Hello, I have attached my article I based my critical essay on, I have attached the overview as to what we are expected to include in our essay and I have atttached the essay I wrote, but definitely it needs correcting, its worth 40% and I normally struggle with essay writing =( I don't want to lose a lot of grades. thank you
Even Einstein Struggled: Effects of Learning About Great Scientists’ Struggles on High School Students’ Motivation to Learn Science Xiaodong Lin-Siegler and Janet N. Ahn Teachers College, Columbia University Jondou Chen University of Washington Fu-Fen Anny Fang and Myra Luna-Lucero Teachers College, Columbia University Students’ beliefs that success in science depends on exceptional talent negatively impact their motivation to learn. For example, such beliefs have been shown to be a major factor steering students away from taking science and math courses in high school and college. In the present study, we tested a novel story-based instruction that models how scientists achieve through failures and struggles. We designed this instruction to challenge this belief, thereby improving science learning in classroom settings. A demographically diverse group of 402 9th and 10th grade students read 1 of 3 types of stories about eminent scientists that described how the scientists (a) struggled intellectually (e.g., made mistakes in investigating scientific problems, and overcame the mistakes through effort), (b) struggled in their personal life (e.g., suffered family poverty and lack of parental support but overcame it), or (c) made great discoveries (a control condition, similar to the instructional material that appears in many science textbooks, that did not describe any struggles). Results showed that participation in either of the struggle story conditions improved science learning postintervention, relative to that of students in the control condition. Additionally, the effect of our intervention was more pronounced for low-performing students. Moreover, far more students in either of the struggle story conditions felt connected to the stories and scientists than did students in the control condition. The use of struggle stories provides a promising and implementable instructional approach that can improve student motivation and academic performance in science and perhaps other subjects as well. Keywords: beliefs in exceptional scientific talents, scientists struggle story intervention, improving motivation in science learning We recently asked a set of 9th and 10th graders what kind of people can be scientists. The interviews were conducted in schools currently implementing a program designed to teach students about the value of effort and persistence for learning science. Almost all of the students responded in ways that would garner approval from teachers and researchers: “A scientist can be any person who has a spark of curiosity in himself or herself,” “Any- one who seems interested in the field of science,” and “People who can work hard.” These egalitarian responses, however, did not seem to translate into students’ views of themselves. For example, when asked whether they could become scientists, many students had trouble imagining their roles in that field, admitting, “Well, if I’m being honest, science is a field I have not thought much about because I am not good in it,” and “I won’t, because I don’t get the best grades in science class right now. Even if I work hard, I will not do well.” Our interviews suggest that even if students parrot the belief that everyone has the potential to be successful in science, these beliefs may not translate into beliefs about their own abilities in science. We view this disconnect between students’ general comments about scientists and their comments about themselves as problem- atic. A serious drawback of the belief in exceptional scientific This article was published Online First February 11, 2016. Xiaodong Lin-Siegler and Janet N. Ahn, Department of Human Devel- opment, Teachers College, Columbia University; Jondou Chen, Education, Equity and Society, College of Education, University of Washington; Fu-Fen Anny Fang, Department of Human Development, Teachers Col- lege, Columbia University; Myra Luna-Lucero, Communication, Media, & Learning Technologies Design, Teachers College, Columbia University. This study was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Re- search and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) Grant Award Number DRL-1247283 to Xiaodong Lin-Siegler and Carol Dweck. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the authors only and do not reflect the opinions of NSF. We appreciate the statistical analysis provided by Kristen Elmore, and special thanks to Eduardo Mata- moros and Mabelene Mak for helping with data collection. We are also grateful for the invaluable suggestions from our colleagues, John Black, Allan Collins, Carol Dweck, Alan Lesgold, and Robert Siegler, and our lab research assistants, Marianna Lamnina, Danfei Hu, and John Park. Special thanks for the generous support from New York City public schools and their principals and teachers: Miriam Nightingale, Dan Novak, Owusu Afriyie Osei, Jared Jax, Karalyne Sperling, and Mark Erienwein. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, Department of Human Development, 525 West 120th Street, Box 118, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. E-mail: xlin@tc.columbia.edu T hi s do cu m en t is co py ri gh te d by th e A m er ic an Ps yc ho lo gi ca l A ss oc ia tio n or on e of its al lie d pu bl is he rs . T hi s ar tic le is in te nd ed so le ly fo r th e pe rs on al us e of th e in di vi du al us er an d is no t to be di ss em in at ed br oa dl y. Journal of Educational Psychology © 2016 American Psychological Association 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, 314–328 0022-0663/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000092 314 mailto:xlin@tc.columbia.edu http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000092 talents is students who believe that high-level scientific perfor- mance requires exceptional inborn ability tend to give up before they give themselves a chance to develop their own talents (Ban- dura, 1977a, 1986; Dweck, 2000; H. Hong & Lin-Siegler, 2012; Murphy & Dweck, 2010; Pintrich, 2003). These beliefs are likely to undermine effort when it is most needed; when students struggle in science classes, they may misperceive their struggle as an indication that they are not good at science and will never succeed in it (Dweck, 2010, 2012; H. Hong & Lin-Siegler, 2012). The belief in the necessity of exceptional scientific talent for science learning hinders efforts to increase the number of students pursu- ing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers (National Academy of Science, 2005). The purpose of the current study was to confront students’ beliefs that scientific achievement reflects ability rather than effort by exposing students to stories of how accomplished scientists (Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Michael Faraday) struggled and overcame the challenges in their scientific endeavors. These stories were designed to show students that even the most accomplished scientists are relatable people who often fail and struggle through difficulty prior to their triumphs. To test the impact of hearing such stories, we conducted a randomized field experiment in which students read biographical stories about eminent scientists’ strug- gles to achieve, struggles to overcome personal difficulties, or control stories recounting the scientists’ achievement. The goal was to test whether hearing such stories would improve students’ motivation and academic performance in science classes. Theoretical Framework Motivation has been a topic of interest for educational psychol- ogists since the early 1930s. Researchers have defined motivation in many different ways but generally agree that the core of moti- vation describes why a person selects one action over another with great energization or frequency (Bargh, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2010; Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2012; McClelland, 1978; Touré- Tillery & Fishbach, 2014). For instance, a motivated student often persists in the face of challenging problems, intensely focuses on the task at hand, and often concerns oneself about ways to make things better without becoming distracted by other activities. Motivation is essential for successful learning and performance, but crucially related to motivation is how one attributes successes and failures. For simplicity, the discussions of the theoretical rationale behind our study will focus primarily on two areas: (a) attribution theories, or beliefs about the causes of one’s own and other people’s outcomes and behaviors; and (b) instructional meth- ods to effectively convey the message to students in schools that success comes by effort. Self-Attributions and Their Effect on Motivation The way an individual selects one action over another is directly related to one’s confidence in being able to attain a successful outcome. If people believe that they will be unsuccessful in ob- taining a certain outcome, they are less likely to engage in actions in pursuit of that outcome, and if they do, it is unlikely that the person will persist and invest 100% effort (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006). The basic premise of attribution theory is that people’s judgments of the causes of their own and other people’s success or failure have important motiva- tional effects (Bandura, 1986, 2005; Renninger, Bachrach, & Posey, 2008; Weiner, 1986, 1992, 2000). That is, people who credit their failures to insufficient effort will be more likely to undertake difficult tasks and persist in the face of failure. This is because they see that outcomes can be influenced by how much effort they invest. In contrast, those who ascribe their failures or deficiencies in learning and performance to uncontrollable factors such as innate intelligence (e.g., “Einstein was lucky because he was born smart”) will display low achievement strivings and give up readily when they encounter obstacles (Dweck, 2006; H. Hong & Lin-Siegler, 2012). Clearly, people decrease their motivation to learn when they feel that, regardless of what they do, very little change can happen. Multiple sources influence people’s attribution about their own and others’ success and failure. The source we are partic- ularly interested in for the present study is people’s implicit beliefs about ability and effort, which Dweck and colleagues (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007) refer to as “mind- set.” There are usually two types of mind-sets that have been shown to have a striking impact on people’s motivation and achievement, namely, fixed and growth mind-sets (Dweck, 2006). When setbacks occur, people with fixed mind-sets per- ceive themselves as unalterably incompetent at the task; as a result, they avoid challenging tasks and are reluctant to invest effort (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). These people also tend to adopt performance goals, in which people are more interested in positive judgment of their competence and avoid challenging problems that might lead to failure (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). In contrast, people with growth mind-sets perceive ability and learning outcomes as attributes that can be changed through increased effort (Dweck, 2009, 2010, 2012, which positively influences their motivation to learn (Bandura, 1977b, 1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Greeno, 2006; Grube, Mayton, & Ball-Rokeach, 1994; Hammer, 2007; Mischel, 2004; Walton, Paunesku, & Dweck, 2012). These people tend to adopt mastery goals, in which they try to understand what they are doing and master difficult tasks to increase their competence