Stereotype threat effects on vocabulary, motivation, emotion and well-being in students

Stereotype threat describes the situation in which an implicitly (e.g. enquiry about group membership) or explicitly (e.g. direct reference to performance differences between groups) activated negative stereotype (e.g. language-related) about one's own group to which one belongs (e.g. ethnicity) gives rise to the fear of conforming to the negative stereotype. Stereotype threat leads to a drop in performance, all other things being equal. The effects are well documented for the domain of maths, for example, and in relation to gender stereotypes. However, previous research has rarely focussed on vocabulary, which is a key factor in academic and subsequent professional success, especially for students who are in a key developmental phase. It is also unclear whether the threat of stereotypes also has an impact on study-related or situational motivation, emotion and well-being.

In the FOCUS project, the effects of stereotype threat on various key study success characteristics are therefore being investigated as an extension of previous research. Individual student characteristics are analysed as potential moderators of the effects. As part of an experimental pre-post design with different treatments, students process text-based material and answer scales in a questionnaire on individual characteristics such as motivation, emotion and well-being.