1. Productive Persistence: Tenacity + Good Strategies
A Practical Theory of Community College Success
David Yeager
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Fellow, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Faculty Research Associate, Population Research Center
Faculty Research Fellow, Charles A. Dana Center

2. Geoff Cohen, Stanford University
Jane Muhich
Director, Productive Persistence,
Faculty, Seattle Central
Lawrence Morales
Improvement Advisor,
Faculty, Seattle Central
Carol Dweck
Stanford University
Geoff Cohen, Stanford University
Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Columbia University

3. “Solutionitis:” The Search for the Perfect “Widget”
Wrap-around supports
Intrusive Advising
Career planning
Study Skills
Acceleration
Proper Placement
Navigating the college campus
Metacognitive monitoring of progress toward goals and of effectiveness of strategies
Invest in Faculty Development
Large numbers of students do not complete developmental math.
There has to be more to it than curricula and instruction.
But what do we call these “other” things?
Non-cognitives? Study Skills? Motivation? Grit?
And can we even do anything about them?
– or the tendency to do something—anything—to or for a kid to help them to succeed. We seem to jump to solutions. We say “oh, students need …. “[READ THEM ALL].
Now, it’s not that these things are all bad ideas. Some are quite good, others are essential. But what I’d like to propose is a different way forward.
Supplemental Instruction
Peer tutors
Sense of self-efficacy
Mandatory Orientation
Student Cohorts
Self Regulated Learning
Academic Counseling

4. Productive Persistence Tenacity + Good Strategies
Key Idea: Focus on the primary drivers as a way to organize the work.
We want students to not only work hard but work smart. We want our students to continue to put forth effort when faced with challenges

6. A student, upon completing a diagnostic assessment in a developmental math course:
“I am embarrassed by how stupid I am and suddenly feeling very discouraged … I can't even tell which fraction is bigger than another, or where they should fall on the number line. I feel like crying.”

7. Maybe I don’t have what it takes Maybe I don’t belong here
What’s the point?
Maybe I don’t have what it takes
Maybe I don’t belong here
That is, once you start to look at achievement gaps from the perspective of the student, not from the perspective of the education reformer, then a different picture can start to emerge.
Here’s a student who, at some level wants to learn and, to some reasonable extent, has the skills and the resources to learn. Even when instruction is excellent or at least adequate, he still may not learn if there are psychological barriers that prevent him from taking advantage of it. If he has doubts about his academic potential – wondering “maybe I don’t have what it takes.” If he gets critical feedback on an essay and wonders “maybe my teacher is biased.” Or if he looks around the college campus and wonders “maybe I don’t belong here.” Each of these can cap motivation. As such, even when the objective school environment, to some extent, affords opportunities to learn, a student may not achieve unless these barriers are removed. Said another way, sometimes students have it in them to learn and succeed—they have the skills and the motivation. What they need is to feel safe in the college environment--to know that it is safe to put forth their best efforts and trust that those efforts will be rewarded.

8. Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Learning strategies
Skills
Self-regulation
Mindsets
Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Productive Persistence
Mindsets about
social belonging
Mindsets about academic potential

9. Mindsets about academic potential

10. Who’s ever heard a student say: “I’m not smart at math
Who’s ever heard a student say: “I’m not smart at math?” (or writing, art, etc…)

11. “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."
Survey data from Carnegie Foundation Statway, N ~ 1,100

12. Which is a Better Way to Help Students Believe in Themselves?
Mindsets about academic potential
Which is a Better Way to Help Students Believe in Themselves?
Assure students that they are “smart” as they face challenges.
Tell students that the brain gets smarter when it overcomes challenges.

13. Mindsets about academic potential
Fixed mindset (intelligence is fixed)
“If I have to try hard, I’m clearly not smart.”
No point in trying if one is not a “natural”
Growth mindset (intelligence is malleable)
“Trying harder makes you smarter.”
Obstacles can be overcome through effort, help from others, and use of improved strategy
Note: It’s NOT just about “trying harder.”

15. Mindsets About Ability
Fixed mindset
Growth mindset
Goals
Look smart
Learn
Values effort, help & strategy? No
Yes
Response to challenge
Give up
Work harder and smarter
Changes in grades
Decrease
Increase

16. The Mindset Process Social and academic mindsets Higher achievement
Everyday behaviors 7

18. Neural structure/communication

20. Mindsets about academic potential
“Most people don’t know that when they practice and learn new things, parts of their brain change and get larger, a lot like the muscles do. This is true even for adults. So it’s not true that some people are stuck being “not smart” or “not math people.” You can improve your abilities a lot, as long as you practice and use good strategies.”

21. Course Dropout Students Who Withdrew From Developmental Math
Mindsets about academic potential
Course Dropout Students Who Withdrew From Developmental Math
Basic Arithmetic, Pre-Algebra, Elementary Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, Plane Geometry
Yeager et al. (in prep)
N = 288, Z = 2.87, p = .004

22. Mindsets about academic potential
“I feel very confident … because i dedicate my time to learn the concepts thoroughly. I feel that if one person put in the work to really understand the concepts they can pass. I was never a "math person" but coming into [this course] has completely made a 360 degree turn [sic] about how i feel about math. It is great!”
Yeager et al. (in prep)

23. What Can You Say to Promote a Growth Mindset in Your Class?

24. Encouragement

28. Utilizing MOOCs To Test Feedback Practices
Khan Academy online learning
N = 265,082 to date
Intervention delivered in units on fractions
Massively open online courses: large scale experimentation, monitoring of learning process as mindsets change

29. Conditions No Statements at top of page (Khan Academy default)
No Headers
No Statements at top of page (Khan Academy default)
General Encouragement
Some of these problems are hard. Just do your best.
If at first you don't succeed, try again.
Growth Mindset
Remember, the more you practice the smarter you become!
When you learn a new kind of math problem, you grow your math brain!
Control Statements
Intervention

30. Khan Academy
Growth Mindset led to 4-5% increase in learning rates even after mindset phrases were removed!!
Placebo: If at first you don’t succeed, try again.
Growth mindset: When you learn a new kind of math problem, you grow your math brain!
N ~ 265,000
Sohl-Dickstein, Paunesku, Haley, & Williams (in prep).

31. Mindsets about the value of schoolwork

32. Who’s ever heard a student say: “What’s the point of doing this?”

33. Mindsets about the value of schoolwork

34. Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
The “Boring Math Task”
Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Galla, B., Plummer, B., Meketon, D., Duckworth, A.L., D'Mello, S. (in preparation).

35. Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
The “Boring Math Task”
Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Galla, B., Plummer, B., Meketon, D., Duckworth, A.L., D'Mello, S. (in preparation).

36. A Beyond-the-Self Purpose for Learning
Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
A Beyond-the-Self Purpose for Learning
Yeager, Henderson, Paunesku, Walton, D’Mello, & Duckworth (under review), JPSP

37. Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Victor Frankl (1951)
“A [person] who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life” (p. 80). “He knows the ‘why’ for his existence and will be able to bear almost any ‘how’” (p. 80)

38. A Beyond-the-Self Purpose for Learning
Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
A Beyond-the-Self Purpose for Learning
“Sometimes the world is unjust.  And nearly everyone at some time in their lives sees this and thinks the world could be better in one way or another… what are some problems that you think about and that might relate to skills you are getting in college?”
Yeager, Henderson, Paunesku, Walton, D’Mello, & Duckworth (under review), JPSP

39. Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Yeager, Henderson, Paunesku, Walton, D’Mello, & Duckworth (under review), JPSP

40. Thinking “Beyond-the-Self” Helps Maintain Self-Control** **
N ~ 290

41. Longitudinal, Web-Based Experiment: Overall GPA in Community College
Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Longitudinal, Web-Based Experiment: Overall GPA in Community College

42. Growth Mindset, Purpose and GPA in Math in Community College
Mindsets about the value of schoolwork
Growth Mindset, Purpose and GPA in Math in Community College
N = 770; Ivy Tech and Santa Monica CC
Yeager, Paunesku, et al. (in prep)

43. Mindsets about
social belonging

44. Belonging Uncertainty (Walton & Cohen, 2007)
Mindsets about
social belonging
People may commonly question their belonging in new social and academic settings
Especially when they are targeted by stigma and negative stereotypes
This uncertainty ambiguates the meaning of negative social events
One effect negative stereotypes may have on targets is to create uncertainty about belonging in domains where those stereotypes apply.
Stereotypes may have this effect for a variety of reasons. People who are negatively stereotyped…
may risk encountering prejudice, both in overt forms, and in subtle, hard-to-detect forms, and as a result, anticipate rejection based on their group identity, as research by Geraldine Downey and others shows.
As research by Claude Steele and colleagues shows, people may suspect that others could view them through the lens of the stereotype, rather than seeing them as individuals.
As research by Jenny Crocker and colleagues on attributional ambiguity shows, they may mistrust the motives behind other people’s treatment of them, for example perceiving bias in critical feedback
And finally, people who are negatively stereotyped may simply find that their group is under-represented in domains where the stereotype applies.
One consequence of stereotype threat and these other factors may be to raise questions about how one is perceived and whether one fits in – to create a global uncertainty about belonging, about whether others will include one in quality social relationships in that setting.
As a result, the meaning of adverse events can be more ambiguous.

45. Imagine you were asked to write an essay about your hero
Imagine you were asked to write an essay about your hero. You stay up all night, do your best, and turn in what you think is a pretty decent draft. A week or so later, you get this: What do you think? How do you interpret it? What do you do? This talk is about the psychology of receiving critical feedback, and how this extremely common but psychologically rich interaction can profoundly shape a student’s engagement in school and contribute to the widening or closing of racial achievement gaps.

47. Global encouragement
“Good job”
Substantive feedback
“Give more detail”

48. “Wise feedback:”
I’m giving you these comments because I have high standards and I know that you can meet them.

49. “Placebo:”
I’m giving you these comments so you have feedback on your essay.

50. Percentage Resubmitting Essay (7th graders)
Yeager, Purdie-Vaughns, et al. (in press) JEP: General

51. Addressing Major Problems at Scale: Developmental Math

52. Time to Complete College Level Math Course:
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
100%
5.9%
15.1%
20.4%
Traditional Statistics
Note shortened time to degree and higher success rate, increases student options
Note pathway to calculus not impeded

53. New Mathematics Pathways
Two 1-year pathways for elementary algebra students 1
Through college-level statistics 2
“To-and-through” college-level quantitative reasoning

54. “Starting Strong” with Productive Persistence in the First Three Weeks

55. Statway Success

56. Time to Complete College Level Math Course:
Statway® vs. Traditional Statistics
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
100%
5.9%
15.1%
20.4%
Traditional Statistics
51%
100%
Note shortened time to degree and higher success rate, increases student options
Note pathway to calculus not impeded
Statway®

57. Productive Persistence Embedded in the Statway: Turning a Gatekeeper into a Gateway