Question

According to the hypothesis tested by elmore and oyserman (2011), what message was expected to improve boys' school performance?

Answer 1

According to the hypothesis tested by Elmore and Oyserman, communicating the idea that "when we (referring to the students' gender-identity) succeed, then I succeed" would improve boys' school performance. The researchers discovered that the beliefs held by boys with regard to studies and overall academic performance tended to denigrate boys as a whole. This belief system became self-fulfilling on standardized testing. The researchers chose a group of lower-income students and asked the students how they saw themselves in the future. They also provided them with information such as "Men generally earn more than women," graphs and statistics comparing the median income of high school dropouts with that of high school graduates and college graduates, etc. The idea was to allow the students to associate themselves with those described in the statistical data. The results showed that students saw more school-focused future identities when success is presented as a characteristic of their own gender.