An Investigation of Synergistic Effects of Discipline-based Growth Mindset and Effective Learning Strategies Interventions in Gateway Chemistry Courses

Social-psychological interventions have been shown to be powerful tools to promote student success in postsecondary education. Meta-analysis studies have also found that the effectivenesses of social-psychological interventions are context-dependent and more pronounced for at-risk student groups such as Underrepresented Minority Students (URM). However, many studies involving curriculum-embedded interventions are rated ?poor? due to the lack of rigorous study design and statistical power. The interventions are usually implemented individually and the question of whether coupling associated interventions will amplify the impacts is still unclear. The objective of this project is to design and evaluate two chemistry-based interventions (growth mindset, GM, and effective learning strategies, ELS) for two university-level gateway chemistry courses. Through randomized controlled trials (RCT) design and sufficient sample sizes to reach 80% of statistical power to test small effects, four study conditions (control, GM + control, ELS + control, GM + ELS) will be incorporated into the curricula of the two target gateway chemistry courses at two institutions. A mixed-method approach will be used to evaluate the effects of interventions. Quantitative effects will be examined by changes made in students? mindset beliefs and the use of learning strategies, academic success in the target courses and subsequence courses; Qualitative effects will be examined by emerging themes from focus group interviews and follow-up open-ended surveys. Additionally, the study will also test the differentiating effects of these interventions between URM and non-URM students. The proposed research will significantly impact the design and implementation of discipline-based social-psychological interventions for leveraging instruction in chemistry and STEM education. More importantly, the study will directly impact more than 800 undergraduate students in their first-year chemistry courses, more than half of those will be URM students. The interventions are designed to be sustainable in the two research settings and readily transferable in gateway chemistry courses to other settings. The project has great potential to improve student learning and success in chemistry courses and close equity gaps in STEM fields.