When Do the Effects of Mindset Interventions Persist? Testing the Mindset x Context Hypothesis

• In Event: Context Matters: Learning Environments' Impact When Motivational Interventions Are (or Aren't) Effective

Abstract

Theoretical Framework and Objectives
Mindset interventions, which shift students toward belief systems that can be beneficial in educational settings, have the potential to improve academic attitudes, behavior, and performance (see Walton & Wilson, 2018). However, the effects of these interventions are heterogeneous (Lazowski & Hulleman, 2016). We examined whether the mindset  context hypothesis (see Hecht et al., 2021) could help explain when the effects of mindset interventions persist or fade over time. This hypothesis posits that interventions are more effective in environments that support the intervention message. We tested this hypothesis using the synergistic mindsets intervention (Yeager et al., 2022), which encourages students to appraise stress as a potential asset to learning and performance (e.g., increasing the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain) rather than a debilitating factor. Within an undergraduate social science course, we examined whether intervention-consistent messages from the course instructor sustained intervention-induced changes in appraisals over time, as well as impacts on students’ choice of challenging academic tasks that might be stressful but could promote learning.
Methods
We randomly assigned 1,675 undergraduates (see Table 1 for demographic information) in the course to a 2 (mindset: intervention vs. control)  2 (context: supportive vs. neutral messages) experimental design (preregistration: https://dx.doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/fchyn). At the beginning of the semester, students received either a ~30-min synergistic mindsets intervention or a ~30-min control activity, depending on condition. Students then received four messages from their instructor over the course of the semester—accompanied by a brief reflection activity—that either articulated how the course was designed to support the synergistic mindsets idea that stress can be enhancing (supportive messages condition) or an unrelated topic about learning in the class (neutral messages condition) (see Table 2 for examples). We collected weekly measures of students’ appraisals of stress in the course, as well as their behavioral predisposition to try a challenging academic task (see Table 3 for measures). A timeline of study activities is presented in Figure 1.
Results
We analyzed the data using a conservative Bayesian analysis that tends to shrink effect sizes (and heterogeneity of effect sizes) toward zero to reduce the likelihood of false-positive results (Hahn et al., 2020). The analysis indicated that the synergistic mindsets intervention led to the greatest increases in positive stress appraisals (0.35 SD, 1.00 posterior probability) and challenge-seeking predisposition (2.23 percentage points, 0.92 posterior probability) when complemented by supportive messages from the instructor. These intervention effects were much smaller (stress appraisals: 0.20 SD, 1.00 posterior probability; challenge-seeking: 1.62 percentage points, 0.86 posterior probability) when accompanied by neutral instructor messages. See Table 4 for all average treatment effects. In addition, intervention effects grew larger over the course of the term when complemented by supportive instructor messages, whereas with neutral messages, intervention effects shrank somewhat over time (see Figures 2 and 3).
Significance
These findings support the mindset x context hypothesis, showing that supportive cues in the learning environment can make a difference in whether a mindset intervention’s effects fade over time or persist and even amplify.

Authors

• Cameron Hecht, University of Rochester

• Samuel D. Gosling, University of Texas at Austin

• Christopher Bryan, University of Texas at Austin

• Jeremy Jamieson, University of Rochester

• Jared S. Murray, University of Texas at Austin

• David Yeager, University of Texas at Austin