Title: "The Roles of Working Memory, Stereotype Threat, and Academic Attitudes in Student Learning and Achievement."
There is a vast amount of scientific evidence demonstrating the power of higher test scores and the impact that students’ test scores can have on the trajectory of their lives. Higher scores on many cognitive ability measures correlate with a variety of better physical, and mental health outcomes, in addition to better economic prospects—making these scores important for more than just entrance into higher education institutions. Due to the power of test scores, it’s important to understand factors promoting or interfering with students being able to perform their best. Dr. Holden’s work aims to consider “the whole person” by investigating the roles of a variety of cognitive, social, attitudinal, and even genetic and environmental factors. In this talk, Dr. Holden will focus on the importance of considering the learning context of the student more carefully. First, she will discuss the importance of the cognitive factor of working memory capacity for test performance and mental resilience in psychologically threatening situations. Second, she will talk about two Attitudinal/Non-cognitive factors of Mindset and Grit and their roles in boosting achievement. Finally, Dr. Holden will provide a summary as well as discuss the possible future directions of her work.
