Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale [Experiment 3]
Yeager, D. S., Walton, G. M., Brady, S. T., Akcinar, E. N., Paunesku, D., Keane, L., Kamentz, D., Ritter, G., Duckworth, A. L., Urstein, R., Gomez, E. M., Markus, H. R., Cohen, G. L., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(24), E3341-E3348.
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examining1,592Students, gradePS
Social Belonging Intervention Report - Supporting Postsecondary Success
Review Details
Reviewed: October 2021
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Social Belonging.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
First year GPA |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Socially disadvantaged;
|
3.39 |
3.33 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
First year GPA |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Full sample;
|
3.55 |
3.55 |
No |
-- | ||
|
First year GPA |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Socially advantaged;
|
3.60 |
3.62 |
No |
-- | ||
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Race Asian 25% Black 7% Native American 5% Other or unknown 11% White 52% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 11% Not Hispanic or Latino 89%
Study Details
Setting
The intervention was completed individually by students online in summer 2012 prior to their freshman year. All students were freshmen at a highly selective, private university.
Study sample
Among the total sample assigned to the four groups in Experiment 3, 52% were White, 25% were Asian, 7% were Black, and 5% were Pacific Islander, American Indian, or Alaskan Native. Eleven percent were Hispanic. This sample included 87% of students who were continuing-generation students and 13% of students who were first-generation students. The socially disadvantaged students that were the subject of this review included Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, and first-generation students. The breakdown by group was not available for this sample.
Intervention Group
The Social Belonging intervention was designed to overcome the myth that only disadvantaged students experience difficulty and question their belonging in college. The intervention shared stories showing that everyone worries early on, and that all students can overcome these challenges over time. The intervention was conducted online in each student’s home the summer before their freshman year in college. Students reviewed survey results from older students that indicated that initially most college students worry about whether they belong, and this is true regardless of race, gender, or other background characteristics—and that these worries decrease over time when students develop social relationships with other students in their school. After reviewing the survey results, students reviewed stories from upper-year students describing these same ideas. After reading these stories, students were asked to write two brief essays about: (1) why students often initially feel uncertain about whether they belong in college based on their own experiences, and (2) how these concerns about belonging are likely to decrease over time as students adjust to college life. Students were told that their essays might be shared with other future students. The entire intervention was expected to take approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Comparison Group
Students in the comparison group participated in a similar reading and writing exercise, but the materials focused on students’ adjustment to the physical rather than social environment in college, such as the weather and the campus.
Support for implementation
The university included the intervention materials in a set of online pre-orientation tasks required of all incoming first year students (such as reviewing how to register for courses, the university honor code, and health care resources on campus). One week prior to attending an on-campus orientation, the university emailed a link to this list of online tasks to all incoming first year students. The intervention materials appeared immediately after students read about the university's required vaccinations and were described as information about the "university mindset."
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).