See Beyond – July 2019

July/August 2019 35

Dweck” presents the concept that people “with
a fixed mindset tend to think that if you have to
work hard at something, you’re not good at it,”
but if “you have a growth mindset, you’re not
fearful about your abilities all the time; setbacks
promote challenge-seeking and greater learning.”
I can’t imagine any teacher believing only the few
who naturally absorb a complicat-
ed skill can be considered “good
at it.” I’m sure we have all seen
students work hard, thrive, and
sometimes surprise the heck out
of us. I also doubt many growth
minded people actually see set-
backs as delightful opportunities.
Perhaps, they would recognize the
benefit in retrospect, but in the
moment, people aren’t likely to
exclaims, “Oh goodie! I get to start over!”

Sparks’ article references an interesting study by
Elizabeth A. Canning et al. titled “STEM Faculty
Who Believe Ability Is Fixed Have Larger Racial
Achievement Gaps and Inspire Less Student Mo-
tivation in Their Classes,” which focuses on how
instructor beliefs impact the success of under-rep-
resented racial/ethnic minority (URM) undergrad-
uate STEM students.

They divided 150 professors according to their
self-declared mindset and then logged data for

two years, regarding 15,000 students. They found

no predictive pattern regarding which professors

would be more likely to embrace one or the other

mentality. Neither mindset showed up more in

any ethnic, age, or gender group, or for instructors

with more or less teaching experience. Further-

more, they found that “fixed mindset beliefs were

equally bad for URM students when

they were endorsed by White or

URM professors,” so same-race pro-

fessor/student experiences did not

impact data differently. In general,

the study shows that “all students

performed more poorly in STEM

courses taught by faculty who en-

dorsed more fixed (versus growth)

mindset beliefs” but also that “the

racial achievement gap was nearly

twice as large” in those classes. So most everyone

suffers to some extent and minority students suffer

more when the instructor believes in only certain

students.

It would take a different study to examine how

a professor’s lower expectations for minority (or

female) students in STEM impact their interac-

tion with these students and to what extent the

URM students feel an undercurrent (or worse)

of discouragement. I am reminded of Ysabella

Atehortua’s article “Coffee Blood” in the January

2018 See Beyond Magazine. Ysabella wrote about

It’s good to acknowledge

that some people have a

greater knack for certain

subjects. But that does

not mean that those

not so naturally blessed

cannot make the leap.