Barrier 1: Low\nexpectations leading to lower confidence. <\/em><\/strong>There can be widely-held expectations across\nsociety that certain types of student will do poorly at school. This can either\nbe across the whole curriculum (e.g. \u201cwhite working-class boys just don\u2019t do\nwell at school\u201d) or in certain subjects (e.g. \u201cgirls aren\u2019t cut out for maths\u201d).\nUnsurprisingly, these expectations may cause students to doubt their ability to\nthrive academically. The result can be a vicious circle of lower confidence\nleading to lower performance and further reduced expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barrier 2: Lack of\nrole models leading to a lower value placed on school. <\/em><\/strong>Now consider students who look\naround them and don\u2019t see people like\nthem<\/em> \u2013 family members, members of their community \u2013 doing well at school\nand progressing into high-status universities or occupations. For example, when\nonly 6% of doctors describe themselves as being from a working-class background,\nstudents from low-income families may not see the medical profession as a\nrealistic life path for them. Such a lack of role models with whom they can\nidentify may lead them to question the value of doing well at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barrier 3: Mismatch in\nvalues leading to a lower sense of belonging. <\/em><\/strong>Finally, research suggests that people from\ndifferent national, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds place different\nemphasis on independent versus interdependent values. Is it more important to\nflourish as an individual, or to play your part in a tightly-knit family or\ncommunity group? If school emphasises one of these sets of values, then students\nfrom backgrounds that emphasise the other set may feel a distinct lack of ease.\nThis sort of mismatch can lead students to feel that they don\u2019t really belong\nin school, with predictable consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Researchers\nhave tested a wide range of low-cost, simple-to-implement interventions aimed\nat reducing these types of barriers to success, and many have resulted in surprisingly\nlarge improvements across a range of outcomes. For example, I recently trialed a\nvery low-cost intervention aimed at increasing the confidence of a group of\nunderperforming Year 7-9 students. The intervention reduced the stress they\nreported experiencing and raised their academic performance; as a result, they\nclosed well over half of the pre-existing gap in maths scores with their peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, how might\nany particular school benefit from all this? Well, I\u2019m currently testing a\nthree-stage process: diagnosis, design and trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Diagnosis.<\/em><\/strong> The first stage is to ask the\nschool\u2019s students, teachers and parents about their experiences through a\nseries of surveys and focus groups. This will help unpack the social and\ncultural factors that the students are experiencing and build a rich picture of\nany psychological barriers that might be suppressing outcomes for some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Design.<\/em><\/strong> Based on this diagnosis, I aim to identify\nan environmental factor or psychological barrier that seems to be most suppressing\noutcomes for some groups of students, and design a simple but potentially\nhigh-impact intervention aimed at reducing it. This is likely to be based on a proven\nintervention from prior research, tailored for the specific social and cultural\ncontext of the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Trial.<\/em><\/strong> Finally, the school will test the\nintervention in a randomised controlled trial across a school year. Depending\non the results, the intervention could potentially become embedded in the\nschool\u2019s curriculum or working practices in subsequent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My work is,\nof course, just the start. While a good deal of evidence has already been accumulated,\nmost has been in the US and it\u2019s not clear how it will translate to the\ndifferent contexts of different schools in England. We will need an extensive\nprogramme of research in order to fully understand in what contexts these types\nof intervention are effective across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is an exciting time for\nresearch that has the potential to make a substantial difference to the lives\nof many young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ian Hadden is a PhD student under the supervision of\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Dr Matt Easterbrook<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Prof Pete Harris<\/em><\/a>. He\u00a0is also part of the\u00a0<\/em>Self Affirmation Research Group (SARG)<\/em><\/a>. Other posts by Ian: <\/em>Grouping by attainment in schools: can psychological interventions help turbo-charge poor students\u2019 performance?<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and <\/em>An appetite for bringing research into practice at ResearchED<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/psychology\/files\/2019\/02\/Psychological-barriers.jpeg?fit=550%2C213&ssl=1\")
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