Page 8 - ELG2304 Apr Issue 484

RESEARCH NEWS .

Growth mindset

Can a growth mindset be harnessed to improve academic progress?

By Gillian Ragsdale
Students with a more growth-
oriented mindset do better on
an academic writing course, but
reading and writing about having
a growth mindset does not work PHOTO MEDIAMODIFIER FROM PIXABAY
as an intervention to shift to a
growth mindset, according to a
recent study by Hansol Lee, Jang
Ho Lee (Korea Military Academy
and Chung-Ang University,
South Korea) and Robin Scarcella
(University of California, USA).
In essence, having a growth – as
opposed to fixed – mindset means
that you believe your intelligence
and abilities can improve over
time: just because you are not
good at something today doesn’t
mean that with work you can’t
get better at it. Over the last
couple of decades there has been
increasing interest in the role of a
growth mindset in education: are
students who really believe they
can improve actually more likely
to make progress? written academic English as well scores than fixed scores had a disappointing results. Not only did
as a mindset scale, a set of 18 ‘mixed profile’ and those with the the mindset content not improve
Academic questions assessing their mindset, lowest growth scores were referred students’ mindset profiles overall,
scores as a goal during week one and again in to as having a ‘fixed profile’. it appears to have even eroded
students’ growth profiles.
At the start of the course, there
week 10 of the course.
is somewhat a Most attempts to promote was no significant difference suggesting that a growth mindset
The authors cite previous work
involve
growth
mindset
between the week-one writing
antithetical to extra hours added, such as a scores between the three can be initially challenged when
growth mindset presentation or workshop-style mindset profiles. Comparing the faced with new tasks, but this
intervention. In this study,
students’ mindset profiles with
seems a very weak explanation,
philosophy however, the intervention was their academic writing scores given that a growth mindset
fully integrated into the writing after 10 weeks, however, those in itself was still shown to be
This has led to a range of course by basing the material on with a growth or mixed profile associated with better progress. (It
interventions to foster a growth Mindset: The new psychology of had higher writing scores than might also be worth considering
mindset, but it has been very success by Carol Dweck (2006). students with a fixed profile. that academic scores as a goal is
difficult to show that any of these For example, the first module To examine the possible effect somewhat antithetical to growth
actually impact on academic was titled: ‘How do people of changes in mindset profile, mindset philosophy.)
performance. This study tested respond to challenges and the study authors analysed the The problem may be in the
whether students with a growth failure?’ and the second: ‘Why students’ week one and week- nature of the intervention: 10
mindset did better on a 10-week is having growth mindsets 10 mindset scores to see how weeks of reading and writing
academic writing course and, important in achieving excellence they had changed. In fact, this about a growth mindset did
furthermore, whether using a and success?’ Each module analysis showed that 55% of those nothing (or worse) to foster an
course with content chosen used chapters from Mindset for who had begun the course with actual growth mindset. It may be
to foster a growth mindset reading comprehension and other a growth profile had dropped to that, just as reading about dieting
could both change students’ language activities. The writing a mixed (44%) or fixed (11%) does not, sadly, result in weight
mindsets as well as improve their tests also used prompts from profile. Overall, the proportion loss (and may even drive the
academic writing. Mindset, such as, ‘No matter how with a growth profile dropped reader to despair and eat more)
Three hundred and nineteen much intelligence you have, you from 21% to 15%: mixed profiles students need to walk the walk
non-native English speakers can always change it a bit’. rose from 27% to 33%, while and not just read the talk.
enrolled as undergraduates at a US Student’s mindset profiles were fixed profiles remained at 52%
university took part in the study. grouped into three categories (although this comprised only REFERENCE
Most (93%) of the students were according to their responses to 79% of the original week-one n Lee, H; Lee, J H and Scarcella, R C
Mandarin Chinese speakers and the mindset scale. Those with a fixed profiles). (2023) ‘Influencing language and
all had a minimum TOEFL iBT higher growth than fixed mindset The authors, unsurprisingly, English writing competence through
score of 80 (upper intermediate). score were allocated a ‘growth struggled to account for these an EAP program: A longitudinal
Students were given a test of profile’. Those with lower growth somewhat surprising and study with latent transition analysis’.
8 April 2023