Growth Mindset: Why some children are successful

For the past decades, many researchers such as Professor Carol Dweck from Stanford University have been interesting in students’ attitude toward failure. Interestingly, they noticed that some students rebounded back while some students seemed devastated by even the smallest setback in their lives. In her psychology research on thousands of students, Professor Dweck coined the terms Growth and Fixed mindsets, which are the two attitudes that most students seem to exhibit when they encounter failure. In this publication, I am going to explain deeper what growth and fixed mindsets are, what developmental factors in our lives influence the long-term impact of these mindsets. I will argue that having a growth mindset is important because it creates a belief that students have a full control of their intelligence. In addition, I will talk about how we can go about implementing a policy intervention to create a growth mindset in students. I am also going to talk about the challenges that must be considered in implementing the recommended solution as well as the effect that this intervention has on patterns of behavior and overall well-being of the students.

What are Growth and Fixed Mindsets?

For over 30 years, professor Carol Dweck and colleagues have been studying the attitudes and achievements of thousands of students in America. Two important questions they tried to answer were why some students are more successful than others and what factors create this gap. In her research study, professor Dweck found that students’ mindsets — how they perceive their abilities — played a key role in their motivation and achievement. In addition, she stated in a commentary documentary in 2015 that if “we changed students’ mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset).” In simple terms, growth mindset is a belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through hard work, repetition, and experience. In contrast, fixed mindset people tend to believe that their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. These people normally spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them like what growth mindset people do. They also believe that talent alone creates success — without effort. Below is an imagine highlighting common quotes of growth vs. fixed mindsets:

Photo by Ameet Ranadive

From the image above, we can see that growth mindset statements tend to be more optimistic and fixed mindset statements tend to be more pessimistic.

Developmental factors that have a long-term impact on how these mindsets develop

Recent advances in neuroscience have shown us that the brain is far more malleable than we ever knew. A research study by Bryan Kolb and colleagues from the University of Michigan on brain plasticity has shown how connectivity between neurons can change with experience (Kolb et al.). With practice, neural networks grow new connections, strengthen existing ones, and build insulation that speeds transmission of impulses through the process we have learnt in class called myelination. These neuroscientific discoveries have shown us that we can increase our neural growth by the actions we take, such as using good strategies, asking questions, practicing, and following good nutrition and sleep habits. With this in mind, we can see that those believe their brain and intelligence can grow would in turn behave differently and continue to develop a growth mindset. Similarly, opposite is the case for fixed mindset individuals who measure their ability due to fixed traits at birth.

In addition, the type of support the students receive at school also play a role in the development of growth and fixed mindsets, shaping how they perceive the malleability of their intelligence. In a research article titled “Impact of a Growth Mindset Intervention on Academic Performance of Students at Two Urban High Schools.”, researchers chose struggling students and taught them how to develop growth mindsets through counseling and awareness of mindset difference in an after school program (Brougham et al.). The study found that the students who received counseling started receiving higher scores in school. Similarly, another research study by Blackwell and colleagues in 2007 found that 7th graders who were taught that intelligence is malleable and shown how the brain grows with effort showed a clear increase in math grades. Below is the chart displaying the improvement of those students in the study:

In this graph, we can see that students who are trained to have a growth mindset have shown a constant positive slope over time in their math GPA, which is a beneficial result for the students.

From these two studies we can see that there is a strong relationship between the development of growth mindset in students and the type of support and teaching the children receive in their environment although the students may exhibit a fixed mindset to begin with.

Why is it important to have a growth mindset?

Having a growth mindset is crucial for success of students because it helps create an underlying belief that students are in full control of their own intelligence and destiny. Through hard work and persistence, all students will be able to learn and improve on areas they lack competency in as demonstrated in the above study by Blackwell on the 7th grade students. This idea is strongly supported in a study on the effects of a growth mindset on self-efficacy and motivation by Emily Rhew and colleagues from Western Connecticut State University. The researchers selected two groups of students¾one is control and another is experimental¾and used a program called Brainology that teaches growth mindset for the experimental group. The researchers measure whether there were differences in the mean scores for self-efficacy and motivation in reading by using Reader Self-Perception Scale 2nd Edition and the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire. They found that having a growth mindset had positive effects on students’ motivation and motivation is one of the key elements that distinguishes successful and non-successful students in any fields. Motivation helps students set goals and keep them striving forward.

In addition, as professor Dweck presents in her research paper in 2008, she found that having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset can predict math and science achievement over time and that “students who believe that intelligence or math and science ability is simply a fixed trait (a fixed mindset) are at a significant disadvantage compared to students who believe that their abilities can be developed (a growth mindset).” Specifically, she means that having a growth mindset is important because it can lead to students performing better in hard subjects like math and science (Dweck 2008). More importantly, Dweck states that interventions to change mindsets can boost achievement while reducing achievement discrepancies in the classroom. This means that one’s mindset is a great indicator of their success in academia. Notably those that are successful are those obtaining a growth mindset and teaching them about this concept has the potential to make them grittier, more positive, and more successful in their career and everyday lives.

Policy intervention to create a growth mindset in students

Currently, there exist a few policy interventions aimed to help student succeed in class like requiring all prospective teachers to enroll in preparation certification programs before they can go on to teach. In these classes, teachers are thoroughly trained about important topics such as child or adolescent development, student assessment and educational psychology etc. Some states across America even adopt the Common Core Standards for reading and mathematics to help students reach those ambitious outcome goals. Unfortunately, none of these interventions matters if teachers do not know the correct tool to help students work harder in the learning environment. Specifically, we need a new nation-wide policy intervention that requires teachers to incorporate praise into their teaching style when students are performing well in class. Surprisingly, research suggests that “praise is underused in both general- and special-education classrooms” when it is one of the most important elements in raising motivation in students (Myers et al.).

By praise, I do not mean any praise. I mean effort praise, which focuses on behavior and efforts, not on the outcome. This type of praise may be: “You’re really committed to your soccer practices!” Or “Look at all the colors you chose for your painting. You’re really working hard on that!” Researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands recently conducted two studies on 300 elementary schools suggesting that not all praise is created equal (Brummelman et al.). Additionally, certain types of praise such as person praise may actually undermine the self-esteem of some children, especially those whose self-image is already fragile, similar to fixed mindset. However, the study also observes that with effort praise, students are more likely to feel good about themselves even when they don’t achieve success, meaning effort praise helps create growth mindset in students. They also speculate that these kids will be more likely to try again when they view failure as a temporary setback, not a personality flaw. This finding is further supported by a research study by Dr. Melissa Karmins from Columbia University when she put three groups of children (ages 5–6 years) to perform some role-played tasks involving setbacks. Her research indicated that “children displayed significantly more ‘helpless’ responses (including self-blame) on all dependent measures after person criticism or praise than after process criticism or praise.” From these two studies we can see that using praise to reward students is an important practice. However, using the right praise to reward them is even more important because when kids link their outcomes to their personal qualities, this link may lead to a more negative self-image and a lack of effort/ in the future.

How to implement this policy intervention?

To put this new policy intervention into practice nation-wide, we need to encourage teachers to use only effort praise while eliminating the other in the classroom. But since there are too many teachers in the United States that we can talk to, we will carry out the task in two steps. One, all representatives from all school districts should be invited over to an educational conference to discuss about the benefits of growth mindset and effort praise. Additionally, we will talk about the danger of fixed mindset and person praise on student achievement. Then, these representatives may report back to their home districts to host workshops around town to all the teachers about what they have learnt from the conference. Some basic guidelines that should be included in the workshop:

· Explain the benefits of growth mindset and effort praise on students

· Explain the dangers of fixed mindset and person praise on students

· Demonstrate good examples of effort praise and person praise

· Encourage teachers to use only effort praise in classroom while eliminating the other from practice

Challenges that this implementation may face

Apparently, wanting to implement this new policy intervention nation-wide is easier said then done due to its large scale and the potential differences in people’s opinions on effort praise versus person praise. We can show the results of hundreds of research studies about the benefits of having a growth mindset to all the teachers in the United States, but if some of them choose to not believe in it, then there is little we can do to encourage the change. Mainly, it is because they are the primary people who have the most control in shaping the students’ perspectives and helping them acquire knowledge, competence and virtue. Another reason why this policy is hard to be implemented is some teachers are so accustomed to using person praise in their daily lives to reward students for their good performance. Therefore, it is going to take a lot of effort to change this old habit unless they are reminded every second — -but normally this is not the case.

Effect of implementing this policy on patterns of behavior and overall well-being

The implementation of the above policy intervention will help create a growth mindset in students. Having a growth mindset does not only help students perform well academically, but also bring advantage to their overall well-being because this mindset provides greater comfort when students are taking personal risks and striving for more stretching goals. Additionally, students with a growth mindset tend to have a higher motivation, enhanced brain development across wider ranges of tasks, lower stress, anxiety and depression because they believe that their setbacks are only temporary and, by no mean, are they a quality of their fixed personal traits. Students with growth mindset tend to also have better work relationships and higher performance levels because they are always in good mood and motivated to perform the task at hand. As a study published recently in the journal Psychological Science by researchers from the University of Western Ontario in Canada suggests, better mood is equal to better performance. Therefore, it is very important and beneficial to implement a growth mindset in students. And it is also why students with a growth mindset tend to be more successful than others.

References

Blackwell, Lisa S, et al. “Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement across an Adolescent Transition: a Longitudinal Study and an Intervention.” Child Development, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Feb. 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17328703.

Brougham, Lisa, and Susan Kashubeck-West. “Impact of a Growth Mindset Intervention on Academic Performance of Students at Two Urban High Schools — Lisa Brougham, Susan Kashubeck-West, 2017.” SAGE Journals, SAGE Journals, 20 Apr. 2018, journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2156759X18764934.

Brummelman, Eddie, et al. “Separating Narcissism from Self-Esteem — Eddie Brummelman …” ResearchGate, ResearchGate.net, Feb. 2016, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963721415619737.

Dweck, Carol S. “Mindsets and Math/Science Achievement.” Nationalnumeracy.org.uk, Nationalnumeracy, 2008, www.growthmindsetmaths.com/uploads/2/3/7/7/23776169/mindset_and_math_science_achievement_-_nov_2013.pdf.

Dweck, Carol S. Carol Dweck Revisits the ‘Growth Mindset’. 23 Sept. 2015, www.aadusd.k12.ca.us/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=349&ViewID=DEDCCD34-7C24-4AF2-812A-33C0075398BC&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=626&PageID=1&Tag=.

Karmins, Melissa L, and Carol S Dweck. “Person Versus Process Praise and Criticism: Implications for Contingent Self-Worth and Coping.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, 22 Oct. 1998, psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/1999–05027–021.html.

Kolb, Bryan, et al. “Brain Plasticity and Behavior.” Psychologicalscience.org, www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/cd/12_1/kolb.cfm.

Myers, Diane M., et al. “Increasing Teachers’ Use of Praise with a Response-to-Intervention Approach.” Education and Treatment of Children, West Virginia University Press, 16 Jan. 2011, muse.jhu.edu/article/407711/pdf.

Nadler, Ruby T, et al. “Better Mood and Better Performance. Learning Rule-Described Categories Is Enhanced by Positive Mood.” Psychological Science, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 21 Dec. 2010, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20974709.

Rhew, Emily, et al. “The Effects of a Growth Mindset on Self-Efficacy and Motivation.” Tandfonline, Taylor and France Online, 13 July 2018, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331186X.2018.1492337.