Growth vs Fixed Mindset

What is a growth mindset? Mindsets about intelligence – can intellectual abilities be developed or are they immutable? Growth mindset vs. fixed mindset.

• Fixed mindsets – students with a fixed mindsets, who believe intelligence is immutable, avoid situations where they might struggle or fail because that experience would undermine their fixed belief about their own intelligence

• Growth mindsets – students with growth mindsets, see difficult or challenging tasks as a way to increase their abilities and therefore seek out challenging learning experiences

As a consequence of having a growth mindset, students tend to approach school work in different ways and earn better grades than do students with a fixed mindset. And, targeted interventions can be applied to help students develop a growth mindset.

Claro, Paunesku, Dweck (2016) study – elementary school students with a growth mindset out perform students with a fixed mindset at every socioeconomic level

Aditomo (2015) study – university students facing adversity (failing grades), with a growth mindset belief showed more adoption of mastery goals and effort attribution and higher mid-term and final exam grades

Broda, Yun, Schneider, Yeager, Walton, Diener (2018) study – put incoming freshman in a summer orientation program aimed at either promoting a growth mindset, promoting a sense of belongingness, or providing administrative information, found that the growth mindset intervention improved GPAs for minority students in the Fall and in the Spring for both semester and cumulative GPAs

So-called “light-touch interventions” which are minimally invasive can be used to improving academic performance, especially for underrepresented students.