Researchers compared two approaches in 60 college courses involving 2,116 students. One helped instructors build cooperative classrooms, strengthen students’ sense of connection and make expectations supporting inclusion clear. The other used established strategies aimed at changing how students from marginalized groups interpreted challenges and setbacks.
Society & Economics1 week ago
More inclusive college courses raised marginalized students’ grades by over half a letter
A trial across 60 science, technology, engineering and math courses found that changing classroom environments helped more than a student-focused resilience program.
What the classrooms changed
Students from marginalized racial and ethnic groups in courses assigned to the Inclusion intervention earned grades more than half a letter grade higher than comparable students in courses without either intervention. The Resilience intervention had little beneficial effect. The findings indicate that changing the classroom environment was more effective in this trial than focusing on students’ thoughts and explanations for academic challenges.
Why classroom climate matters
The results point to classroom conditions as an important part of the achievement gap in college science, technology, engineering and math courses. They also suggest that instructors’ efforts to create cooperative, connected classrooms and make support for inclusion explicit may benefit marginalized students more than interventions aimed mainly at changing those students’ responses to difficulty.
Evidence and caveats
This was a large-scale cluster-randomized controlled trial, meaning whole courses—not individual students—were assigned to the Inclusion intervention, the Resilience intervention or a no-exposure control group. It included 60 courses and 2,116 students, supporting a comparison between the approaches. The abstract does not report how long the effects lasted, which institutions took part, or whether the results apply beyond the participating college courses. It also does not provide separate results for different marginalized racial or ethnic groups.
// Source
Scientific Reports · 2026 · DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-70718-9
Authors: Kevin R. Kennedy, Kira K. Means, Markus Bräuer
Institutions: University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
