Improving Judgements of Performance Among Black Engineering Students Highly Susceptible to Stereotype Threat: An Intervention

Abstract

Stereotype threat (ST) is implicated as a contributory factor to attrition in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) fi elds. One of the mechanisms by which ST degrades performance is by impairing metacognitive monitoring (Schmader et al. 2008), which is positively related to learning and performance (Hadwin et al., 2017; Winne & Hadwin, 1998, 2008). Several interventions to improve metacognition exist, but to our knowledge, none have evaluated their eff ectiveness in improving performance outcomes among ST susceptible students who are more likely to suff er situational defi cits in metacognitive processing under threat. The present investigation fi lls this gap in the literature through a brief intervention to improve performance judgments. 25 Black Engineering students participated in a four-week intervention to improve judgments of learning. Results showed that the intervention improved student calibration among Black engineering students susceptible to race-related ST and attenuated the negative relationship between calibration bias and performance. Specifi cally, study participants underestimated their performance, which was negatively and signifi cantly associated with performance at the onset of the study. However, calibration bias diminished signifi cantly over the intervention and subsequently had no impact on performance at four and six weeks (two weeks post-intervention)