1. Stereotype Threat: Undermining the Persistence of Racial Minority Freshmen in the Sciences Mitchell J. Chang, Kevin Eagan, Monica Lin, Sylvia Hurtado UCLA AERA April 16, 2009

2. Problem  Roughly half of undergraduates who major in the sciences switch out of these fields, and very few non-science majors switch to science majors  24% of URM students complete a bachelor’s degree in science within 6 years of college entry compared to 40% of White students  U.S. science pipeline called “leakier than warped rubber tubing” and underrepresented minorities are “missing persons” in those fields

3. Undergraduate student persistence in science  An individual student’s own educational success is more than the sum of his or her personal will, aspiration, and traditional academic indicators such as test scores and high school grades;  One’s gender, racial, and socioeconomic background, for example, also help shape one’s opportunity for college success;  Educational experiences within institutions are not uniform but are directly affected by a student’s racial background and the structure of opportunity encountered.

4. Stereotype Threat (Steele & Aronson)  Two components Domain identification Negative racial experiences and negative stereotypes  Stereotype threat can lead to: Academic underperformance Dis-identification

5. From “Lab to Field”  “This theory would be the least bit interesting unless it was attempting to describe performance differences that occur in real-world (i.e., natural) settings” (Osborne).  Challenge: researcher cannot manipulate the degree of threat directly but must assess it indirectly by tapping into natural variation in real-world populations.  Those that have focused on “real-world” consequences in the context of higher education have done so through social surveys.

6. Data Source and Sample  2004 Freshman Survey  2005 Your First College Year (YFCY) survey  1,745 URM biomedical or behavioral science* major students at 123 institutions * (Biomedical and behavioral science majors include: general biology, biochemistry/biophysics, microbiology/bacterial biology, zoology, other biological science, chemistry, medicine/dentistry/veterinary medicine, pharmacy, and psychology)

7. Stereotype Threat Conditions  Domain Identification (alpha = 0.68): Importance of:  (1) obtaining recognition from my colleagues for contributions to my field;  (2) becoming an authority in my field;  (3) making a theoretical contribution to science;  (4) improving the health of minority communities; and (5) working to find a cure to a health problem.  Negative racial experiences (alpha = 0.72): Frequency that students  (1) felt insulted or threatened because of race/ethnicity;  (2) had tense, somewhat hostile race-related interactions;  (3) had guarded/cautious race-related interactions;  (4) have been singled out because of race/ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation; and  (5) have heard faculty express stereotypes about racial/ethnic groups in class.

8. Research Design  Variables Demographic characteristics Academic preparation Concern about financing college education Academic self-concept Institutional structural characteristics Institutional Selectivity  Analysis Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling (HGLM)

9. Results for Model 1 ( includes all background, institution, & ST conditions )  High domain identification: 3.99% more likely to persist than students with moderate domain identification  No main effect associated with students’ level of stigma-inducing experiences on persistence  Participation in pre-professional/departmental club (10.98% more likely to persist)  Institutional selectivity: 100-point increase reduced persistence probability by 3.81%

10. Results for Model 2 (includes ST Interaction Term)  Interaction term representing stereotype threat: significant and negative effect on science persistence  One-point increase in stereotype threat interaction resulted in a 5.67% reduction in their probability of persisting;

11. Stereotype Threat: Undermining the Persistence of Racial Minority Freshmen in the Sciences Figure 1 Interaction Effect of Domain Identification and Stigma-Inducing Experiences on Students’ Likelihood of Science Major Persistence

12. Conclusions  Findings support Steele’s claims that “stereotype threat affects only a subportion of the stereotyped group, and in the area of schooling, probably affects confident students more than unconfident ones”;  Varying effects of domain identification  Reduce chances that students will (1) experience racial insults & threats (2) be singled out because of race/ethnicity, & (3) have instructors who express stereotypes.

13. Resources & Project Staff Papers and reports are available for download from project website: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/nih Project e-mail: herinih@ucla.edu Faculty: Sylvia Hurtado, Co-Principal Investigator Mitchell Chang, Co-Principal Investigator Graduate Research Assistants: Kevin Eagan Lorelle Espinsoa Christopher Newman Administrative Staff: Aaron Pearl Jessica Sharkness Minh Tran Paolo Velasco