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Background <p>Students who believe intelligence is malleable rather than fixed – who hold a growth mindset – demonstrate increased motivation, resilience, and academic success. However, evidence for the effectiveness of mindset interventions in higher education is mixed, and most studies focus on introductory STEM courses and performance outcomes such as grades. Little is known about mindset effects in upper-level, research-intensive courses where students develop transferable scientific process skills critical for the STEM workforce. Engagement in authentic research practices is cognitively and emotionally demanding, and the impact of a growth mindset at this stage of the STEM pipeline remains unclear.</p> Results <p>We conducted a retrospective analysis of a simple, scalable growth mindset intervention embedded in research article coursework in an upper-level neuroscience course. The intervention consisted of a repeated reflective prompt encouraging students to interpret struggle as a normal, productive part of learning. Outcomes included students’ perceptions of research-related skill development, scientific self-efficacy, research community belonging, qualitative course feedback, and exam-based measures of figure analysis. Underrepresented minority (URM) and first-generation (FG) students in the intervention group showed significantly greater gains in research community belonging than control peers. FG students also reported greater gains in selected research-related skills, including scholarly writing and presenting research. No significant differences were observed in direct exam-based performance or overall self-efficacy.</p> Conclusions <p>A brief growth mindset reflection integrated into authentic research coursework was associated with increased research community belonging among historically marginalized students in an advanced STEM context. While limited by its retrospective design and reliance primarily on self-report measures, this study extends mindset intervention research beyond introductory courses and performance metrics. It also provides a simple approach to enhance integration of research into undergraduate STEM education. Finally, our findings also suggest that belonging may be an important mechanism through which mindset-supportive practices promote persistence, particularly during research skill development. These results provide a foundation for prospective and longitudinal studies of mindset interventions aimed at supporting equity and persistence in STEM.</p>

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A simple, scalable growth mindset intervention increases students’ sense of research community belonging in underrepresented minority and first generation undergraduates

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月30日

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  • Isabel Myers-Miller,
  • William Adair,
  • Bryant L. Hutson,
  • Patrick R. Harrison,
  • Jade Jones,
  • Sabrina D. Robertson

摘要

Background

Students who believe intelligence is malleable rather than fixed – who hold a growth mindset – demonstrate increased motivation, resilience, and academic success. However, evidence for the effectiveness of mindset interventions in higher education is mixed, and most studies focus on introductory STEM courses and performance outcomes such as grades. Little is known about mindset effects in upper-level, research-intensive courses where students develop transferable scientific process skills critical for the STEM workforce. Engagement in authentic research practices is cognitively and emotionally demanding, and the impact of a growth mindset at this stage of the STEM pipeline remains unclear.

Results

We conducted a retrospective analysis of a simple, scalable growth mindset intervention embedded in research article coursework in an upper-level neuroscience course. The intervention consisted of a repeated reflective prompt encouraging students to interpret struggle as a normal, productive part of learning. Outcomes included students’ perceptions of research-related skill development, scientific self-efficacy, research community belonging, qualitative course feedback, and exam-based measures of figure analysis. Underrepresented minority (URM) and first-generation (FG) students in the intervention group showed significantly greater gains in research community belonging than control peers. FG students also reported greater gains in selected research-related skills, including scholarly writing and presenting research. No significant differences were observed in direct exam-based performance or overall self-efficacy.

Conclusions

A brief growth mindset reflection integrated into authentic research coursework was associated with increased research community belonging among historically marginalized students in an advanced STEM context. While limited by its retrospective design and reliance primarily on self-report measures, this study extends mindset intervention research beyond introductory courses and performance metrics. It also provides a simple approach to enhance integration of research into undergraduate STEM education. Finally, our findings also suggest that belonging may be an important mechanism through which mindset-supportive practices promote persistence, particularly during research skill development. These results provide a foundation for prospective and longitudinal studies of mindset interventions aimed at supporting equity and persistence in STEM.