Bioscience students’ internalized mindsets predict grades and reveal gender inequities in physics courses

Students’ motivational beliefs, such as disciplinary intelligence mindsets, can influence their physics performance and persistence. Intelligence mindset beliefs have long been argued to fall along of continuum between fixed and growth mindsets. Those with fixed physics mindsets believe that ability in physics is innate and unchangable, while those with growth mindset believe that ability in physics can be developed with effort. More recent research with physical science and engineering majors suggests these are somewhat separable beliefs, with some students believing aspects of both fixed and growth mindsets, and that students can hold different beliefs about typical other students versus beliefs about themselves (e.g., others could improve through effort but they themselves could not). In this study, 419 students in physics 1 for students pursuing bioscience majors took pre- and post-physics mindset surveys. We investigated whether the physics mindset views of students pursuing bioscience or health-related majors were separable into more nuanced dimensions, if the means and distribution of these views varied by gender or sex and over time, and if any of these views predicted course grade. Replicating prior findings with physical science and engineering majors, we found that intelligence mindsets can be divided into four separable but correlated constructs: my ability, my growth, others’ ability, and others’ growth. Further, in this bioscience or health-related majors group, the “ability” beliefs grew stronger and the “growth” beliefs became weaker over time. These shifts were particularly strong for women. The changes in beliefs were also stronger for “my” beliefs than “others” beliefs for both men and women Unfortunately, my ability and my growth scores were also the strongest predictors of course grades above and beyond academic preparation differences as assessed by high school GPA and SAT/ACT math scores. These findings have implications for eliminating classroom inequities, such as through the development of new mindset interventions.

Figure 1

Percentages of students who reported low ($<2.5$), medium (2.5–3.5), or high ($\ge 3.5$) on a 4-point Likert scale, by gender. (a) Presurvey distributions; (b) postsurvey distributions. If any category contains $\le 5\%$ of students, the percent is not labeled.

Figure 2

Unstandardized regression coefficients predicting course grade, controlling for gender, high school GPA, and SAT or ACT math scores. Error bars represent standard error. On a 4-point Likert scale, a medium score is 2.5–3.5, and a high score is $\ge 3.5$. Statistically significant regression coefficients are in bold. Others’ growth is excluded because it did not predict course grade.