Building courage, strength, and knowledge: Mindfulness training reduces psychological threat and increases engagement in college physics

Abstract

Many college students experience introductory physics as psychologically threatening. In a preregistered RCT, we applied the biopsychosocial model of challenge-threat to describe patterns of threat in introductory physics and test whether a 5-d mindfulness training could reduce threat and increase engagement among undergraduates. Course-wide surveys (N = 954) screened students for the RCT and revealed roughly half of students experience psychological threat. Students identified with systemically excluded groups were more likely to experience psychological threat while systemically advantaged students were more likely to experience psychological challenge in their introductory physics course. In the RCT (N = 149), mindfulness training reduced psychological threat and fostered greater engagement in introductory physics, and, consistent with our theory of change, mindfulness training was associated with greater physics engagement through reductions in threat. The results demonstrate that mindfulness can help students manage stress more effectively by reducing psychological threat and fostering engagement in contexts like introductory physics.