An “Obama effect” on the GRE General Test?

Abstract

Previous research assessing Obama's effectiveness as a role model in alleviating the effects of stereotype threat on Black Americans' test performance yielded provocative though conflicting results. A field study with research participants observed that Black–White mean differences were not detectable at points in his 2008 presidential campaign when he clearly succeeded—his nomination and election, although they persisted at other points. But a laboratory experiment found that prompts to think positively about Obama had no effect. The present study extended this research to actual test-takers and an operational test (GRE General Test). Black–White mean differences just after the election in November 2008 were substantial and comparable to earlier differences, in November 2006; the level of Black test-takers' performance was also unchanged.

Keywords::

• stereotype threat
• test performance
• role models
• Black Americans

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Brent Bridgeman, Ida Lawrence, and Cathy Wendler for encouraging this research; Jacqueline Briel, Steven Szyskiewicz, and Christino Wijaya for providing the data; and Yigal Attali, Brent Bridgeman, Daniel Eignor, Nathan Kogan, and Donald Powers for reviewing a draft of this article. The GRE General Test is published by Educational Testing Service (ETS). Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily of ETS.

Notes

^1. The GRE General Test was revised in 2011; this version is not exactly comparable to the previous version because of changes in content and scoring (Educational Testing Service, n.d.-a, n.d.-b). In 2011–2012, 534,761 students took the test (Educational Testing Service, 2013). The Black–White mean differences are similar to those for the previous version. For American citizens that year, the mean Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical Writing scores were, respectively, 146.7, 143.3, and 3.3 for Black test-takers, and 154.1, 150.7, and 3.9 for White test-takers (d = –1.03, − 1.04, and –.84, respectively).

^2. The test's Analytical Writing section was excluded because scores may not be comparable between 2006 and 2008. Expert raters' scoring of the essays became more rigorous over those years, more closely aligned with the scoring rubrics (Trapani & Bridgeman, 2011).

^3. The day of 8 November, a Saturday, was excluded because observant Jews may avoid taking the test that day of the week; 9 November was a Sunday, a day that the test is not given.

^4. The day of 5 November was a Sunday.

^5. It is unknown whether disabled test-takers took it with special accommodations (typically including extra time), making scores not comparable; self-reported disability is used as a proxy.

^6. In this study, “Do you communicate better (or as well) in English than in any other language?”

^7. College GPA and attended an HBCU were not used as covariates; the former may be affected by stereotype threat, the latter is collinear with other covariates, attended a selective college and attended a research university.

^8. The pattern of results was similar without controls and imputations. In November 2008, for example, the Black–White mean difference on the test's Verbal score was 411.58 (N = 520) versus 505.89 (N = 5245), d = –.89 without them and 414.04 versus 491.00, d = − .83 with them. The mean difference on the Quantitative score was 447.04 (N = 520) versus 578.28 (N = 5244), d = − 1.02 without them and 448.24 versus 546.77, d = − .85 with them. (N = 520 for all means with controls and imputations.)