When hindsight isn't twenty-twenty

Stereotype threat is the phenomenon by which members of negatively stereotyped groups underperform on a task in a manner that is consistent with and attributable to the negative stereotype (Steele, 1997). In schools, stereotype threat can negatively affect the performance of students who are negatively stereotyped in the domain of academics (for a review, see Stroessner, Good, & Webster, 2009). Recently, researchers have begun exploring whether the negative consequences of stereotype threat can be reduced by engaging members of negatively stereotyped groups in a self-affirmation intervention that focuses their attention on important personal values. The present randomized field experiment investigated the potential replicability of the effects of this intervention--which has yielded promising results in several randomized field experiments (e.g. Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006; Garcia & Cohen, in press)--among a sample of African American and Latino/a students, mostly from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. One hundred middle school students were randomly assigned to participate in either the values-affirmation intervention or a control activity. The first Cohort of students (N = 77) participated in the intervention five times during the 2008-09 school year; a second Cohort (N = 23) participated three times during the 2009-2010 school year. The potential effects of the intervention on three student outcomes were investigated: (1) Cumulative grade point averages (GPA), both overall and in the course in which the intervention was administered (History); (2) scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) English Language Arts and Mathematics tests; and (3) scores on a validated word completion task , which researchers have previously used to measure cognitive activation of racial stereotypes.

This study was unable to establish a link between the intervention and participants' GPA, or scores on the word completion task, nor conclusive inferences regarding the effect of the intervention on MCAS scores. These results emphasize the importance of continuing to study the intervention across different populations of students, school settings, and experimental conditions to investigate: (1) the contexts in which the intervention is efficacious; and (2) how to implement it most efficaciously. Implications for imparting knowledge from researchers to practitioners are also discussed.