scholarly journals Investigating educators’ implicit attitudes toward social groups

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jazmin Lati Brown-Iannuzzi ◽  
Sierra Bainter

Given the importance of education and the role educators play on the outcomes of their students, the current research investigates implicit attitudes among a sample of mathematics educators. Implicit attitude measures are ones which investigate automatic associations between a target social group and a positive or negative feeling. These attitudes are important because they predict behaviors toward members of the target social group (e.g., Cameron, Brown- Iannuzzi, & Payne, 2012; Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). The current research also extends beyond previous research by investigating the association between educators’ implicit racial attitudes toward black and white people and students’ trust and respect for their educator. If educators’ implicit attitudes are associated with how they interact with their students, it may be that we can uncover this relationship by asking students about their attitudes toward their educators. To analyze these questions, this study leverages data from the National Study of Learning Mindsets (NSLM), the largest-ever randomized controlled trial of a growth mindset program in the U.S. in K-12 settings, in which a brief online growth mindset program was administered to 9th grade students during the 2015-2016 academic year. The results suggest that educators have a more implicit positive reaction to women than men, and slightly more implicit positivity toward black men than white men. These implicit associations, however, are unrelated to students’ trust and respect for their educator. The findings and implications are discussed.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soobin Kim ◽  
Barbara Schneider ◽  
John Yun

Using a randomized controlled trial in a nationally representative sample of 65 public high schools (N = 13,660), we tested the effects of a growth mindset intervention on math course- taking patterns and student achievement and explored whether school context was related to the success of the intervention. Students were randomly assigned to complete either the growth mindset intervention or a control activity during two 25-minute sessions. After participating in the growth mindset program used in the National Study of Learning Mindsets, students’ 9th- grade mathematics GPA increased by an average of 0.05 grade points on a 4.3-point scale. We found distinct patterns of treatment effects that depend on level of math preparation, course intensity, school context, and changes in students’ mindset.


AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842110255
Author(s):  
David Harper ◽  
Anita R. Bowles ◽  
Lauren Amer ◽  
Nick B. Pandža ◽  
Jared A. Linck

English learners (ELs) in K–12 schools must acquire English while simultaneously mastering content knowledge. Educational technology may support students’ learning through the affordance of individualized language practice. The current randomized controlled trial intervention study examined the effects of Rosetta Stone Foundations software on English learning among middle school ELs. The study took place in Grades 6 to 8 of an urban U.S. school district ( N = 221). Predictors of interest included time of testing (pretest vs. posttest) and software usage, and covariates included grade level, sex, and attendance. Additionally, socioeconomic status and home language were accounted for due to sample homogeneity. Multilevel models indicated that treatment group students showed larger gains than control group students on oral/aural outcomes. These results indicate that the software intervention enables individualized practice that can produce proficiency-related gains over and above the typical classroom curriculum.


2020 ◽  
pp. 027507402098268
Author(s):  
Sunyoung Pyo

Controlling police officers’ discretionary behavior during public encounters has been an important issue in U.S. policing, especially following several high-profile police-involved deaths of racial minorities. In response, body-worn cameras (BWCs) were introduced to enhance police accountability by providing police managers an opportunity to monitor police–public encounters. Although many U.S. local police departments have now implemented BWC programs, evidence of program effects on daily police behavior has been limited. This study therefore focuses on whether officers’ arrest behavior changes when they perceive that BWCs are recording their interactions with the public. By conducting a difference-in-differences analysis using 142 police departments, I found that BWCs have negative and small treatment effects on arrest rates and null effects on the racial disparity between numbers of Black and White arrests. These findings imply that officers may become slightly more cautious in the use of arrests after wearing BWCs, but BWCs do not change their overall disparate treatment of Black versus White suspects. The results further indicate that the effects of BWCs on arrests are prominent in municipalities with high crime rates or a high proportion of non-White residents, which suggests that BWC programs demonstrate different effects according to the characteristics of communities served.


Stroke ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (Suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Venkatesan ◽  
Bernadette Boden-Albala ◽  
Nina Parikh ◽  
Emily Goldmann

Purpose: More positive health behaviors, fewer symptoms, higher quality of life, and greater treatment satisfaction have been reported among those with greater physician trust. This study assessed the relationship between physician trust and recurrent stroke/TIA within 1 year of discharge among stroke survivors in Northern Manhattan. Methods: This study used data from the Stroke Warning Information and Faster Treatment (SWIFT) study, a randomized controlled trial conducted from 2005-2012 in a multiethnic cohort of 1,193 mild/moderate ischemic stroke and TIA survivors. The goal was to assess the impact of a stroke preparedness educational intervention on emergency department arrival time after subsequent stroke symptom onset. Physician trust, assessed at baseline, was measured with one item: “What percentage of the time do you trust doctors?”. For the analysis, it was dichotomized with the cutoff at 80%. Recurrent stroke/TIA was assessed at 1 month and 1 year. The association between recurrent stroke/TIA and patient trust was evaluated using multivariate logistic regression adjusted for sociodemographics and comorbidities. Results: In the analytic sample (n=1108), those who answered both exposure and outcome, the prevalence of recurrent stroke/TIA and lack of physician trust was 10.75% and 36.46%, respectively. Consistent with the literature, Hispanics compared to whites had a higher prevalence of lack of physician trust (42.71% vs. 34.11%, p<0.001). Adjusting for race/ethnicity, intervention status, age, sex, education, marital status, smoking, insurance, hypertension, diabetes, body mass index, physical activity, and depression, those who lacked trust had greater odds of recurrent stroke/TIA (OR=1.36, 95% CI:0.86-2.18) than those who had trust. When observing the association among Hispanics and Blacks, those who lacked trust had (OR=1.27, 95% CI: 0.66-2.42) and (OR=1.26, 95% CI: 0.36-4.38) respectively, greater odds of a recurrent episode than those who had trust. Conclusion: Despite insignificant findings, a national study with a greater range of stroke severity and additional measures such as medication compliance may be warranted to provide greater insight on the effects of physician trust on stroke outcomes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Jost

The implicit association test (IAT) is one of several measures of implicit attitudes, but it has attracted especially intense criticism. Some methodological objections are valid, but they are damning only if one accepts false analogies between the IAT and measures of intellectual aptitude, clinical diagnosis, or physical height. Other objections are predicated on misconceptions of the nature of attitudes (which are context-sensitive and reflect personal and cultural forces) or the naive assumption that people cannot be biased against their own group. Other criticisms are ideological, pertaining to questions of moral and political value, such as whether it is good to have fewer pro-White/anti-Black implicit attitudes and to provide respondents with feedback about their implicit attitudes. Implicit-attitude measures have been extremely useful in predicting voting and other political behavior. An indirect, unobtrusive, context-sensitive measure of attitudes is far more useful to social and political psychologists than an IQ test or clinical “diagnosis” would be, insofar as it reflects a dynamic Lewinian conception of the “person in the situation.”


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 534-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer R. Steele ◽  
Meghan George ◽  
Margaret K. Cease ◽  
Tracy L. Fabri ◽  
Jacob Schlosser

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maithreyi Gopalan ◽  
David Scott Yeager

Students who are taught that intellectual abilities are not fixed but can be developed—a growth mindset of intelligence—show improvements in their academic outcomes. Specifically, the mindset treatment effects are strongest for low-achieving students and vary across school contexts, as demonstrated by several lab and field-experimental studies including the largest randomized control trial (RCT) evaluation in a nationally- representative sample of 9th graders in the US as shown by the National Study of Learning Mindsets (NSLM). Yet, the mechanisms through which a growth mindset brings about positive academic outcomes remains unclear. Past research posits a role for challenge-seeking/learning-oriented behaviors exhibited by students exposed to a growth mindset intervention. However, research illuminating this pathway from mindset to academic outcomes through student behaviors are sparse. For the first time, given the multisite RCT design and the inclusion of a rich set of mediators—especially, a mediator measured using a novel behavioral task that elicits learning-oriented behavior in the NSLM, rather than relying on just self-reported mindset measures, this research tests the complete mediational pathway and highlights a key mechanism through which growth mindset interventions may work.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine E. Venturo-Conerly ◽  
Tom L Osborn ◽  
Akash R Wasil ◽  
Huong Le ◽  
Emily Corrigan ◽  
...  

Background: Treatments for youth mental disorders are a public health priority, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where treatment options remain limited due to high cost, elevated stigma, and lack of trained mental health professionals. Brief, accessible, and non-stigmatizing community-based interventions delivered by lay-providers may help address treatment needs in SSA. One such intervention, the Shamiri Intervention, consisting of three elements (growth mindset, gratitude, and value affirmation) has been tested in randomized controlled trials with school-going Kenyan adolescents. This three-element Shamiri Intervention has been shown to significantly reduce depression and anxiety symptoms and improve social support and academic performance relative to a control group. In this trial, we aim to investigate the effects of each element of the Shamiri Intervention.Methods: In this five-arm randomized controlled trial, we will test each of the intervention components (growth mindset, gratitude, and value affirmation) against the full Shamiri Intervention and against a study-skills control intervention. Students (Nplanned=1288) at participating secondary schools who are interested in participating in this universal intervention will be randomized in equal numbers into the five groups. The students will meet in groups of 8-15 students led by local high school graduate lay-providers. These lay-providers will receive 10 hours of training, plus expert supervision once a week throughout the intervention delivery. Multi-level models will be used to compare trajectories over time of the primary outcomes (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, academic performance, and wellness) and secondary outcomes in each intervention group to the control group. Multi-level models will also be used to compare trajectories over time of the primary outcomes (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, academic performance, and wellness) and secondary outcomes of those in the single-element interventions compared to the full Shamiri Intervention. Finally, effect sizes (calculated as mean gain scores) will be used to compare all groups on all measures. Discussion: This trial will shed light on the mechanisms and outcomes targeted by each individual intervention, helping prioritize which mental health interventions are most important to disseminate.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document