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.

    對少數名族學生給予肯定可以提高他們的成績

    幫助孩子們對他們自己感覺不錯，這樣他們在學校的表現就會提高，這個方法看起來好得有些不可思議。但是對于參加了一個簡單的自我肯定的寫作練習的非裔美國中學生來說，這個方法顯然起作用。而且這些好處在練習結束后還能持續地很好。這項研究結果發表在4月17日的《科學》(Science)雜志上。

    超過400名的黑人和白人學生參與了這項研究。其中一半的學生在一年多的時間里寫一些任何中性話題的文章。研究者讓另外一半的學生寫為什么他們珍視一些一些價值觀念。與控制組相比，非裔美國學生的成績提高了四分之一點（以4分為參考）。 而且那些初始成績最低的非裔美國學生成績的提高超過了0.4個點。兩年后，那些進行肯定練習小組中的學生的成績繼續得到提高。參與肯定練習的白人學生的成績沒有提高。參與該研究的一名作者說，少數名族學生特別地擔心，如果他們表現不佳，這就會證實別人對他們所持有的負面看法。而這種積極的肯定可能會減少他們的憂慮。
 
Vocabulary:

Affirmation：肯定
Minority：少數名族
Apparently：明顯地
Engage：參與；從事
Benefit：益處
Regimen：鍛煉；養生之道
Neutral：中性的
Cherish：珍視
Initial：初始的
Negative：負面的
Alleviate：緩和；減輕