had tenure and didn't care, the second group did not have tenure and did care.
YMMV, there was variation in mine.
Did standard deviation increase across the board? If so, wouldn't you just assume that the fixed intelligence teachers have harder classes that allow for more differentiation between students based on intelligence? I find it hard to believe that only minority students grades decreased and not those of white students who are at the same academic level. That should be easy to check by comparing the grade differences based on similar GPAs.
Which the NT clearly separate.
So you're making the usual American mistake of forgetting anything OLD OLD. Greece and Rome had academies of learning, and the kids of the upper classes went to school etc etc.
Why to you think colleges are such intersectional, communist crybaby spaces now?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
At a fairly good one too. The reason he didn't get in was his French grades weren't good enough so he spent his time working on that and got in when he was 17 so it's kind of hard to seriously argue he wasn't a good student.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
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If memory serves there is the opposite effect, i.e. you can stunt the growth of someone if you act as if they are "lost cause".
Teacher should be aware of those and be carefully not to let the talented become lazy or the less talented to give up...
Here is the full article: STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes
Being a teacher, this kind of thing is important to me. And this article irritates me, because I think they get things exactly backwards. The article specifically examines the performance of two groups of students: white/asian vs. black/latino/native-american. The latter group is implicitly assumed to be disadvantaged by the fact that their average, group intelligence is lower than the first group. The hypothesis being that, if your teacher thinks you're less intelligent, you will do more poorly in class that you should.
Interestingly: the article states that there was no discernable grouping amongst the teachers. Teachers and their beliefs were evenly distributed across all ethnicities, genders, ages, etc.. So this isn't a claim of racism or genderism, but simply a claim that teachers with particular views are poorer teachers. This is measured by the fact that their students received poorer grades.
I think this is the critical flaw in the study: Those grades are assigned by the teachers themselves. There is no objective measure of student capability. Teachers with "tough" courses will, on average, give out lower grades. And lower still to the less capable students.
I teach introductory courses - filter courses - at my university. An essential part of my job is to fail students who are unlikely be unable to complete the course of study. Hence, I give lower grades than instructors in other courses later in the program, after the incapable students have been eliminated. I've been doing this a long time, and I have come to the view that students either have certain aptitudes, or they don't. I submit that I have come to this "fixed mindset" view by observation: teaching thousands of students, failing those who cannot develop the necessary skills, and passing those who can. My role as a teacher is precisely that: to help them develop skills. If they are incapable of doing so despite my best efforts? Then they are in the wrong program of study.
In other words, it's not a "fixed mindset" that causes an instructor to hand out poor grades, but the other way around: someone who teaches teaches tough courses will come to recognize that student aptitudes are largely inherent. There are exceptions: I've seen talented students fail through laziness, and marginal students get through with sheer grit and determination. Those exceptions, by their very rarity, serve to underscore the general pattern.
Finally, one must comment on the student evaluations. Students in courses that handed out better grades were more likely to have liked the course. That's not a surprise, that comes close to a law of nature. However, the study misses a great opportunity here. The authors admit that my theory (about tough courses being the root cause) might be true:
"It is possible that faculty who endorse fixed mindset beliefs create more demanding coursesâ"requiring students to spend more time studying and preparing for their course. If this is true, then differences in studentsâ(TM) performance and psychological experiences might be explained by the demands of these courses (instead of professorsâ(TM) mindset beliefs)."
One of the questions in student evaluations ("how much time did this course require?") would have been a good indication of course difficulty. Unfortunately, the study does not seem to have tested this hypothesis, or at least, the paper makes no mention of it. A cynic might wonder if they did do the analysis, but perhaps it didn't support the desired results. After all: "tough courses lead to lower grades" would hardly be a conclusion worthy of publication.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
It does not matter if intelligence is fixed or not. The kind of things learned and tested for depend on how much work is spent to be able to reproduce information. They don't depend on intelligence.
A good test is designed to provide all the answers in the question. Leaving it to the test subjects intelligence to extract them, showing intelligence. Good tests are rare, favoring people who can reproduce information.
What a stupid headline to see this morning. I'm waiting for the following studies to get some attention: "Huge study says husband's attitude affects quality of marriage." "Huge study says chef's attitude affects quality of food severed." "Huge study says manager's attitude affects subordinate's career."
Einstein derived E=MC^2. That's a neater trick than measuring it.
First, he actually derived E^2=p^2c^2+m^2c^4. E=mc^2 is the special case of a body at rest. Secondly deriving an expression is certainly not any neater than testing it experimentally. It is only when we have both theory and experiment consistent with each other that our knowledge advances and devising an experiment to test theory can be just as hard, if not harder, than coming up with the theory in the first place. The Higgs boson is an excellent example of this.
An alternate possibility is that those with the "fluid" belief subtly alter their teaching and grading activities to produce the results they want to see (or at least results that are closer to what they want to see).
But who knows. It could be that, on average, holding an irrational belief actually produces better classroom results.
go read "A people's history of the United States" for a start.
Anyway, yes, they came running for Alms. Got them. Left.
The point was regimentation. Bells were just the most obvious example of that. The entire education was to get you ready to work in a factory.
Yeah, Churches taught a bit too. Go look up pre-Industrial revolution literacy rates sometime. They were very few, very far between. A few religious kooks spreading the word of God. The ones who taught kids to read were sometimes killed because you're not supposed to teach the lower caste to read the bible. They might get ideas.
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and neither are you. Ancient history is interesting, but Modern history has a much bigger impact on my life. The Dark Ages wiped out most of what the Babylonians did. And the progress in the last 200 years was so insanely rapid that it's almost moot.
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It's also *possible* that the teachers are observing what happens in their classes, would mean the study is reversing cause and effect. Teachers who see students learn, perhaps because they teach an interesting subject, will think students can learn - because they do. Teachers who see students say "I'm bad at math" - and then proceed to be bad at math, will notice that. It may be both sets of teachers are observing what does happen in their classes - their particular subject in a particular field at a particular grade level, etc.
That said, I think the most likely explanation is that teachers who don't think they *can* make a difference, don't.
Teaching is one part of my job and I tend to think students can learn faster / better than they actually can. I'm a major nerd whose main hobby is learning. I read 1,200 page "textbooks" for fun. I forget that not everyone is like me.
In sports we recognize that different genetics correlate to performance. We also recognize that while someone is generally athletic different genetics leads to different physical attributes which correlate to performance in different sports, or different positions within a team sport.
Take building a football team as an example. A coach would want the guys doing the defending to be big and strong, but not necessarily fast. The people doing the catching would have to be fast, but not necessarily strong. The guy that throws the ball would need a different build than the guy that kicks the ball. What does this mean for the genetic makeup on a team? Different tasks mean different genetics, at the higher levels of performance this genetic difference becomes difficult to ignore.
The brain is just as much influenced by our genetics as our physical attributes. There is a gradient of intelligence as there is a gradient of athleticism. Within that gradient there is a difference on which tasks this intelligence is optimized. In a university, especially at the graduate level, this genetic difference becomes difficult to ignore.
Where politics is ruining our universities is that people equate this genetic difference with racism. Time and time again we see different "families" that we call "races" score differently. That doesn't mean people from these different families cannot excel in any field of choice, only that statistically there may be more or fewer individuals from these families that excel.
People of Asian ancestry always did excel in STEM. That does not mean someone from a different "family" cannot excel. The bell curve still applies, there's always going to be someone from some different family that will do far better than someone from an Asian family.
In other words, if people are serious about ending racism then stop looking at races. Treat people as individuals and we'd all be far better off. Inflating grades of minorities doesn't help them, it only sets them up for failure in the future. This also applies to racial quotas on university admissions. This sets up two people on a path of a less successful future, first is the person that got admitted in spite of a lower score, second is the person that scored higher and was denied entry because of race.
STOP THE RACISM! Having a racial quota is still racism. Claiming this is penance for some past sin does not mean it's not racism. The European or Asian student that was denied admittance didn't own any slaves, and this is likely true going back many generations. The African student that was admitted this year wasn't a slave, and did not likely have even a grandparent that was a slave.
Different genetics means different attributes. These tend to run along family lines. Denying this and forcing people into roles that they are not best suited is bad for society. STOP IT!
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
My 'professors' (at LSE we called them tutors) gave very sound advice. It was entirely my fault that I did not book enough tutorials, or take that advice when I did. We also got allocated 'big name' 'Professorial Tutors': mine was a splendid, serious (famous) guy who would have recommended me for a job, but I'd found one already. Hogwarts works, even around Aldwych.
Professor is a hard ass. Student doesn't step up. Result.
Why should everyone be expected to be "positive, encouraging, nurturing" etc.
Why can't we expect people to step up, to show up rather than expect someone else to bust themselves to help them?
It's funny, but nutrition and weight loss is one field where the "proven" theory of calories in/calories out has been shown to be at least less axiomatic than it's been thought to be if not less effective than ketogenic diets.
The ci-co=weight delta, that does not show the arrows of causation.
What changes CI? Hunger.
What changes hunger? Exercise, Hormones, superoxide satiety signalling from the reverse electron transport at the mitochondrial boundary when processing saturated fats.
What changes hormones? The diet composition of carbs, protein, different fat types, different sugar types, sunlight,
What changes CO? Exercise using calories, hormones driving body temperature, hormones signaling muscle building etc.
So exercise alone isn't enough. It increases CO and CI. So doesn't help much. You must also change your diet to change hormones and satiety signals so CI reduces and CO increases.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I am sorry to say, but your arrogance and harshness are the reason why the American education system and society as whole are so screwed up.
The key statement is that your "life" experience in teaching is with graduate students, who have already been selected to be budding Einsteins. So, your assumption would hold true in that case. However, you are not seeing the broader world beyond your own, limited experience.
Now, I am going out on a limb and asserting like so many on these forums, you claim to care deeply about people, but never actually sacrificed the time or income to teach in an inner city school. If you had, you would realize that not everyone is a budding Einstein, and it is actually detrimental to treat them that way.
Some people really are born not as smart, some, are behind due to various life circumstances. In any case, if you treat them like Einstein, they will get material too fast, become humiliated and frustrated. They will quit on you and scholastics in general, since they feel frustrated and ashamed. The key is to feed information at the rate they can handle it, and try to get the student to buy in. If you make progress, it is a good day.
Now, the elephant in the room is that the authors of the study, and I suspect the above poster are simply soft-racists. They fundamentally see race as a factor in all things, and oddly assume various sub-groups have limits. This is why they immediately equated a constant intelligence approach to race. That is a completely separate idea from, do certain races have an intelligent limit. I suspect most of the people in survey felt was the case. Interjecting intelligence and race into the study is simply a dark part of your personality.
For example, there are several explanations for the difference between the two groups. Since they did not break the sample pool into academic discipline, the differences might simply reflect that scientists understand genetics, and understand for ALL things we have fixed ability, that can be improved to some extent by practice. I will never be Mozart, no matter how much a practice. For a myriad of reasons, various minorities underperform in math and science. The reasons of why are debatable, but the fact remains. So, taking the two together, professors who think intelligence is biologically not limitless and have a group underperform are going to show up. Or, it could simply be that well meaning but soft-racist professors simply grade their students higher, to give a helping hand. and that accounts for the difference. I am sure you can come up with others.
Trying to make a real difference, I have taught at high minority colleges and high schools for my life's work. Personally, I have found a great deal success by simply treating people as people.
It turns out students respond honor and earned respect. The soft-racist teaches, who approach life with the assumption that minorities need the playing field leveled, and should be handed things do not fare as well. I have the state scores and college entrance rates to prove this. Just last year, I taught algebra to a class of failing students who had never passed the state exam before. I did not go in thinking I am getting them ready for calculus. I had to get them to believe in themselves by first giving them work they could do, and then continue to fill in the holes that were missing. There was likely not an Einstein in the room, but at the end of the year, they all passed the state exam for the first time. To treat them as brilliant would have come across as patronizing, but they did accept that I made it real and got them to better.
To me, this is not some stupid intellectual exercise for forum masturbation. It is real life with real consequences. Fallacious studies like this and the attitudes of the above poster cause such great harm.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.