Are You Certain In Your Skills? Self Evaluations and Responses to Ambiguous Feedback
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Date
2014-02
Authors
O'Donnell-Davidson, Danaan James
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) have
been historically male dominated, and continue to be so today. The reasons for this are
numerous and complex. This study focuses on the role that self-perceptions of ability
play in interpreting ambiguous feedback.
Participants consisted of 508 psychology and linguistic students recruited from
the University of Oregon. Everyone learned about a •·new dimension of human
cognitive performance" called Integrational Complexity. Those in an "excel" condition
were told that they should do well at IC, and those in an "uncertain" condition were told
that their performance ''on IC tasks is more uncertain and variable."
Participants completed an "Integrational Complexity Skills Assessment." All
participants. including those in the control condition, were then informed that their IC
skills were in the average range. They continued to another survey that gauged their
feelings towards IC. We hypothesized that participants made to feel uncertain about
their skills in IC would have more negative feelings towards the domain than either the
control group or the excel group.
Participants' scores for the self-perception measure (F(2,438)=3.96, p =0.02)
confirmed our hypothesis. We found an effect for gender as well, such that men
reported significantly more positive self-perceptions with regards to IC than did women
(F(1,439)=34.44,p<0.001). We also found that women felt their scores to be more
accurate than did men (F(1,439)= 9.64,p= 0.002).
Description
33 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of Psychology and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Science, Spring 2014.
Keywords
STEM, Expectations, Uncertainty, Feedback interpretation, Gender, Hostile environment