Dweck's mindset theory
Definition
Growth mindset
The belief that your intelligence and ability can grow through effort, good strategies and practice. Challenges and mistakes are then seen as chances to improve rather than as threats.
- Dweck's mindset theory asks why two children of much the same ability put in very different amounts of work.
- A mindset is what you believe about where ability comes from.
- Dweck described two of them: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
- Which one you hold shapes your motivation, how much effort you put in, and how you react the moment you fail.
Key Idea
- What a pupil believes about where ability comes from changes how much effort they give and how they read a bad result.
- Treating ability as fixed makes hard work risky, because trying hard and still failing would look like proof of a limit.
- Dweck's second claim is that praise does the shaping, so what an adult praises steers which belief a child ends up with.
The two mindsets
Definition
Fixed mindset
The belief that your intelligence and ability are fixed traits that cannot really be changed. Effort then feels pointless and failure feels like proof that you simply lack talent.
- Fixed mindset: ability is a set trait you are born with, so a poor result feels like a verdict on how clever you are.
- You then avoid hard tasks, because failing at one would seem to prove you lack the talent you were counting on.
- Growth mindset: ability develops through effort, experience and better strategies, so a poor result is information about what to change.
- You then look for challenge, because a hard task is where ability stretches.
Example
- You revise hard for a maths mock and still come out with a grade 4.
- A growth mindset reads that as a sign the revision method needs fixing, so you change tactics and sit the next one.
- A fixed mindset reads it as proof that maths is not your subject, so you stop trying.
Praise for effort
- Dweck argues that mindsets are shaped by the kind of praise a child is given.
- Person praise, such as "good job, you're very smart", tells the child success came from a trait they either have or lack, which builds a fixed mindset.
- Praise for effort, such as "good job, you worked very hard", tells the child success came from what they did, which builds a growth mindset.
- Effort praise keeps a child willing to attempt difficult work, because effort is something they can always give more of.
- The praise a child hears can move them from one mindset to the other.
Common Mistake
- Saying "you're so clever" counts as person praise and pushes towards a fixed mindset.
Mindset, goals and the response to failure
- A growth mindset raises effort, because effort is seen as the route to getting better.
- It produces learning goals, so the aim of a task is to improve at it.
- It also builds persistence, so a pupil uses feedback and carries on after a mistake.
- A fixed mindset lowers effort, because trying hard and still failing would expose the lack of talent the pupil fears.
- It produces performance goals, so the aim of a task is to look able, and easy work feels safer.
- It also produces a helpless response to failure, in which the pupil gives up.
- Giving up then makes poor results more likely, and the poor result appears to confirm the belief that started it.
- Blackwell et al. (2007) found in their first study that students with a growth mindset held stronger learning goals and more positive beliefs about effort, and improved more in maths over time.
Note
- Blackwell et al. (2007) reported two separate studies, and the first followed students over time without changing anything about them.
- A link between mindset and improvement in Study 1 therefore leaves open which of the two came first.
- Study 1 and Study 2 stay separate pieces of evidence, because they were set up to do different jobs.
Strengths and limitations
- Strength: in Blackwell et al.'s second study, pupils taught that intelligence can change showed more motivation and higher maths scores.
- Strength: the theory has clear practical use, since a school can change how teachers praise and how pupils are taught to read failure.
- Limitation: real pupils are mixed, so the same person can hold a growth mindset in art and a fixed one in maths.
- Limitation: innate ability also contributes to achievement, and Dweck gives it very little weight.
- This is the nature and nurture criticism, and it applies to Dweck and Willingham alike, because both put almost all the weight on nurture.
Note
- Later attempts to run mindset lessons across whole schools have produced smaller gains than the original studies did.
- A mindset is a belief about ability rather than ability itself, so holding a growth mindset does not replace teaching and practice.
- Study 2 taught pupils that intelligence can change, so it tests what happens when a mindset is taught rather than the mindset a pupil already had.
Turning this into marks
- When both mindsets are asked for, give each one its own belief about ability rather than one belief turned around.
- Quote the praise, such as you worked very hard, because saying the teacher praised the pupil does not secure the knowledge mark.
- The mark most often lost is defining a mindset with no behaviour attached, such as avoiding hard work or using feedback.
- Name Blackwell and say which of the two studies you are using as evidence.
Self review
- What is a fixed mindset?
- What is a growth mindset?
- Give an example of praise for effort and say what it does to a pupil's mindset.
- What is the difference between a learning goal and a performance goal?
- How does Blackwell et al. (2007) support Dweck's ideas?
