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Scientific Method / Science & Exploration

Self-affirming essay boosts coeds’ physics skills

Want an effective way to eliminate the gender gap in a physics class? Try an …

For many years, there has been a persistent achievement gap between the performance of males and females in math and the sciences. It has become increasingly apparent, however, that the problem is cultural. The math gap seems to vanish in countries with higher degrees of gender equality, while females exposed to the stereotypical expectation that they'd do worse in a subject tended to live down to these low expectations. These findings, however, don't provide clear guidance as to how to address the problem: if females have already been exposed to these stereotypes, how do you get them to ignore them and perform up to their abilities? The answer, it appears, may be as simple as a short essay.


The authors suspected that stereotypes might account for the remaining differences. "The fear of being devalued based on a group identity, such as becoming aware that one could be seen in light of a negative stereotype about one’s group, has been shown to undermine performance on difficult tests," they explain. "For example, women’s performance on difficult math and science tests can suffer insofar as they worry that their poor performance could be seen to confirm a negative gender stereotype."

Since the problem wasn't physics-based, the solution wasn't either. Instead, it focused on the worries about poor performance by taking an approach focused on self-affirmation. "When they affirm their core values in a threatening environment," the researchers suggest, "people reestablish a perception of personal integrity and worth, which in turn can provide them with the internal resources needed for coping effectively."

The test took place in a class where the efforts to equalize background and preparation for the course. Students, both male and female, were divided into experimental and control groups. In both groups, the students were given a list of things they potentially valued (ie, relationships with family and friends). The experimental group was asked to choose something they actually valued, and write an essay describing its importance, which served to affirm their own values. The control group picked something they didn't care about, and wrote about why they thought someone else might value that.

There were only two essays over the course of an entire semester, and neither of them had anything to do with the course material. Yet the results on the physics exams were pretty significant. The exam scores, which exhibited a significant gender gap in the control group, largely vanished. Women came in slightly behind the men, but the difference was not statistically significant. Men's test scores were largely unaffected. In terms of grades, the difference largely occurred as a large chunk of the women who had been receiving Cs moved up to the B category.

But the improvements weren't limited to performing well in the class' exams. The researchers also gave the students a standardized exam of general physics knowledge (the FMCE). Here, the women's performance in the experimental group was actually slightly higher than that of the men, while a large gender gap existed in the control group. This indicates a generally improved understanding of physics. After controlling for background and pre-course FMCE scores, the authors estimate that the affirmation exercise wiped out over half of the residual gender gap.

In past studies, an affirmation task has been found to work at different ages and with underachieving minority groups. In addition, the task can be completely unrelated to the topic at hand, and the authors suggest that it could probably be widely deployed in different educational contexts.

Science, 2010. DOI: 10.1126/science.1195996  (About DOIs).

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