Priming is one of the most common influences upon students, and possibly one of the least discussed. Priming is a psychological reality of life – we are all primed in advance of all the things we do with the words that we see and hear. From a business perspective, the concept is fairly straightforward – if an advertisement uses words like “thirsty’ and ‘thirst-quenching’ the viewer of the advertisement will be primed to think about a thirst-quenching beverage. This will stimulate their appetite for the beverage, and the ad will be effective.
In education, the same concept is not nearly so straightforward. Students must take tests; some tests like the SAT’s are very high stakes tests, and so this concept of priming becomes a critical factor in promoting success. Or failure.
In one study from decades ago, the psychologist Claude Steele asked 20 black college students at Stanford University to take an exam using questions from the GRE, the Graduate Record Examination. This study was conducted in an effort to help understand the achievement gap on standardized tests, and raises difficult sociological realities. The first time that the students completed a portion of the test, their scores were strong.
As the students approached the test at another sitting, Steele had them fill out the race and demographic information to start the test. Doing this seemed to raise a range of negative stereotypes associated with race and academic performance. The simple act of filling out the race bubble changed the overall scores and lowered them on average by 50%. That is simply a huge number, particularly when talking about something as important as the SAT.
Similarly, it has been shown that there is a difference between telling a student that they are smart, or that they do work hard. This affects the outcomes on tests in a very similar way. The point here is that cultural stereotypes and messages received from home, school and peers have a significant impact on testing. People are more likely to believe what they have been primed to believe.
Children are the most fluid creatures of all. They are constantly growing, and the effect of trying to place a label on what they are seems to have a stultifying effect. Students can do, should try, can make mistakes, and they will learn and grow from all these things. The language surrounding their efforts to do so must allow them to grow and see themselves in terms that do not slow them down with unnecessary stereotypes or characterizations.
How we speak to children can have a lasting impact on how they do academically.
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