Poster #98 - Growth mindset of behavior predicted Black adolescents’ academic persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

Sudden lockdowns and transitions to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic have led to increases in adolescent academic difficulties (e.g., academic-related worry, Christ & Gray, 2022; grade decline, Fisher et al., 2022), negative emotions (Camacho-Zuñiga et al., 2021), and psychopathological symptoms (e.g., stress, anxiety, depression, Naff et al., 2022). Adolescents of color were particularly impacted during this time (e.g., greater academic grade decline, Fisher et al., 2022; worse mental health, Naff et al., 2022). However, less is known regarding how adolescents have been managing the transition from remote back to in-person learning.
Pandemic and school transition-related stress (Schwartz et al., 2021) imposed significant tests on students’ resiliency. One behavioral indicator of academic resiliency is persistence, which is a student’s ability to persevere and continue a task despite difficulties (Padilla-Walker et al., 2013). For adolescents, persistence has been linked to higher GPAs, better class retention, and more extracurricular involvement (Duggan & Pickering, 2007; Jozsa & Morgan, 2014; Zhang & Zhang, 2003). Some known predictors of persistence include state predictors (e.g., positive emotions, Tice et al., 2003) and trait predictors (e.g., self-esteem, Di Paula & Campbell, 2002; optimism, Carver et al., 2010).
Currently, available research on academic persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic primarily focuses on college students(e.g., Casanova et al., 2022; Sharma & Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2022). One study that focuses on adolescents linked persistence to competence and positive emotion during the pandemic (Holzer et al., 2021). The current study aims to investigate if and how three sets of variables (stress during covid, state factors, and trait factors) predict academic persistence in Black adolescents during the transition period. The main variables of interest are implicit theories of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, which assess one’s belief about the changeability of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors (Schleider & Weisz, 2016). If individuals believe they can be changed, they adopt a growth mindset; if not, they adopt a fixed mindset. Research has found that stronger growth mindset of intelligence predicts better academic performance (Costa & Faria, 2018). It is unknown, though, if mindsets in the social-emotional area would predict academic behaviors such as persistence.
Method. Participants consisted of 5th through 8th-grade students attending an urban public middle school in the mid-southern United States (n = 77; 58.4% female; all Black/African-American). Data were collected through self-report Qualtrics surveys in November 2021, the semester when students returned to in-person school. The self-report measures assessed family stress; discrimination stress; economic stress experienced during the pandemic; students’ negative feelings, positive feelings, and overall adjustment difficulty associated with returning to in-person school; growth mindset of thought, emotion, and behavior; and academic persistence.
Results and Conclusion. The final model with demographics, stress factors, state factors, and mindset variables is statistically significant. The only significant predictor is growth mindset about behavior. See more results in Table 1. The results suggested that adolescents’ beliefs about their changeability of behavior is an important antecedent to their behavior during difficult times, such as academic persistence during the pandemic.

Authors

• Christian Mueller, University of Memphis
  Presenting Author

• Xu Jiang, Temple University

• Rahma Goran, Temple University