Learning about failures of famous people can motivate students

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In a study, 402 9th- and 10th-grade students from four New York City high schools in low-income areas  were divided into three groups. 

Group 1 read an 800-word typical science textbook description about the great accomplishments of Einstein, Curie and Michael Faraday, an English scientist who made important discoveries about electromagnetism.
Group 2 read about those scientists’ personal struggles, including Einstein’s flight from Nazi Germany to avoid persecution as a Jew. 
The third group of students read about the scientists’ intellectual struggles, such as Curie’s persistence despite a string of failed experiments. The struggle stories included actions the scientists took to overcome these hurdles.
At the end of a six-week grading period, students who learned about the scientists’ intellectual or personal struggles had significantly improved their science grades, with low-achievers benefiting the most. The students in the control group who only learned about the scientists’ achievements not only didn’t see a grade increase, they had lower grades than the previous grading period before the study began. 




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