A Growth Mind-Set Is Particularly Beneficial in Challenging Courses

• In Event: Measuring Motivational Processes and Other Noncognitive Factors: Challenges and Advances in Connecting Research to Practice

Abstract

Research by Dweck and colleagues suggests that students’ self-reported beliefs about the malleability of intelligence—whether they view intelligence as fixed or as malleable—influence their attitudes towards effort and challenge. Students who believe intelligence is unchangeable (a fixed mindset) tend to see difficulty and challenge as signs that one lacks intrinsic ability. They select easier tasks (Mueller & Dweck, 1998) and pay less attention to useful critical feedback (Mangels et al., 2006). In contrast, students with a growth mindset—those who believe that intelligence can be developed—see challenges as an opportunity to grow. They seek out opportunities to challenge themselves and persist longer on difficult tasks (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Over time, they earn higher grades than their fixed-mindset peers (Blackwell et al., 2007).

The relationship between a growth mindset, adaptive responses to difficulty, and challenge-seeking suggests that a growth mindset may be most beneficial to students' achievement in challenging courses.
However, no study to date has examined whether the relationship between growth mindset and achievement is moderated by course difficulty in a systematic way. A large, diverse sample of high school students (n=1584 from 13 schools) reported the extent to which they agreed with statements about the malleability of intelligence during an online survey. We tested whether students’ self-reported growth mindset benefited their grades to a greater extent in challenging subjects. Each subject’s difficulty was determined by the average grade earned in that subject. As expected, mathematics was the most challenging subject, and required core courses (English, social studies, and science) were generally more difficult than electives (e.g., art, foreign languages). Consistent with predictions, a mixed effect model revealed that a growth mindset was especially beneficial to students' grades in difficult classes (those with low average grades).

These findings extend prior research by showing the relationship between self-reported growth mindset and adaptive responses to challenge by using course difficulty as a moderator. Challenging courses are important targets for intervention in part because more students fail these courses, and failing a core class is a high risk factor for dropping out (Allensworth & Easton, 2005). Challenging courses are also important targets for intervention because they tend to be STEM courses, which are increasingly important in the modern economy. To increase performance in these pivotal courses and to increase overall rates of high school graduation, researchers, policy makers, and educators should develop and test practices that reinforce a growth mindset in these challenging courses. For example, growth mindset interventions could be tailored to the mathematics context and curriculum to increase students’ academic success.

Author

• Eric Smith, Stanford University