Reducing Inequality in Academic Success for Incoming College Students: A Randomized Trial of Growth Mindset and Belonging Interventions
Open accessAbstract
Light-touch social psychological interventions have gained considerable attention for their potential to improve academic outcomes for underrepresented and/or disadvantaged students in postsecondary education. While findings from previous interventions have demonstrated positive effects for racial and ethnic minority and first-generation students in small samples, few interventions have been implemented at a larger scale with more heterogeneous student populations. To address this research gap, 7,686 students, representing more than 90% of incoming first-year students at a large Midwestern public university, were randomly assigned to an online growth mindset intervention, social belonging intervention, or a comparison group. Results suggest that after the fall semester, the growth mindset intervention significantly improved grade point averages for Latino/a students by about .40 points. This represents a 72% reduction in the GPA gap between White and Latino/a students. Further, this effect was replicated for both spring semester GPA and cumulative GPA. These findings indicate that light-touch interventions may be a minimally invasive approach to improving academic outcomes for underrepresented students. Our findings also highlight the complexity of implementing customized belonging interventions in heterogeneous contexts.
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There is somewhat mixed evidence that growth mindset interventions can help close educational outcome gaps by disproportionately improving outcomes for groups of students with historically relatively low levels of academic performance, in particular low-SES students.
“Although the intervention is primarily targeted at individuals rather than groups, there is (somewhat mixed) evidence that it can help to close educational outcome gaps by disproportionately improving outcomes for groups of students with historically relatively low levels of academic performance”
From Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions (2021) · cites this paper as Broda et al., 2018
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- Authors
- Broda, M., Yun, J., Schneider, B., Yeager, D. S., Walton, G. M., & Diemer, M.
- Affiliations
- Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
- Michigan State University (US)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Corresponding author
- Broda, Michael
- Venue
- Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-04-09
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 317-338
- ISSN
- 1934-5739 (ISSN-L)
- 1934-5747
- PMC
- PMC10798796
- OpenAlex
- W2793065899
- Cited by
- 184
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 6
- FWCI
- 60.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Career Development and Diversity
- Keywords
- growth mindset intervention, social belonging, academic performance, first-generation college students, Hispanic students, racial and ethnic minority students, grade point average, underrepresented students, postsecondary education, online intervention
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