SOCIAL BELONGING AND MIDDLE SCHOOL MATHEMATICS PERFORMANCE
Embargo until
2024-12-01
Date
2020-11-20
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Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
This dissertation explored the widely debated mathematics performance gap from a middle-class, middle-school context to determine if an affirmation writing intervention could bolster underrepresented minority students’ social belonging. The mixed-methods design included pretest and posttest surveys of academic and social belonging, affirmation writing exercises, and beginning of the year and year-end core course grade comparisons. Student voice from open-ended questions added a qualitative depth of understanding that is currently missing from the research landscape. The paired sample t-test revealed that the target treatment group belonging scores were not statistically significant for the pretest (M = 5.06, SD = 0.56) and the posttest condition (M = 5.11, SD = 0.62); t (5) = -.230, p = .827. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the change in belonging between the target treatment group (M = 0.06, SD = 0.60) and target control group (M = 0.39, SD = 0.07); t(6) = 0.754, p = .479. Finally, there was no significant effect of the affirmation writing on the students’ sense of academic and social belonging for the two conditions in the target group [F (1, 6) = 0.57, p = .479]. The qualitative analysis suggested that students value their friends and family, having a sense of humor, getting good grades, and participating in sports. Although it is difficult to generalize findings from this research due to the small sample size, correlational analyses supported the relationship between belonging and academic performance from the fall dose of affirmation writing. Lack of statistical significance may be attributed to the fact that the students who assented to the study had reasonably high pretest scores that may not have allowed for a considerable belonging score increase. Additionally, the interruption of the intervention due to the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected the research outcomes. However, the data suggest that students in the sample did not experience the typical drop in belonging scores over the academic year. Therefore, it is possible that the fall dose of affirmation writing buffered students’ sense of belonging during an unprecedented time.
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Keywords
mathematics, affirmation, sense of belonging