Science students develop interest in arts following brief intervention

Psychologists have designed a intervention to help students who see themselves as ‘science people’ to branch out and develop an interest in arts and humanities.

Using established social-psychological principles, the researchers designed a 30-minute online module that taught students that interests can be developed and are not fixed – even for subjects they’d previously regarded as uninteresting or irrelevant.

This idea the researchers call a “growth mindset of interest”.

“Think of all the people – whether they’re students or adults – who believe they’re limited to being a certain type of person. They may see themselves as a ‘math and science’ person or an ‘arts person’ and that’s just who they are,” said Associate Professor Paul O’Keefe from the University of Exeter Business School.

“It’s like they’re living in a self-imposed bubble, blocking themselves from all the amazing things they could learn, directions they could go, and experiences they could have.”

The research focused on a group of A-Level students at a Singapore school renowned for its maths and science provision but which had recently expanded into a multidisciplinary curriculum that gave arts and humanities equal weight. 

Students – nearly all of whom initially identified with science and not arts – completed a series of reading and reflective writing tasks just before beginning their two years of study.

Specifically, the students were shown research on how interests can be developed, and explained the benefits of seeing interests in this way.

They were also shown positive accounts from older peers who had developed new interests during their time at school.

To reinforce the message, students wrote short essays, such as recounting a time in their own life when they had developed an unexpected interest in something.

To provide a comparison, another group of students received a module that was similar in structure but addressed useful study skills rather than the nature of interest.

Seven months later, near the end of the school year, the students who had completed the intervention identified more strongly with the arts than those who had learned about study skills – and did so while maintaining their strong science interests.

These students also felt a stronger sense of belonging to their school and its new multidisciplinary focus.

Importantly, increasing their sense of belonging in this curriculum also predicted a higher year-end GPA, showing how the intervention can indirectly improve academic achievement by helping students feel more comfortable with their multidisciplinary studies.

“Our intervention helped remove a psychological barrier – the belief that interests can’t change much – which might be preventing students from developing new interests,” said Senior Research Fellow Dr. Liz Hoberg.

“And it’s important that our intervention was able to make students feel they belonged at their school. A lot of students feel they don’t fit in, which can interfere with their studies and reduce performance, but at least academically they can feel they’re in the right place.”

The researchers emphasized that the students were from a context that historically focused on maths and sciences without much focus on arts and humanities.

They argue this emphasis makes a change in education policy towards a more multidisciplinary curriculum all the more challenging for schools and students.

“Even good policies can be disconnected from the people they are meant to benefit – like fitting a round peg in a square hole. If you want to make a positive change in the world, you need to have a receptive audience,” said Professor O’Keefe.

“Introducing policy to increase value and appreciation of the arts into a school culture where arts are not highly valued among students, could fall flat or even backfire.

“However, we show that by addressing people’s preconceptions about whether new interests can be developed, an ambitious shift in policy such as this has a greater chance of success.”

The article, “A growth-theory-of-interest intervention helps align science students with a new multidisciplinary curriculum,” is published in Contemporary Educational Psychology.

How the findings apply to the researchers’ own lives – Professor Paul O’Keefe

“Once I started to realise that math was a tool that could help me accomplish my goals, it started to become fascinating. I began saying things like, ‘Oh, I could use this statistical technique for this study I just did’. Everything started to click as I opened myself up to this whole new world that I’d previously shut off.”