Good, Aronson, & Harder, 2008
This field experiment explored stereotype threat and its
negation in high-level college math courses that
typically serve as gateway courses for careers in math
and science. Male and female students in the last course
of an advanced university calculus sequence were given a
practice test containing items similar to the GRE. All
students were told that the test was "aimed at measuring
your mathematical abilities" (stereotype threat) but
half of the students additionally were assured that
"this mathematics test has not shown any gender
differences in performance or mathematics ability"
(stereotype threat negation). Test performance was
higher for women than men in the stereotype threat
negation condition but was equivalent in the stereotype
threat condition. Assessment of course grades showed
that female and male students did not differ
significantly in the grades they received at the end of
the semester, but practice test scores overpredicted
final grades for women on the stereotype threat negation
condition. In other words, women who were told that
there was no test bias performed better on the practice
test than would have been predicted from their final
grades. These results provide a clear demonstration of
elimination of stereotype threat in a real-world
environment with individuals who are high achieving in
the domain in question. Moreover, the findings also show
that even tests described as diagnostic of ability need
not impose threat if assurances of test fairness can be
made.
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