1. Productive Persistence
Motivating and Engaging All Students
David Scott Yeager
In collaboration with:
Jane Muhich, Nicole Gray, Lawrence Morales, and Roberta Brown

2. Fixed Mindset: “Being a 'math person' or not is something about you that you really can't change. Some people are good at math and other people aren't."

3. Productive Persistence: Tenacity + Good Strategies

4. Productive Persistence: Scope of Work
Practical
Theory
Practical
Measures
Improvable
Activities / Materials
Centered on a problem of practice
Co-developed with practitioners and students
Tested with academic experts
Brief and practical
Face-valid for practitioners
Recognizable to researchers
Designed to inform improvements
Initial set of activities
Systems for collecting data
Strategies for improvement
Tests that inform practice and academic theories

5. Creating a Practical Theory and Measures of Productive Persistence
Math Faculty:
Surveys of math faculty
Statway summer institute
Reviews of the literature, emphasizing articles authored by:
Bandura; Beilock; Cohen; Duckworth; Elliot; Hulleman; Dweck; MDRC; Oyserman; Vansteenkiste; Walton; Zimmerman
Interviews with students:
Students attending Foothill college.
Arleen Arnsparger, from the CCCSE.
Tests of the model:
Uri Treisman
Arleen Arnsparger,
Lawrence Morales,
Jane Muhich
Rose Asera
Mary Ann Firpo
Coaching:
Lindsay Martin, IHI 

6. Development Procedure
90-day cycle to create a list of all potential drivers to measure (result: 182 drivers)
Reduce, using theory and interviews (result: 10 secondary drivers)
Collect every measure of each of the drivers (result: 828 survey items)
Reduce and re-write, using best-practices survey design (result: 26 items, median response 3 min)
Pilot: cognitive pretests and with respondents

7. Primary Drivers of the Problem Secondary Drivers
(things that keep us from meeting the aim)
Secondary Drivers
Losing students at transitions
Need a shortened, pre-enrolled, year-long mathematics pathway
[Not measured]
Course content is not seen as interesting / relevant
Course material not seen as interesting or useful
Students lack long-term goals
Students lack intrinsic & freely-chosen reasons for learning
Students need skills and habits required for college success
Students lack “the basics” of how to be a college student
Successfully Completing Developmental Math
Measured in Extended Background Survey
Students have math anxiety
Students don’t see themselves as math learners
Students do not react well to academic setbacks
(e.g., “I’m just not good at math; teacher is biased; I got lucky”)
Students are aware of negative academic stereotypes
Students have weak ties to peers, faculty and course of study
Few social ties to faculty
Few social ties to peers
Some faculty lack skills/beliefs to promote engagement
Faculty’s mindsets about student’s potential
[Not measured]
Faculty’s beliefs about their role
Faculty’s engagement skills

8. Primary Drivers of the Problem Secondary Drivers
(things that keep us from meeting the aim)
Secondary Drivers
Survey Pilot
Independent Effects
Course content is not seen as interesting / relevant
-.32 SD
Course material not seen as interesting or useful
Students lack long-term goals
-.64 SD
Students lack intrinsic & freely-chosen reasons for learning
n.s.
Students need skills and habits required for college success
Students lack “the basics” of how to be a college student
n.s.
Math Performance
Students have math anxiety
-.65 SD
Students don’t see themselves as math learners
Students do not react well to academic setbacks
(e.g., “I’m just not good at math; teacher is biased; I got lucky”)
-1.16 SD
Students are aware of negative academic stereotypes
-.68 SD
35% of the variance accounted for
Students have weak ties to peers, faculty and course of study
n.s.
Few social ties to faculty
Few social ties to peers
n.s.

9. Primary Drivers of the Problem Secondary Drivers
(things that keep us from meeting the aim)
Secondary Drivers
Survey Pilot
Independent Effects
Course content is not seen as interesting / relevant
-15%
Course material not seen as interesting or useful
-7%
Students lack long-term goals
Students lack intrinsic & freely-chosen reasons for learning
-5%
Students need skills and habits required for college success
Students lack “the basics” of how to be a college student
-23%
Math
Grades
Students have math anxiety
-15%
Students don’t see themselves as math learners
Students do not react well to academic setbacks
(e.g., “I’m just not good at math; teacher is biased; I got lucky”)
-5%
-10%
Students are aware of negative academic stereotypes
41% of the variance accounted for
Students have weak ties to peers, faculty and course of study
n.s.
Few social ties to faculty
Few social ties to peers
n.s.

10. “Starting Strong:” A Focus on the First 3-4 Weeks

11. “Starter Package” Elements
Students’ Mindsets:
Growth Mindset + Values Affirmation writing activity
Setting the stage for productive struggle
Why study statistics?/Why study mathematics?
Social Connections
Contract activity
Group work (already completed)
“College knowledge”
Self-regulated learning
Student mindsets undermine motivation
Few or no connections
Expectations
Students’ limited “college knowledge”

12. Student mindsets undermine motivation
Miyake et al., Science, College Physics *

13. Mindsets: Co-Development and Pilot
Student mindsets undermine motivation
Mindsets: Co-Development and Pilot

14. Student mindsets undermine motivation

15. Student mindsets undermine motivation
Valencia College, Beginning Algebra *

16. Student mindsets undermine motivation
Interviews With Treatment Group: “What did you learn from the exercise?”
“As soon as I leave class, I go to the lab. When I leave the lab I go home and do more work. Even in the car, I am studying. Just doing work, doing work, doing work. All day long I am studying … and that was helping me fail my tests. After I read that article it clicked for me. I changed my study habits. Instead of just doing work throughout all my other activities, I started studying for shorter periods of time. And actually studying, not just working the same problems over again. I tried that for the test and I did so much better!”

17. Improvement Plan Improvement of existing starter package elements
Faculty 2-minute surveys
Student 2-minute surveys
MyStatway behaviors
Development of additional elements
Piloting this fall in QW colleges and other colleges
Alpha Labs: Research into new ideas
Student surveys
MyStatway student performance