Afiya Fredericks

Afiya Fredericks, Kimarie Engerman, Camille McKayle McKayle. (2021). Providing the Opportunity to Learn: Unpacking the Role of Mindsets and Leadership in Broadening Participation in STEM at HBCUs. American Journal of Applied Psychology, 10(5), 110-119.

Current racial disparities in STEM degree attainment threaten America’s ability to be globally competitive. As the need for a more diverse STEM workforce persists, faculty leadership at many Historically Black Universities and Colleges (HBCUs) continue to support, nurture and prepare the next generation of diverse scientists to meet the demands of the 21st century. However, messages of Black student intellectual inferiority are salient in society, perpetuated by widespread emphasis on the achievement gap and low representation in STEM. Believing that intelligence can be developed through effective effort, resources and support—growth mindset—has been found to support positive student outcomes and to mitigate the negative effects of stereotypes leading to increased achievement, particularly for Black students. To date, mindsets have not been examined through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the four frames of academic leadership. Therefore, this qualitative study examines the experiences of 13 students and 17 faculty members at 4 HBCUs and their perspectives on their STEM programs. The analysis of focus group data suggests that student fixed mindsets may deter students from persisting as STEM majors while faculty growth mindset and support, which fall within the human resources frame of leadership, can help to mitigate those effects. Implications for HBCU leaders are discussed.

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Catalán Molina, D., Porter, T., Oberle, C., Haghighat, M., Fredericks, A., Budd, K., … Trzesniewski, K. H. (2022). How to Measure Quality of Delivery: Focus on Teaching Practices That Help Students to Develop Proximal Outcomes. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 15(4), 898–923.

Abstract: Recent studies have suggested that quality of delivery matters to achieve better student outcomes in the context of school interventions. However, studies rarely measure quality of delivery and test its association with students’ outcomes, perhaps due to lack of clarity regarding how to measure it. Here, we offer recommendations on how to select or design measures of quality of delivery. These recommendations focus on identifying teaching practices that help students to develop proximal outcomes during the delivery of an intervention. Additionally, we illustrate an application of these recommendations to the study of quality of delivery in a cluster-randomized efficacy study of Brainology, a program that promotes students’ motivation and learning. We found that, although teachers fluctuated in their quality of delivery across lessons, students who received the intervention with higher quality of delivery on average increased more in targeted proximal outcomes (effort beliefs and learning goals) than students exposed to low quality. We discuss these results in terms of their implications for measuring quality of delivery, supporting teachers, and studying the conditions that make school interventions successful.

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Porter, T., Catalán Molina, D., Cimpian, A., Roberts, S., Fredericks, A., Blackwell, L. S., & Trzesniewski, K. (2022). Growth-Mindset Intervention Delivered by Teachers Boosts Achievement in Early Adolescence. Psychological Science, 33(7), 1086-1096.

School underachievement is a persistent problem in the United States. Direct-to-student, computer-delivered growth-mindset interventions have shown promise as a way to improve achievement for students at risk of failing in school; however, these interventions benefit only students who happen to be in classrooms that support growth-mindset beliefs. Here, we tested a teacher-delivered growth-mindset intervention for U.S. adolescents in Grades 6 and 7 that was designed to both impart growth-mindset beliefs and create a supportive classroom environment where those beliefs could flourish (N = 1,996 students, N = 50 teachers). The intervention improved the grades of struggling students in the target class by 0.27 standard deviations, or 2.81 grade percentage points. The effects were largest for students whose teachers endorsed fixed mindsets before the intervention. This large-scale, randomized controlled trial demonstrates that growth-mindset interventions can produce gains when delivered by teachers.

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