Abstract
Concern about graduation rates in higher education has led universities to offer courses that help students develop success skills. Scientist Life Skills, a new course for freshman at Florida A&M University, focuses on helping students matriculate into majors via development of growth mindset, grit, and critical thinking. Here, we assessed the outcomes of this course and explored the associations between building life skills and student success. A series of mindset, grit, and critical-thinking assessment measures were used to collect data before and after the course. Our results showed that the new course achieved its intended goals of providing STEM students with a set of tools that help them seamlessly transition into the university and successfully matriculate through their majors. Specifically, the course design significantly moved students toward a growth-mindset, increased their critical thinking, and their second-semester grade point averages (GPAs). This model life skills course can be adopted in non-STEM areas as well.
Highlights
Improving graduation rates, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, is increasingly important nationwide
The current study was conducted with a cohort of first-year students at Florida A&M University (FAMU) who enrolled in the College of Science and Technology’s Scientist Life Skills course during the Fall 2019 semester (Table S1)
Our findings support the hypothesis that the college success course
Summary
In science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, is increasingly important nationwide. Over the past several years, there has been growing focus on college success courses to help students develop life skills such as growth mindset, grit, critical thinking, and the ability to work collaboratively. Growth mindset refers to the students’ belief in improving their own academic success with a combination of effective study strategies and effort. Blackwell et al [4] showed that the motivational framework of growth mindset helped increase student performance in mathematics. Yeager and Dweck [5] showed that growth mindset strategies were beneficial to students who faced adversity while navigating their educational programs. Yeager et al [6] concluded that online growth mindset intervention improved mathematics course enrollment and the grades of low-achieving learners
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