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Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course

In a world filled with big data, mathematical models, and statistics, the development of strong quantitative skills is becoming increasingly critical for modern biologists. Teachers in this field must understand how students acquire quantitative skills and explore barriers experienced by students wh...

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Autores principales: Flanagan, K. M., Einarson, J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589427/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28798209
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-08-0253
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author Flanagan, K. M.
Einarson, J.
author_facet Flanagan, K. M.
Einarson, J.
author_sort Flanagan, K. M.
collection PubMed
description In a world filled with big data, mathematical models, and statistics, the development of strong quantitative skills is becoming increasingly critical for modern biologists. Teachers in this field must understand how students acquire quantitative skills and explore barriers experienced by students when developing these skills. In this study, we examine the interrelationships among gender, grit, and math confidence for student performance on a pre–post quantitative skills assessment and overall performance in an undergraduate biology course. Here, we show that females significantly underperformed relative to males on a quantitative skills assessment at the start of term. However, females showed significantly higher gains over the semester, such that the gender gap in performance was nearly eliminated by the end of the semester. Math confidence plays an important role in the performance on both the pre and post quantitative skills assessments and overall performance in the course. The effect of grit on student performance, however, is mediated by a student’s math confidence; as math confidence increases, the positive effect of grit decreases. Consequently, the positive impact of a student’s grittiness is observed most strongly for those students with low math confidence. We also found grit to be positively associated with the midterm score and the final grade in the course. Given the relationships established in this study among gender, grit, and math confidence, we provide “instructor actions” from the literature that can be applied in the classroom to promote the development of quantitative skills in light of our findings.
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spelling pubmed-55894272017-09-14 Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course Flanagan, K. M. Einarson, J. CBE Life Sci Educ Article In a world filled with big data, mathematical models, and statistics, the development of strong quantitative skills is becoming increasingly critical for modern biologists. Teachers in this field must understand how students acquire quantitative skills and explore barriers experienced by students when developing these skills. In this study, we examine the interrelationships among gender, grit, and math confidence for student performance on a pre–post quantitative skills assessment and overall performance in an undergraduate biology course. Here, we show that females significantly underperformed relative to males on a quantitative skills assessment at the start of term. However, females showed significantly higher gains over the semester, such that the gender gap in performance was nearly eliminated by the end of the semester. Math confidence plays an important role in the performance on both the pre and post quantitative skills assessments and overall performance in the course. The effect of grit on student performance, however, is mediated by a student’s math confidence; as math confidence increases, the positive effect of grit decreases. Consequently, the positive impact of a student’s grittiness is observed most strongly for those students with low math confidence. We also found grit to be positively associated with the midterm score and the final grade in the course. Given the relationships established in this study among gender, grit, and math confidence, we provide “instructor actions” from the literature that can be applied in the classroom to promote the development of quantitative skills in light of our findings. American Society for Cell Biology 2017 /pmc/articles/PMC5589427/ /pubmed/28798209 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-08-0253 Text en © 2017 K. M. Flanagan and J. Einarson. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2017 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology.
spellingShingle Article
Flanagan, K. M.
Einarson, J.
Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course
title Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course
title_full Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course
title_fullStr Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course
title_full_unstemmed Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course
title_short Gender, Math Confidence, and Grit: Relationships with Quantitative Skills and Performance in an Undergraduate Biology Course
title_sort gender, math confidence, and grit: relationships with quantitative skills and performance in an undergraduate biology course
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589427/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28798209
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-08-0253
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