Reducing Field-Specific Ability Beliefs in Pre-Service Teachers helps fostering Their Low-Achieving Students’ Growth Mindsets

• In Event: Investigating Field-Specific Ability Beliefs: How Do They Matter and for Whom?

Abstract

Objectives
How can we best support struggling students in school? This intervention study explores the impact of a mindset-intervention on preservice teachers and their low-achieving students to reduce preservice-teachers’ field-specific ability beliefs and enhance students’ growth mindsets. This study offers insights into interventions for preservice teachers whilst emphasizing the possibility to alternate teacher beliefs which could benefit their students’ mindsets in educational settings; this study design underscores the significance of mindset interventions in fostering positive academic attitudes, particularly for struggling students.
Perspectives
Field-specific ability beliefs (the belief in an innate ability that cannot be taught) of teachers have been found to be negatively associated with relevant student outcomes, especially in low-achieving students (Heyder et al., 2020). Mindset interventions, rooted in Dweck's concept (2006), aim to influence individuals' beliefs about their intellectual capabilities; Mindset interventions can improve academic performance and enhance motivation by fostering the belief that abilities and intelligence can change through effort (Blackwell et al., 2007; Yeager et al., 2022). While previous research has demonstrated the potential of such interventions to enhance academic success (Burnette et al., 2023; Yeager et al., 2022), limited focus has been placed on preservice teachers. Although some research work exists regarding the experimental influenceability of field-specific ability beliefs of pre-service teachers (Heyder et al., 2023), there is a scarcity regarding the question whether it also might benefit students when field-specific ability beliefs of teachers are being experimentally altered. This study addresses this research gap whilst emphasizing the issue of underperforming students in mathematics, particularly in the German context, where secondary school students often enter with inadequate mathematics skills (OECD, 2023).
Methods and Data
Preservice teachers were randomly assigned to three groups: Remedial Lesson (RL), Remedial Lesson + Mindset Intervention (RLM), and Control Group (CG). The study employed a 12-week intervention with 12 remedial lessons targeting 173 fifth-grade students' mathematics achievement in German secondary schools. Before the remedial lessons took place, preservice teachers in the RLM group received a 1 hour-mindset intervention, aiming to reduce pre-service teachers’ field-specific ability beliefs whilst enhancing preservice teachers’ growth mindsets. Field-specific ability beliefs and growth mindsets of pre-service teachers were assessed as pre-test, post-test and follow-up assessment, students’ growth mindsets were assessed as pre- and post-test assessment.
Results
Results showed that pre-service teachers in the RLM group exhibited both significant improvements in growth mindset and reduced field-specific ability beliefs compared to both the CG group and RL-group (β = .38, p = .02). Furthermore, tutees who were taught by pre-service teachers who received the mindset intervention (the RLM group), showed enhanced growth mindsets at T2 (β = .18, p = .01) compared to tutees whose tutors did not receive this mindset intervention.
Scientific and scholarly significance
In conclusion, this research underscores the potential of mindset interventions to influence both preservice teachers' and students' field-specific ability beliefs and mindsets, even if the mindset intervention is only administered to preservice teachers. The findings highlight the potential for targeted interventions to support both groups effectively.

Authors

• Katharina Asbury, Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education

• Bastian Carstensen, Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education