VALUES AFFIRMATION ACTIVITY

Purpose: Here at the University of South Alabama, we want you (and every student!) to be
confidently and uniquely prepared to take your next step. Our LevelUP Quality Enhancement
Plan focuses on helping you make connections across learning opportunities inside and
outside of the classroom as you look ahead and plan for your future. Through LevelUP, you'll
have enhanced opportunities to develop career readiness
competencies that prepare you for life after your degree, as a
confident, ready, and capable member of the workforce or a
well-equipped graduate student.

This Values Affirmation Activity is the first step on that journey. It will
provide an opportunity for you to think about the values that are most
important to you. Reflecting on and writing about your values
increases self-efficacy when presented with challenges (Patterson,
2011), and this activity helps us get to know each other better.

Task: Take about 10 minutes to respond to the following reflection questions in this Google
Doc. This is your Values Affirmation Activity.

Criteria for Success: The following rubric will be used to evaluate the reflective response.

Sufficiently Elaborative Partially Elaborative Not Elaborative

Explanation describes why
the selected values are of
personal importance and
supports response with
examples
Values are identified but
examples are not included in
Values are not identified or
the explanation of the
activity is not completed
personal importance of the
selected values

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Instructions:

● Step 1:
○ Read the list of values below.
○ Select the two or three values that are most important to you.
○ Think about when and how these values were important to you.
○ Write about why each of the selected values is important to you in a few full
sentences for each.
■ Follow the format "_____________ is important to me because . . . . " for each
of the values you selected.
■ Include an example or two from your own experiences.

relationships/community
being creative / artistic
connection with nature
money, wealth, status
your social/cultural/racial
identity
music
Values
with your family and/or government or politics
friends
sense of humor / having
independence
fun
Learning/gaining
athletic ability / fitness
knowledge
belonging to a group (such
as your community,
honesty/integrity
cultural group, or school
club)
career spirituality or religion

self-improvement helping society compassion/kindness

security curiosity Other ideas?

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"_____________ is important to me because . . . . "

Connection with nature is important to me because I have always loved the outdoors since I
was a young child. I also enjoy working in nature, and helping my grandmother to maintain
her farm in North Carolina. I am also a huge fan of hiking, which helps me to connect myself
to nature.

Religion is important to me because I am a devout Catholic. Ever since I was very young I
have been Catholic, and going to Mass at least once per week. I find receiving the Eucharist
to be absolutely crucial to my spiritual well-being, and I have recently embraced the
Traditional Latin Mass in the Catholic Church.

Learning and gaining knowledge is incredibly important to me, because it helps me to

understand more about my surroundings and other people. I also just generally enjoy
learning, and I find that I have fun when I am discovering things that are new to myself. I am
incredibly curious about anything non-math related, and I love to learn particularly about
languages, history, and religion.

● Step 2:
○ Using the drop-down menu below, rate the following statements on a scale of 1
to 5 (1= highly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neither agree nor disagree, 4= agree,
5= highly agree).

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 Statement 1: The values I wrote about have influenced my life. 5

Statement 2: In general, I try to live up to these values. 5

Statement 3: These values are an important part of who I am. 5

● Step 3:

○ Now you are ready to turn in your Values Affirmation Activity! Within your
Google Doc, you will go to File, then Download. Select PDF document (.pdf)

○ Your file will be saved in your Downloads folder, unless you choose another
folder for it to be saved in.

■ Watch: Video instructions for downloading a PDF

○ Return to your Values Affirmation Assignment and upload the PDF in the
Assignment submission box

● Next steps: After you complete your Values Affirmation Activity, you will link the
assignment to your ePortfolio in the next assignment.

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Selected References
Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. (2006). Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological
intervention. science, 313(5791), 1307-1310.
Harackiewicz, J. M., Tibbetts, Y., Canning, E., & Hyde, J. S. (2014). Harnessing values to promote motivation in education.
In Motivational interventions. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Jordt, H., Eddy, S. L., Brazil, R., Lau, I., Mann, C., Brownell, S. E., ... & Freeman, S. (2017). Values affirmation intervention
reduces achievement gap between underrepresented minority and white students in introductory biology
classes. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 16(3), ar41.
Miyake, A., Kost-Smith, L. E., Finkelstein, N. D., Pollock, S. J., Cohen, G. L., & Ito, T. A. (2010). Reducing the gender
achievement gap in college science: A classroom study of values affirmation. Science, 330(6008), 1234-1237.
Patterson, K. (2011). Change anything: The new science of personal success. New York: Business Plus.
Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of
personality and social psychology, 69(5), 797.

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