Effects Of Social Identity On Math Performance Of Junior High School Students

In this study, based on social identity theory and stereotype threat theory, we discussed the effect of different social identity on mathematics performance of sixth grade students in junior high school. In the beginning of the study, we used the interviews and questionnaires to screen the identity that effected the students'math performance. The final results based on interviews and questionnaires, selected the gender identity and class identity as the target objects of the follow-up empirical research. In the empirical study, we used the students in junior high school preparation (including 51 girls and 107 boys, from two specialty classes and two regular classes). Mixed experimental design, respectively, through "reading material" and "oral presentation guide words" two ways to highlight the students have a particular social identity, to explore the way how the two different social identities impact the students, and the interactions in the identities. Meanwhile, we compared the degree of stereotype threat actived by "reading material" and "oral presentation guide language" approach.The major results are as followed.(1) Math performance and self-evaluation comparison between classes:students in the specialty classes are higher than the students in the regular classes both in the mathematics performance and mathematics self-evaluation level.(2) Gender stereotypes:both in the "reading material" and "oral presentation guide words" conditions, when we highlight the gender identity, girls in math performance decreased. Math performance of boys in the two experimental conditions did not change significantly.(3) Class identity:When we used the "reading material" to highlight participants' class identity, the students from regular class did not perform better or worse. However, when we turned to the "oral presentation guide words" condition, regular students in math performance decreased significantly. The test scores of students from specialty classes were not changed significantly in both tweo conditions. Specialty classes students showed higher self-evaluation in both two condiction, while regular classes students only made loweer self-evaluation in the "oral presentation guide words" condition.(4) Compare stereotype threat in different condiction:"oral presentation guide words" way is more effective than "reading material" way to highlight the social identity and active the steretype.