Measuring Mindset: Revisiting the Construct and Expanding Measurement to Develop a New Student Questionnaire Scale

• In Event: 18.071 - Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: 18.071-16 - Measuring Social and Emotional Learning Behaviors and Attitudes in Teachers and Students

Abstract

Dweck’s scholarship on implicit theory distinguishes between entity and incremental theorists (C. S. Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995). Each mindset impacts students’ willingness to take risks and bounce back from failures. Our study builds upon this foundation and uses a scientific process for creating questionnaire scales to expand how we think about mindset and re-conceptualize how we measure the construct. Having synthesized research literature, solicited student and expert input, and incorporated pilot-testing results, we propose a subject-specific scale measuring a student’s perceived malleability of multiple important traits. The scale shows strong model characteristics, and predictive power across a wide array of critical student outcomes.

Authors

• Bryan Mascio, Harvard University

• Joe McIntyre, Harvard University

• Hunter Gehlbach, University of California - Santa Barbara