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This full research paper reports findings from a multitiered intervention focused on developing growth mindset among talented, low-income undergraduate students attending a College of Computing in the northeastern United States. Rooted in theories of intelligence, a growth mindset views intelligence and skills as being developed through persistent practice and learning from mistakes, while a fixed mindset sees skills as set at birth, never evolving, with mistakes becoming insurmountable barriers to success. The program in this study was designed to develop a community of learners with a shared framework for responding to academic challenges, to combat imposter syndrome, and to support persistence in their major and enter the workforce. During their first two years as college students, three undergraduate cohorts (totaling 32 participants) experienced four semesters of growth-mindset faculty mentoring concurrent with a community-building, growth mindset-focused seminar, and in their first year experienced two growth-mindset infused introductory programming courses. To address the research question, “How do talented, financially disadvantaged computing students understand growth and fixed mindsets?”, we report on qualitative data collected each semester, for each cohort. Focus group transcripts and individual written responses were thematically analyzed, drawing from a priori frameworks (social constructivism and self-efficacy in the context of mindset theory) and emergent codes to develop categories. Discussion is presented using frames of self-determination theory and positioning theory. We discuss the impact of these findings on students, implications for growth mindset interventions and provide guidance for using educational and developmental theories in the context of studies of growth mindset.
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How Do Students Talk About Intelligence?: An Investigation of Motivation, Self-Efficacy, and Mindsets in Computer Science
Undergraduate programs in computer science (CS) face high dropout rates, and many students struggle while learning to program. Studies show that perceived programming ability is a significant factor in students' decision to major in CS. Fortunately, psychology research shows that promoting the growth mindset, or the belief that intelligence grows with effort, can improve student persistence and performance. However, mindset interventions have been less successful in CS than in other domains. We conducted a small-scale interview study to explore how CS students talk about their intelligence, mindsets, and programming behaviors. We found that students' mindsets rarely aligned with definitions in the literature; some present mindsets that combine fixed and growth attributes, while others behave in ways that do not align with their mindsets. We also found that students frequently evaluate their self-efficacy by appraising their programming intelligence, using surprising criteria like typing speed and ease of debugging to measure ability. We conducted a survey study with 103 students to explore these self-assessment criteria further, and found that students use varying and conflicting criteria to evaluate intelligence in CS. We believe the criteria that students choose may interact with mindsets and impact their motivation and approach to programming, which could help explain the limited success of mindset interventions in CS.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1755628
- PAR ID:
- 10144185
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The growth mindset or the belief that intelligence is malleable has garnered significant attention for its positive association with academic success. Several recent randomized trials, including the National Study of Learning Mindsets (NSLM), have been conducted to understand why, for whom, and under what contexts a growth mindset intervention can promote beneficial achievement outcomes during critical educational transitions. Prior research suggests that the NSLM intervention was particularly effective in improving low-achieving 9th graders’ GPA, while the impact varied across schools. In this study, we investigated the underlying causal mediation mechanism that might explain this impact and how the mechanism varied across different types of schools. By extending a recently developed weighting method for multisite causal mediation analysis, the analysis enhances the external and internal validity of the results. We found that challenge-seeking behavior played a significant mediating role, only in medium-achieving schools, which may partly explain the reason why the intervention worked differently across schools. We conclude by discussing implications for designing interventions that not only promote students’ growth mindsets but also foster supportive learning environments under different school contexts.more » « less
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This innovative practice full paper examines mindset understandings of three cohorts of first-year student scholars in a College of Computing at a private technical Carnegie-classified Doctoral University in the northeastern United States. Grounded in theories of intelligence, a growth mindset posits that intelligence and skills can be developed through continued practice and learning, while a fixed mindset situates one with the skills they have at birth, never to evolve or grow. Thirty-two undergraduate students across three years (10 students in year one, cohort one; 10 students in year two, cohort two; and 12 students in year three, cohort three) participated in a holistic growth mindset program that included three pillars: (a) faculty-student mentoring infused with growth mindset, (b) growth-mindset augmentations to the introductory programming course and (c) a growth mindset-scholar seminar - a series of meetings where each cohort met as a group to discuss and practice activating a growth mindset. Previous work with students has focused on more limited growth mindset interventions rather than a holistic approach. Prior to the scholars arriving on campus, the faculty involved in each of the pillars were part of a Community of Practice to learn about and activate their own growth mindset. At the end of their first semester in the project, each of the student cohorts participated in a focus group to learn about their understanding and application of growth and fixed mindset. We report findings from the student scholar data after one semester of participating in the three programmatic pillars in the context of growth mindset: mentoring, programming instruction, and the scholar seminar. Summary findings from the student perspectives are described including the use of illustrative quotes, in the students' own words, serving as a powerful reminder of the importance of growth mindset and relationship building. This has implications for addressing mindset in the future by considering how the innovative practice of embedding a growth mindset holistically into mentoring, instruction and a student seminar can provide support for students that standalone interventions cannot.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3291279.3339413
