One of the two main backgrounds that disadvantaged students in STEM courses tend to have, potentially leading to an achievement gap compared to the majority students:

- underrepresented students (URM): students who come from a minority background and are surrounded by people who outnumber them and are from a different racial background
- there are far less African-American, Hispanic, and Native American students who continue with the STEM degree and career in comparison with their total demographic percentage in the United States

University of California, Berkeley

This paper looks at the problematic trend of students that come from underrepresented minorities (URM) or are a first-generation college student (FG) who tend to give up on courses of science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). It then goes on to explain not only the factors that lead to a lack of motivation in succeeding in these classes but potential interventions that could mitigate these problems, leading to success. The research study discussed in this article looks at how these interventions are used in a biology course with students of various backgrounds (minority, majority, first-generation or not, and combinations of both racial and social backgrounds) to see what the results are (in the form of class grades) from using the interventions to address lack of motivation.

Closing Gaps with A Utility-Value Intervention: Disentangling Race and Social Class

Closing Gaps with a Utility-Value Intervention- Minority Students

One of the two main backgrounds that disadvantaged students in STEM courses tend to have, potentially leading to an achievement gap compared to the majority students:

- first-generation students (FG): a student who is the first in their family to attend college or receive higher education, since neither of their parents had a 4-year college degree
- in contrast with continuing-generation students (CG), FG students are of a sizable minority in college but tend to quit college compared to CG students
- the URM and FG backgrounds for disadvantaged students tend to overlap, as students can be of both identities, which is what the research study addresses

Closing Gaps with a Utility-Value Intervention- First-Generation Students

The values affirmation intervention (VA) addresses a documented social psychology phenomenon that affects minority students. The problem of stereotype threat is the fear that someone of a minority background may live up to problematic stereotypes of that background, such as performing poorly in academics while coming from a racial background that is unfairly stereotyped as low-achieving. Values affirmation intervention counteracts that fear by having individuals reflect on and write out their personal values that allow them to focus on their individual selves over the fear of negatively representing their minority group.

Closing Gaps with a Utility-Value Intervention- Values Affirmation Intervention

In the biology course, students were separated into different groups based on their status (FG, URM, majority, CG) and were given either a UV intervention (what relevance the course material had to their life) or a control assignment (summarize course material). A VA intervention was also used (writing about personal values).

- usually, the majority students performed better than URM students, possibly because of a higher confidence based on past performance and encouragement
- the UV intervention helped improve course performance and grades for URM students compared to control students and especially for URM-FG students in the intervention group compared to the control group
- there was no effect on the UV intervention for solely FG students (who came from majority backgrounds)
- the VA intervention had no discernable effect

The UV intervention gave URM and URM-FG students motivation to engage with the course material by making it relevant to their goals, in contrast with FG-majority students who were worried about their identity and belonging in college to be concerned with the classes and how learning from them would affect their goals.

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