Opposing effects of impulsivity and mindset on sources of science selfefficacy and STEM interest in adolescents

Impulsivity has been linked to academic performance in the context of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, though its influence on a wider spectrum of students remains largely unexplored, particularly in the context of STEM learning (i.e. science, technology, engineering, and math). STEM learning was hypothesized to be more challenging for impulsive students, since it requires the practice and repetition of tasks as well as concerted attention to task performance. Impulsivity was assessed in a cross-sectional sample of 2,476 students in grades 6-12. Results show impulsivity affects a larger population of students, not limited to students with learning disabilities. Impulsivity was associated with lower sources of science self-efficacy (SSSE) scores, interest in all STEM domains (particularly math), and self-reported STEM skills. The large negative effect observed for impulsivity was opposed by “growth” mindset, which describes a student’s belief in the importance of effort when learning is difficult. Mindset had a large positive effect, which was associated with greater SSSE, STEM interest, and STEM skills. When modeled together, results suggest that mindset interventions may benefit impulsive students who struggle with STEM. Together, these data suggest important interconnected roles for impulsivity and mindset that can influence secondary students’ STEM trajectories.


Introduction
Students' self-beliefs about their abilities in STEM (i.e. science, technology, engineering, 55 and math) directly correlate with persistence in STEM fields (1,2), even independent of parents' 56 education or family income (3). The secondary school period is an important time for shaping 57 students' self-beliefs in STEM (3,4) as well as for building STEM interest. While early interest 58 in science is an important predictive factor for students later choosing a STEM-related career (5, 59 6), it can be over-shadowed by poor academic performance in math and science courses, 60 thereby altering a student's self-belief in their ability to succeed in science (3). These self- 61 beliefs are thought to contribute to student attrition from STEM fields (5,7). 62 Spinella (8) previously reported impulsivity to be negatively associated with academic 63 grades in college-aged students. Impulsivity describes "a predisposition toward rapid, 64 unplanned reactions to internal or external stimuli without regard to the negative consequences 141 • Mindset -Mindset describes the continuum of a student's felt beliefs of being able to 142 increase personal intelligence through effort (termed "growth mindset") versus it being a 143 static trait conferred at birth ("fixed mindset", 33,34). A 20 item instrument designed by 144 Dweck (33,34) was scored on a 4-point Likert scale (1-4, with 10 items reverse-scored). 145 Items stem from the Theory of Intelligence scale (33), Effort Belief Scale (40), and Patterns 146 of Adaptive Learning Survey (41). Current analyses of 1759 students completing all 20 items 147 produced α=.75.

148
• STEM Skills -Four questions assessed self-reported skills related to using and interpreting 149 data. Each question offered the stem "I am good at projects involving…" with responses of 150 1) "using a website"; 2) "using data"; 3) "creating graphs"; and 4) "interpreting graphs". Results shown as Mean, SD, and sample size of analysis. Effect size benchmarks define small (partial η 2 = 0.01), medium (partial η 2 = 0.06), and large (partial η 2 = 0.14) effects. Bonferroni post-hoc tests were used to determine differences between groups through multiple comparisons. For grade, a denotes differences between 9 th grade students at the p<0.001, b p<0.01, and c p<0.05 levels whereas x denotes differences between 6 th grade students at the p<0.001, y p<0.01, and z p<0.01 levels.

Interest in STEM Domains and Career Interest
Interest in all four STEM domains were quantified for 1575 students using Survey 2 responses (

Impulsivity and Mindset have Opposing Effects on Sources of Science Self-Efficacy
Pearson product-moment correlations were first used to determine relationships between impulsivity, mindset, and sources of science self-efficacy among students in grades 6-   .018 0.001, 0.037 .11 a Items ranked by quartile effect size (partial η 2 ) for both impulsivity and mindset using established benchmarks to define small (partial η 2 = 0.01), medium (partial η 2 = 0.06), and large (partial η 2 = 0.14) effects (47,48).
The combined effect of mindset and impulsivity on SSSE was examined by two-way ANOVA among 1405 students. Significant, stepwise effects in opposing directions were observed for both impulsivity and mindset quartiles on SSSE (all p<0.001; Fig 2C). Thus, mean SSSE scores for students in the most impulsive quartile/highest mindset quartile (70.8+2.9; 95% CI=65.2-76.5) were equivalent to students in the least impulsive/lowest mindset quartile (68.7+2.8 SE; 95% CI 63.3-74.1). These patterns were consistent within each middle school grade (6th-8th), which comprised >85% of the sample, and were reproducible for high school when collapsing grades 9-12, which comprised a smaller sample size. No interaction was observed between mindset and impulsivity on SSSE (p=0.71). Table 4 describes parameter estimates for SSSE using hierarchical linear modeling.

Conserved Relationship between Impulsivity, Mindset, SSSE, and Math Interest
Math interest quartiles were calculated for students (lowest=<16; 17-21; 22-29; 30+) to permit analyses of self-reported learning behaviors by chi square. Two questions asked students about their procedures when solving math problems, one asked about learning pace, and one asked about behaviors when working in a group setting. A striking pattern emerged across all four questions between high/low quartiles of students, where most impulsive students showed similar responses to students with least mindset, least SSSE, and least math interest (Fig 3).

Missing Data Comparisons
Patterns of missing data were analyzed by instrument completion status, student demographics, and survey time points. A total of 1403 students (

Discussion
The research presented above confirms the positive association and large effect size between science self-efficacy and STEM domain interest demonstrated by others (3,5,6). It also confirms a positive association between "growth" mindset and self-beliefs towards STEM (51), which this study expands to include science self-efficacy (large effect size), interest in all STEM domains (small to moderate effect size), interest in a STEM career (small-moderate effect size), and self-beliefs in STEM skills, such as using data and interpreting graphs (moderate effect size) among students in grades 6-12. Consistent with previous findings showing impulsivity affecting academic performance in the context of ADHD and self-discipline (20,24,29), this manuscript reports a negative association of impulsivity on all measures of STEM studied, including sources of science self-efficacy (large effect size), interest in all STEM domains (small to moderate effect size), interest in a STEM career (small-moderate effect size), and STEM skills (moderate effect size). These findings suggest that impulsivity is likely influencing STEM learning outside the context of diagnosed and undiagnosed ADHD, which is estimated to have a prevalence within the U.S. school population of 5.9%-7.1% (30), though up to 11% per parent self-report (52). The data presented here offer that students fall along a continuum of impulsivity scores, with a negative stepwise effect observed for each impulsivity quartile on all STEM outcomes measured across a large, three state sample of adolescents in grades 6-12 (Table 3) . Thus, while some students may have diagnosed or undiagnosed ADHD, these data support a larger reach of impulsivity that may negatively impact STEM persistence, possibly by influencing students' self-beliefs in their STEM abilities.
These results are not designed to be causal, but rather offer preliminary support for the combined impact that the degree of impulsivity and growth mindset play as significant behavioral correlates of STEM interest and science self-efficacy ( Fig 2C). For example, students in the most impulsive/highest mindset group had identical sources of science selfefficacy (SSSE) scores to students in the least impulsive/lowest mindset group. As impulsivity is thought to be a stable trait, whereas mindset can be grown, these findings suggest that mindset interventions may be beneficial for improving impulsive students' self-efficacy for science. Growth mindset interventions, which emphasize recognition for effort rather than achievement, have been shown to improve learning and achievement (51,(53)(54)(55), particularly among groups underrepresented in STEM domains (40,(56)(57)(58)(59)(60). This may be particularly important, since currently, no classroom strategies have sufficient evidence for supporting learning gains among ADHD students, even following medication to alleviate symptoms (61,62). This research suggests potential for mindset interventions, especially for students with highest impulsivity, and with respect to science and math, most notably.
These findings are supported by data describing similar patterns for how most impulsive students solve math problems and engage in learning (Fig 3), which mirror patterns observed for students with least mindset, least science self-efficacy, and least math interest. These cross-sectional findings offer that impulsive students may struggle more when solving math problems or learning difficult material, which may negatively influence self-beliefs in their abilities, consistent with previous reports (3). Impulsive students are not at an academic disadvantage, as their ability to perceive situations differently and learn at a different pace may be an asset in some situations, as early literature supports the notion that impulsivity can have functional or dysfunctional effects (63). For example, Tymms and Merrell (20) offer that blurting out answers may be an overt sign of cognitive engagement, where impulsivity may serve a positive function. Our data show that "when in a study group working on difficult material", impulsive students were more likely to "sit back and listen" than "jump in and contribute ideas".
While seemingly counterintuitive, this finding may stem from impulsive students' altered selfbeliefs in their abilities when working on material that is challenging. For example, when restricting analyses to only the most impulsive quartile, students who "jump in and contribute ideas" had significantly higher sources of science self-efficacy scores (p<0.02), mastery experience sub-scores (p<0.01), science interest scores (p<0.05), and reported greater selfbeliefs in their ability to interpret graphs (p<0.05) than equally impulsive students who reported to "sit back and listen". No differences were observed for math interest (p=0.07) or mindset (p=.13) between these students. Thus, opportunities may exist for supporting impulsive students in STEM as they engage in difficult material or problem-based learning.
Consistent with prior studies documenting a gender gap in STEM (51,(64)(65)(66), this study observed females had lower sources of science self-efficacy, which confirm results from Britner and Parajes (67) using the same scale. This effect was not related to impulsivity, as no difference in impulsivity was observed between gender. However, mindset may play a role, as males had higher sources of science self-efficacy scores than females in the lowest three quartiles of mindset, despite equivalent scores in the highest mindset quartile ('growth mindset').
Thus, targeting females for mindset interventions may be particularly successful if females' selfbeliefs toward their STEM abilities are low. Likewise, mindset interventions may also help students who express interest in STEM but lack the background content knowledge in a STEM domain, making the work more challenging, albeit surmountable. When not prepared for academic difficulties, students' self-beliefs in their abilities may be challenged (56,57) and reduce STEM interest and engagement (3). Finally, consistent with prior findings (68), 9 th grade students had lower sources of science self-efficacy, interest in STEM domains, interest in a STEM career, and mindset, as well as a slight but significant increase in impulsivity when compared to students in other grades. Given that 9 th grade is the time when students are told that their grades are first starting to 'count' towards college, students may feel greater stress to succeed academically and may decline STEM electives, particularly if grades are low and/or a student feels behind compared to peers.
Important limitations of this work relate to its lack of causal design as well as caution in interpretations for grades 10-12. While 12 th grade students also have low sources of science self-efficacy scores, the smaller sample size limits confidence in making interpretations related to effects of gender, mindset, or impulsivity. Instead, efforts focus primarily on middle school grades and have grouped high school grades 9-12 together prior to testing associations. In addition, the cross-sectional design separated surveys across two time points to ease survey fatigue, which resulted in a lower sample size when comparing relationships with STEM domain interest. While significant, greatest confidence can be attributed to relationships between impulsivity, mindset, and sources of science self-efficacy, as these measures were completed within the same survey and were highly reproducible in every school site studied. While a tendency for impulsive students to not complete a questionnaire was expected, this was not the case, as only mindset scores differed between students who completed all instruments versus students with partially completed or completely skipped instruments. Instead, 6 th grade students had the greatest amount of skipped instruments, rather than partial completions, likely due to survey length and limited time.

Conclusion
This study offers that impulsivity may affect learning behaviors and self-beliefs regarding STEM across a wider spectrum of adolescents than previously considered. Based on the data, it is hypothesized that STEM persistence and attrition may be attributable to students' underexplored behavioral characteristics (e.g., impulsivity and mindset) that reinforce or impede STEM learning, consistent with government findings (2012) that also identified intellectual engagement, motivation, and identification with STEM pursuits as critical for persistence in STEM majors. These behavioral correlates, with impulsivity in particular, may deserve more consideration among faculty, STEM programs, as well as secondary and postsecondary institutions when supporting struggling students in STEM.