Relations of an Implicit Measure of Growth Mindset With Its Explicit Measure and Academic Performance

• In Event: Broadening the Assessment of Intelligence Mindsets to Align With the Promises of Mindset Theory

Abstract

Theoretical Framework and Objective
The belief that ability can change, a growth mindset (i.e., implicit theories of intelligence), has been identified as beneficial for students’ academic performance (Dweck & Yeager, 2019). However, the assessment of growth mindset has heavily relied on self-reported fixed mindset (i.e., the belief that ability is stable) by reversing scores of the scales, in order to avoid social desirability (Yeager et al., 2019). Importantly, researchers found that the correlation between growth and fixed mindset was generally weak, resulting in two distinctive constructs (see Lüftenegger & Chen, 2017).
Alternative assessments are largely missing, especially those that tap into implicit theories in an implicit fashion. In this study, we developed a novel implicit association test (IAT) to measure growth mindset and to examine how the IAT measure is related to a self-reported measure and achievement test scores.
Method
This sample included 488 U.S university students (Mage = 22.3; 68% female), who were recruited using the Qualtrics Online Sample service. The single-target IAT was developed to measure participants’ growth mindset. The mindset IAT is a computerized task that assesses the relative strength with which the single target category (intelligence) is differentially associated with two attributes (growth vs. fixed) using response latency. Participants categorized words representing the categories of intelligence (ability, competence, aptitude, talent, skill, capability, proficiency), growth (variable, fluid, acquired, learned, cultivated, changeable, developable), and fixed (predetermined, invariable, genetic, innate, inherited, consistent, set). The response time difference between “growth mindset condition” (categorizing intelligence and growth words with one key, and fixed words with the other key) and “fixed mindset condition” (categorizing intelligence and fixed words with one key, and growth words with the other key) reflects implicit theories of growth mindset. Self-reported mindset (8-item, 4 for growth; 4 for fixed; Dweck, 1999) and a cognitive test assessing their English and Math ability were also included. Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine the proposed relations.
Results
We found that the IAT growth mindset was weakly correlated with self-reported growth mindset (r = .134, p < .05, see Table 2). The association between the IAT and self-reported fixed mindset was negative and slightly larger (r = -.234, p < .001).
The IAT growth mindset was weakly associated with self-reported SAT scores and both math and English cognitive test scores (from .111 to .158). Similarly, self-reported fixed mindset was weakly related to achievement test scores albeit in the opposite direction (from -.222 to -.076). However, self-reported growth mindset was unrelated to self-reported SAT scores, and surprisingly, negatively related to both math (r = -.127, p < .01) and English scores (r = -.103, p < .05).
Significance
By developing an IAT measure of growth mindset tapping into implicit theories, we found that the implicit measure was only weakly associated with self-report measures. It indicates that self-reported measures do not fully capture the implicit theories of growth mindset. The weak relation between the implicit measure and achievement scores provides additional perspective to the discussion about the effectiveness of promoting students’ growth mindset.

Authors

• Jiesi Guo, Australian Catholic University
  Presenting Author

• Xin Tang, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
  Non-Presenting Author