Thread by @Scientific_Bird

1/n So a new study came out, and it's a perfect example of how wishful thinking leads to poor scholarship and science.

The study purports to show that teachers' "growth mindset" is an important contributor to the underperformance of ethnic minorities in school.

2/n First, the study is based on "stereotype threat" and "growth mindset"—two concepts of social psychology that have replicated notoriously poorly.

Why base a study on the concept of "stereotype threat" when the largest ever study found no effect?

doi.org/10.1080/237436…

3/n The effect that they find is incredibly weak and incredibly statistically insignificant. The standard of p<0.05 is a joke. Personally, I don't take tests with p>0.01 to be significant, and I find that to be generous even. P<0.001 is where it's at.

4/n Therefore, it's in serious doubt whether there even is a correlation between teacher mindset and student performance.

However, even if it were the case that there was a correlation, there are serious interpretation challenges to such a study.

5/n It may just be that teachers with such a mindset are worse, and that the mindset itself has nothing to do with it.

It may be that teachers with such mindset have more challenging courses.

It may be that teachers develop this mindset in response to reality.

6/n There's much else one could say, for example all the problems associated with these large regression analyses. However, I'll stop here.

A classic example of a study that really shows that social psychologists really need to do better.

Here is some open peer review for the authors of the study: @mcmpsych @dr_canning @drdorainnegreen @drmuenks