However, this effect was counteracted by the values-affirmation task.
Undergraduates performed a self-regulation depletion task and a values-affirmation task or their control equivalents in a 2 × 2 design (N = 80) and viewed a balcony height from above.
Our research question was "can a brief self-affirmation task reduce ethnic differences in attainment in medical school examinations?".
The self-affirmation task was theorised to bolster students' self-esteem and self-worth, thus protecting black students against stereotype threat and improving their grades.
This study addresses this deficiency and specifically investigates the gender achievement gap across introductory science courses and tests the efficacy of a values-affirmation task in improving student performance.
Cohen et al.'s finding that a brief self-affirmation task narrowed the ethnic academic achievement gap was replicated on the written assessment but against expectations, this was due to reduced performance in the W group.
Values-affirmation tasks have recently received a great deal of attention (e.g., Cohen et al., 2006; Miyake et al., 2010) for their ability to reduce or eliminate stereotype threat.
We also collected these data from Fall 2011, the same semester in which the values-affirmation writing task was implemented.
Data analysis revealed no achievement gap, little stereotype threat endorsement, and no impact of the values-affirmation writing task on performance.
This study investigated the performance of women and men across introductory science courses, stereotype threat endorsement, and the utility of a values-affirmation writing task in reducing achievement gaps.
In our study, analysis of final grades and normalized learning gains on content-specific concept inventories reveals no achievement gap in the courses sampled, little stereotype threat endorsement, and no impact of the values-affirmation writing task on student performance.
