Essays on Role Models, Beliefs, and Aspirations of Secondary School Students

Abstract

Stereotypes about gender and ability can suppress female students’ aspirations, limit their academic performance relative to their true potential, and divert them from science fields regardless of their actual ability, leading to lower-paying jobs later. Role models have been shown to be a cost-effective way to counteract these. Further understanding on factors that influence the role model effectiveness is crucial for better designing and implementing these interventions. My first and second chapters contribute to this. In the first chapter, I study how role models with different success levels affect students’ academic performance and mental health. In a field experiment, I randomly assigned middle school students in China to see an interview with different types of role models during a weekly class meeting or participate in a non-academic class meeting in the same week. I find that students exposed to higher-achieving role models improved test scores by 0.07-0.18 s.d., whereas those exposed to moderately achieving role models experienced an average of 28.8% and 26.6% reduction in the likelihood of feeling depressed and stressed, respectively. Higher-achieving role models improve low-performing female students’ academic outcomes but negatively affect their mental health, as these female students invested more effort but found their improved performance still falling short of their elevated aspirations. This study highlights the negative impacts of role models on mental health as a cost for enhancing performance in an underperforming subgroup, emphasizing the need to consider mental health when implementing role model interventions. Role models challenge stereotypes and shape behaviors. Are these impacts simply driven by knowing role models’ real-life experiences? Can these effects be further enhanced by explicitly sharing anti-stereotyping views and practical strategies? In Chapter 2, I test this using a randomized controlled trial with 2719 middle school students in China. Treated classrooms were randomly assigned to see role models who discuss learning strategies, those who share anti-stereotyping perspectives, or those who combine both. I find that combining strategies and perspectives improves first-year students’ math scores by 0.07-0.10 s.d. Purely anti-stereotyping messages improve first-year girls’ academic outcomes but take longer to exert significant effects. Sharing only learning strategies does not raise academic outcomes and even increases mental health burdens. Second-year students did not derive any academic or psychological improvements from these treatments, suggesting the need to consider timing – introducing role models after students’ workloads and stress intensify can minimize potential benefits. Individuals tend to overestimate the stereotypes or conservativeness of people around them, leading to self-limiting behaviors. Do peer parents’ beliefs influence how students perceive their own parents? In Chapter 3, I investigate the impacts of peer parents’ gender-math stereotyping beliefs on academic performance and perceptions. Peer parents’ stereotyping beliefs negatively affect female students’ math scores of female students relative to males. These negative effects are significantly larger when stereotypes are held by parents of same-gender peers, causing female students to perceive math as more difficult and feel less confident about their future. However, these parent stereotypes of female peers do not change the students’ own parents’ stereotyping beliefs; instead, parents increase both time and monetary investments in their daughters. This paper highlights the importance of considering students’ perceptions of others when addressing gender-ability stereotypes in educational settings.