There are a lot of technologies mentioned when discussing achievement gaps and low persistence and attainment rates, especially for first-generation and minority students: online admissions tools, software that targets at-risk students, textbooks with built-in learning analytics, et cetera—and this publication covers them all.
But, according to researchers at Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin, there is a specific set of interventions that have nothing to do with technology that can boost success for these students; and the boost is noteworthy (40 percent). What’s also noteworthy is the massive scope of the research: more than 9,500 students were studied.
“One reason these findings are so exciting is that they validate and replicate findings from earlier research conducted with a much smaller set of students,” said lead author of the study David Yeager, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and Stanford alumnus, in a statement. “With more than 9,500 students, these studies provide an unparalleled test of the replicability and policy-relevance of such exercises to help students anticipate common challenges in the transition to college.”
So What’s the Intervention?
In what could be considered a common sense psychological intervention that is oftentimes overlooked, students part of the study were told stories by older students from similar backgrounds on the challenges they faced coming into college and how they overcame them. The study participants were then asked to write about challenges they anticipated and how these challenges could change over time with help and support.
(Next page: More on the intervention and data-backed results for closing achievement gaps)
What’s critical about the intervention method, note the researchers, is that the stories from older students were all cast as difficulties that were “common and changeable,” then offered data to the study’s students either in the form of surveys or neuroscience of learning research summaries that supported this message.
“When students face difficulties in college, they have to make sense of them. Why am I feeling lonely? Why was I criticized? Why am I struggling?” said Greg Walton, associate professor of psychology at Stanford University and a principal investigator with the College Transition Collaborative, in a statement. “It helps to know in advance that it’s normal to struggle at first in college. It doesn’t mean you’re dumb or that people like you don’t belong in college. When you know that struggles are normal, it’s easier to take a chance on making friends even when you feel different or isolated, join a student group, or go to your professor’s office hours. And doing those kinds of things helps students build relationships that can support them through college.”
In summation, understanding that others have faced similar challenges and that these challenges are not only common, but surmountable, helps newer students prevent negative stereotypes from undermining their confidence, and ultimately, their chance at academic and social success.
Noteworthy Results
The study of over 9,500 students showed that these psychological interventions closed differences in full-time enrollment and grades between students from different backgrounds that are disadvantaged in college or other students at the same school by 31 to 40 percent.
When compared with similar students from disadvantaged backgrounds at the same colleges who did not receive these interventions, the study’s students were also more socially and academically “integrated,” more likely to complete the first year enrolled full-time, and more likely to earn higher grade point averages. They were also less likely to fall to the bottom of the class.
These results are part of the much larger focus of the College Transition Collaborative, of which Yeager and Walton are principal investigators. The Collaborative focuses on problems caused by psychological friction that can lead to lower academic performance and dropouts.
Thanks to the success of initial studies like this one, more than 18,800 students participated in this set of interventions last year. Mary Murphy, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University and a principal investigator for the collaborative, said in an interview with EducationDive that the goal is to increase that number to 250,000 in two years.
Rob Urstein, managing director of Global Innovation Programs, was responsible for transitioning new undergraduates to Stanford from 2012 to 2015 as associate vice provost for undergraduate education, notes EducationDive. In this position, he worked to help students develop a sense of belonging while implementing some of the Collaborative’s interventions. “Urstein said being able to implement something that had been rigorously tested was exciting, especially given that colleges and universities, with the best of intentions, often try a lot of things, sometimes based simply on intuition,” notes the article. “In this case, the belonging intervention proved to help students, and, importantly, it also helped faculty, staff, and administrators develop a heightened sensitivity to important psychological factors affecting student success.”
“Without that sense of feeling like this is a place you can belong, almost nothing else at Stanford is really possible,” Urstein concluded.
However, the authors of the study emphasized that these exercises do not work in isolation but help students take advantage of opportunities available to them. They aren’t “magic bullets.” For the exercises to be effective, students need access to resources and other support.
The study was originally published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Read more about the study here and the Collaborative’s work here.
- 25 education trends for 2018 - January 1, 2018
- IT #1: 6 essential technologies on the higher ed horizon - December 27, 2017
- #3: 3 big ways today’s college students are different from just a decade ago - December 27, 2017