Work in Progress: Do Growth Mindset Interventions Work? Observations from a Case Study in a Chemical Engineering Core Course
- Conference
- Location
-
Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
-
June 23, 2024
- Start Date
-
June 23, 2024
- End Date
-
July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
-
Chemical Engineering Division (ChED)
- Permanent URL
-
https://peer.asee.org/48352
Paper Authors
Nagma Zerin
The Johns Hopkins University
orcid.org/0000-0002-7876-8488
Dr. Nagma Zerin is a Lecturer in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChemBE) department at the Johns Hopkins University. She has a high interest in understanding the mindsets of undergraduate students and implementing inclusive classroom strategies.
Sakul Ratanalert
Columbia University
orcid.org/0000-0002-1766-807X
Sakul Ratanalert is a Senior Lecturer in Discipline in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University. He received his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University, and his MS in Chemical Engineering Practice and his PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT. His current research interests include developing engaging learning activities and building students' intuition and conceptual understanding.
Abstract
The belief that we can improve our skills through learning and effort corresponds to having a growth mindset, while the belief in the inherent nature of our skills aligns with a fixed mindset. As innovative design requires consistent effort and learning from failures, practicing a growth mindset can help undergraduate students in the chemical engineering program to become better designers in the long run. It can also aid in improving the retention of students in the major, especially those from marginalized backgrounds. With these goals in mind, we implemented growth mindset interventions in a core chemical engineering course in the undergraduate curriculum, which is offered twice in our institution. The control group (N=18) and the intervention group (N=17) consisted of students from the Fall semester and the Spring semester respectively. We performed quantitative analysis (chi-square test of independence) to study the impact of gender, under-represented minority (URM) background, and first-generation background on the students’ mindsets for both groups. We also collected qualitative responses from the students to strengthen our analysis. We previously reported a correlation between gender and mindset (p<0.05) about the chemical engineering major in the control group. Interestingly, we did not observe the same correlation in the intervention group. This suggested that the interventions were beneficial in reducing the gender gap related to the mindset about the major, although it would be important to verify the reproducibility of this observation with a larger sample size. The student responses in the qualitative data were mostly positive, indicating improved mindsets as well as better academic experiences. We are currently continuing this study with additional upgrades in our mindset interventions.
Zerin, N., & Ratanalert, S. (2024, June), Work in Progress: Do Growth Mindset Interventions Work? Observations from a Case Study in a Chemical Engineering Core Course Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48352
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015