Measuring Teachers' Growth Mindset Beliefs

• In Event: Growth Mindset in Education: Measuring, Mediating, and Cultivating Beliefs for Student Success

Abstract

Growth mindset, the belief that abilities can develop and improve, is valued in many educational contexts, making it socially undesirable for teachers to admit to having a fixed mindset. The goal of this study was to evaluate new items aimed at reducing this social desirability in a representative sample of American teachers (N = 980). New items were developed that gave teachers permission to admit fixed beliefs (e.g., alternative rating scale, more context). Results showed that the new items showed less skewness and they were positively correlated with other related motivation belief scales. These results suggest that our new questions and response scale are successful in reducing social desirability and that they are tapping into growth mindset beliefs.

Authors

• Sarah Leckey, University of California - Davis

• Eunjin Seo, Texas State University

• Matthew S. Giani, University of Texas at Austin

• David Yeager, University of Texas at Austin

• Kali Trzesniewski, University of California - Davis