Curiosity, Growth Mindset, and Achievement Goal Orientation: A Developmental Perspective

• In Event: Curious About Curiosity? Unpacking Curiosity and Interest in Various Learning Settings

Abstract

It is important to find methods to address the decline in children’s motivation throughout early schooling (Wang & Pomerantz, 2009), such as understanding characteristics that relate to student outcomes. Here, we examined the relations among curiosity, mindset, and achievement goal orientation in 220 6–10-year-olds. We found that more curious children have stronger growth mindsets and mastery goal orientations and observed positive relations between children’s achievement goal orientations. Surprisingly, we did not observe a relation between growth mindset and achievement goal measures or an association between curiosity and age. Future research is needed to disentangle the associations that diverge from prior literature to identify the most promising direction for intervention to support motivation and learning in schools.

Authors

• Natalie Hutchins, University of Virginia

• Jamie Jirout, University of Virginia