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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.
He believes in prophets. He is _clearly_ nuts.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bah, you think that's bad? When I went to college the first time (at 17) my Algebra instructor himself had an impenetrable Chinese accent, at least to me and several others in the class who would all look at one another in puzzlement when he dropped a particularly mush-mouthed gem. I couldn't understand a goddamn thing he was saying, and eventually had to drop out. I'm still crap at math.
Another person I know took [teaching] "Engrish as second ranguage" with "Doctor Kah" who would say "Ok, this be on test, this very importan" and then would ramble through several sentences of apparent gibberish.
If I were going to teach in another country, I'd expect to have to be comprehensible in their language. Why don't people have to do that here? I don't give half of one shit where someone comes from, what their genetic background is, what gender they are, or what color their skin is, I just want to get the information I need to succeed.
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Why to you think colleges are such intersectional, communist crybaby spaces now?
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I had a similar experience. I took Calculus 2 at the local community college from a native speaker. But he wouldn't assign homework, instead he expected us to study on our own and come to him with any questions. I don't work well without structure, so eventually I had to drop out.
I took the same class again, with the same result.
Then I took the class at the University. The teacher was an old Chinese man with a thick accent. But he assigned homework every day and took the time to explain things until we all learned the material really well. I earned an A in that class.
So I had a similar experience as you, except it was the complete opposite.
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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.
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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.
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.