The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) awarded a $388,750 Project Grant to the University of Wisconsin System to study the impact of failure experiences on student motivation and persistence in STEM fields. The goal is to better understand how interventions that de-stigmatize and normalize failure can improve retention of diverse students in biomedical sciences.
The research will examine the effects of two interventions: 1) videos about personal and scientific failures experienced by successful scientists, and 2) integrating these videos into a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE). The study will assess how these interventions influence students' failure responses, behaviors, and attitudes related to STEM persistence. Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected through student surveys and an impossible scientific task experiment. The findings aim to inform strategies for cultivating productive failure responses and enhancing STEM engagement among underrepresented groups.