Affirmations Improve Minority Student Grades

It sounds too good to be true---help kids feel good about themselves, and they’ll l do better in school. But it apparently worked for African-American middle school students who engaged in a simple self-affirmation writing exercise. And the benefits extended well after the regimen ended. The results of the study appeared in the April 17th issue of the journal Science.

More than 400 black and white students took part in the research. Half of the students wrote about any neutral topic over the course of a year. The other half were asked to write about why they cherished certain values. The grades of African-American affirmation kids improved about a quarter of a point on a four-point scale, compared with the control group. And the lowest initial African-American performers upped their scores more than four-tenths of a point. Two years later, the scores continued to track higher among the group that practiced affirmations. White students who engaged in the affirmation exercise showed no improvement. A study author said that ethnic minorities feel particularly anxious that doing poorly could confirm other people’s negative expectations about them. And the affirmations may help alleviate those fears.

对少数名族学生给予肯定可以提高他们的成绩

帮助孩子们对他们自己感觉不错，这样他们在学校的表现就会提高，这个方法看起来好得有些不可思议。但是对于参加了一个简单的自我肯定的写作练习的非裔美国中学生来说，这个方法显然起作用。而且这些好处在练习结束后还能持续地很好。这项研究结果发表在4月17日的《科学》(Science)杂志上。

超过400名的黑人和白人学生参与了这项研究。其中一半的学生在一年多的时间里写一些任何中性话题的文章。研究者让另外一半的学生写为什么他们珍视一些一些价值观念。与控制组相比，非裔美国学生的成绩提高了四分之一点（以4分为参考）。 而且那些初始成绩最低的非裔美国学生成绩的提高超过了0.4个点。两年后，那些进行肯定练习小组中的学生的成绩继续得到提高。参与肯定练习的白人学生的成绩没有提高。参与该研究的一名作者说，少数名族学生特别地担心，如果他们表现不佳，这就会证实别人对他们所持有的负面看法。而这种积极的肯定可能会减少他们的忧虑。

Vocabulary:

Affirmation：肯定
Minority：少数名族
Apparently：明显地
Engage：参与；从事
Benefit：益处
Regimen：锻炼；养生之道
Neutral：中性的
Cherish：珍视
Initial：初始的
Negative：负面的
Alleviate：缓和；减轻