Stereotype threat and women's math performance: The possible mediating factors of test anxiety, test motivation and self-efficacy

The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of the concept of stereotype threat and to attempt to discover whether test anxiety, test motivation and self-efficacy mediate a stereotype threat response in women who were administered a mathematics test. Based on research by Steele (1992, 1997) and Steele and Aronson (1995) it was hypothesized that participants who were exposed to conditions in which a stereotype about their performance was mentioned would not perform as well as those not given such a message. Participants for this study were from the Graduate School of Education, Educational Psychology subject pool. Each participant completed a three-part questionnaire on their levels of test anxiety, test motivation and self-efficacy (labeled confidence for clarity) and then randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions. One condition was not given a stereotype threat message, a second given a negative message about women's math ability, a third given a negative message about women and teacher's math abilities, and the fourth group were not give any message. The participants then took a 15-item mathematics test based on the Praxis II teacher certification test that is required by the state of New Jersey.; In general, the groups did not differ in their performance on the mathematics test. With regard to the affective measures of test anxiety, test motivation and self-efficacy, the participants again did not differ in their mathematics performance based on higher levels of any of the three measures.; Findings of this study suggest future research should be conducted to assess the strength of stereotype threat and whether the conditions used in this study needed to be stronger in order to impact performance.