Final Audience PDF

The Story Behind the Most Powerful Minds in History

Have you ever felt down about how smart you are? You looked around at all your peers and saw how they just excelled so easily, as if they were just born that way. You thought that no matter how hard you worked, you would never amount to be at the same level as they were. Well, believe it or not, many of those same peers think the same exact way you do.

The way that a student conceptualizes characteristics of others in comparison to themselves is an emerging topic of interest in the Journal of Education Psychology. In fact, on May 2nd, 2016, a study titled, “Even Einstein Struggled: Effects of Learning About Great Scientists’ Struggles on High School Students’ Motivation to Learn Science,” led by Xiaodong Lin-Siegler at Teachers College, Columbia University, centered solely on the student mindset.

Many people, especially students, have a fixed belief regarding those who can have a career in science. They imagine that a scientist is a picture-perfect image of someone who is born with an exceptional talent in science. A person who is motivated, hardworking, and completely focused. They think of someone who not only has an innate interest in the field of science, but also a curiosity in himself or herself. They envision the intelligent white male that is often displayed on textbook covers or magazines. A scientist to them is someone who has a powerful mind, a great work ethic, and a prevailing amount of clairvoyance.

However, even though students can easily list characteristics of a scientist, that does not mean they can possibly imagine themselves with the same attributes. When people are asked to visualize someone in the STEM field, they have a clear and distinct image in front of them, but when they try to see themselves in the STEM field, the image becomes blurry and distorted, as if it becomes hard to imagine themselves being successful. The most common excuse that deters students from the sciences is because they feel as though they are plainly not good at it, so they cannot pursue an occupation in science. They did not get the best grades in their science classes in early high school, or even early college, so there would be no way to have a career in it. Or, even that if they worked their hardest, they would just never do well in STEM.

The study previously mentioned regarded the average student as having a fixed mindset. Characteristics of a fixed mindset is the belief that a person’s skills are inborn and constant throughout their life. They steer themselves away from any new challenges, as they fear that their lack of an innate skill may be revealed. They decide that putting in extra effort is a form of weakness, as it is proof that they were not gifted enough to begin with. They deeply internalize all forms of critiques and act defensive in the face of any setback. To them, it is as if at birth, everyone got different ingredients to work with for the recipe for their potential, and some were just given more ingredients than others.

On the other hand, opposite to the fixed mindset, is the growth mindset. Those who have a growth mindset believe that with hard work, they can always improve their own skills. That challenges are just avenues that lead to success, and roadblocks are opportunities for them to master their way through the road of life. They thrive off of comments and others’ opinions, as it helps them better picture what they need to improve about themselves. Life to them is not predetermined by what is given to them, but about taking whatever seeds of knowledge they have, and nurturing them into becoming bountiful gardens of new opportunities.

Both mindsets are closely interconnected to the idea of attribution theory. Xiaodong defines attribution theory as “the way an individual selects one action over another is directly related to one’s confidence in being able to attain a successful outcome.” It is hard for a person with a fixed mindset to choose the action that pushes them forward in life, as they believe that actions of effort are useless, and thus have no motivation to persevere. In fact, it was found that despite the popularity of adolescents desiring jobs in STEM fields, only 10%-25% who start off in STEM majors actually graduate with a science degree. With this in mind, Xiaodong and his team’s goal for their study was to pave the way for students to confront their previously fixed beliefs, inspire them, and improve their academic performance.

The tactic the report used to combat the student’s previous belief was through storytelling. Stories with purpose have been used throughout history and are known to have a powerful impact on attitude, belief, behavior, perception, and emotion on the listener. This is especially true when it comes to stories concerning human struggle leading to eventual triumph. This is because the listener can relate better to this type of story, as they had most likely gone through a similar situation in their own lives, or they, at the very least, can empathize with the characters. On top of this, humans better process information when there is a specific action process of a key role model, as their brains can better imagine themselves following an action rather than arbitrary information.

The study consisted of about 402 9th and 10th graders from a set of diverse urban high schools. All students were told one of nine biographies of high achieving scientists of varying genders and degrees of fame (Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Michael Faraday). The researchers conducted a pre-story test, and post-story test after 6 weeks, concerning the student’s personal beliefs about intelligence, effort, attribution regarding failure, as well as goal orientation.

The study focused on three distinctive story types. One of the story types was about the intellectual struggle of the scientists, titled “Trying Over and Over Again Even When You Fail,” which unfolded the many trials and tribulations that the scientist had to overcome before their eventual success. The second story type was the life struggle, titled “Overcoming the Challenges in Your Life,” which revealed the personal problematic aspects of their lives, which included, but was not limited to, their family troubles, poverty, gender inequality, or even having to work against the Nazis. The final story type, the achievement story, titled “The Story of a Successful Scientist,” was used as the control, and described the scientists simply based on their textbook achievements.

After the entire report was conducted, the main findings of the study were that with the students that had heard the struggle story, grades and motivation were improved within the 6- week trial period (whereas some of those who were told the achievement story actually had a decrease in grades and motivation). The benefits were most pronounced in low performing students, as they were most prone to the fixed mindset. Seeing that a genius like Einstein was the poster child for struggle seemed to be genuinely inspiring for those who did not have too much hope in themselves due to their struggle. However, there were no significant changes in beliefs, even with the grade improvements, which indicates that behavior is more subject to change than belief. Thus, the key takeaway from this study is to (K)eep b(e)lieving (y)ourself.

Reference

Lin-Siegler X, Ahn JN, Chen J, Fang F-FA, Luna-Lucero M. Even Einstein struggled: Effects of learning about great scientists’ struggles on high school students’ motivation to learn science. 2016 [accessed 2019 Feb 28];108(3):314–328. https://www.apa.org/images/eduedu0000092_tcm7-197263.pdf