Students (like all people) have elements of both growth and fixed mindsets. We studied shifts in both types of student mindsets over three one-semester courses. We found no significant change in students’ growth mindset at the beginning of the semester compared to the end of the semester. However, students’ fixed mindsets showed a statistically significant increase from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester. Two multilevel models were used to understand why students’ fixed mindsets may have increased 1) personal sourcesmastery goal, performance goal, and internal recognition, and 2) situational sourcesclassroom goal orientations and external recognition. Students’ endorsement of a performance goal orientation, which focuses on demonstrating competence and managing others’ perception of their abilities, increased their fixed mindset views at the end of the semester. In the model focused on situational sources, we found that students’ fixed mindset increased when they perceived their classroom environment endorsed a performance-approach goal structure and by receiving external recognition. When comparing both models, students’ fixed mindset increase was largely explained by classroom environmental sources. Specifically, students’ fixed mindsets increased when they perceived that their classroom environment valued a demonstration of competence (i.e., classroom performance-approach). Being recognized as an engineer by peers and instructors also increased students’ fixed views of their abilities. Conversely, one situational source was found to decrease students’ fixed mindset views, i.e., a classroom environment that promotes mastery goals. Our study points to an apparent and crucial role engineering classroom environments have in promoting certain mindsets. The study concludes with one pedagogical strategy that may help mitigate the inadvertent promotion of a fixed mindset, e.g., a mastery learning pedagogical intervention.
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This content will become publicly available on December 23, 2024
Identifying and shifting educators' failure pedagogical mindsets through reflective practices
In this paper, we add to the scant literature base on learning from failures with a particular focus on understanding educators' shifting mindset in making‐centred learning environments.
The aim of Study 1 was to explore educators' beliefs about failure for learning and instructional practices within their local making‐centred learning environments. The aim of Study 2 was to examine how participation in a video‐based professional development cycle regarding failure moments in making‐centred learning environments might have shifted museum educators' failure pedagogical mindsets.
In Study 1, the sample included 15 educators at either a middle school or museum. In Study 2, the sample included 39 educators across six museums.
In Study 1, educators engaged in a semi‐structured interview that lasted between 45 and 75 min. In Study 2, the six museums video recorded professional development sessions.
Results from Study 1 highlighted educators' failure pedagogical mindsets as either underdeveloped or rigid and absent of relational thinking between self‐ and youth‐failures. One key result from Study 2 was a shift from an abstract sense of failure as youth‐focused to a practical sense of failure as educator‐focused and/or relational (i.e., youth educator‐focused failure moments).
Based on the results from Study 1 and Study 2, our research suggests that exploring an educator's relationship with failure is important and witnessing and reflecting upon their own failure pedagogical mindset in action may facilitate a shift towards a more complex and interconnected space for growth and development of both educators and youth.
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10482788
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- British Journal of Educational Psychology
- ISSN:
- 0007-0998
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Background Students may exhibit growth mindsets, where intelligence is seen as malleable and failures prompt more effort and new approaches, or fixed mindsets, where intelligence is seen as immutable and failures indicate lack of intelligence. One's mindset in general may be different from that for a particular domain such as engineering. Having a growth mindset predicts more positive learning outcomes.
Purpose We described the general and engineering mindsets of students in fifth‐grade U.S. classrooms (ages 10 and 11) who received engineering instruction. We explored how general mindsets may predict engineering learning outcomes and how engineering mindsets may be predicted by general mindset and other variables.
Design/Method We collected General Mindset (GM) and Engineering Mindset (EM) surveys from 2,086 fifth graders. We analyzed and correlated their GM and EM scores and survey item responses. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we measured the contribution of GM to models predicting EM and engineering learning outcomes and identified factors that predicted EM.
Results Almost three quarters of students who submitted EM surveys agreed with a growth mindset. Students with higher GM scores had higher engineering postassessment scores. Those who had a higher socioeconomic status did not receive special education services, experienced more whole‐class discussion and activity, or had a higher GM score were more likely to have a more growth‐minded EM score.
Conclusions Engineering education should help students see that they can grow in their capacities to engineer. Instructional interventions may positively impact mindset, which could be particularly important for some students. Engineering design may encourage an especially growth‐minded approach to failure experiences.
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Abstract In this study, we investigate museum visitor learning and engagement at an interactive visualization of an evolutionary tree of life consisting of over 70,000 species. The study was conducted at two natural history museums where visitors collaboratively explored the tree of life using direct touch gestures on a multi‐touch tabletop display. In the study, 247 youth, aged 8–15 years, were randomly assigned in pairs to one of four conditions. In two of the conditions, pairs of youth interacted with different versions of the tree of life tabletop exhibit for a fixed duration of 10 minutes. In a third condition, pairs watched a 10 minute video on a similar topic. Individual responses on a 53‐item exit interview were then compared to responses from a fourth, baseline condition. Contrasting with the baseline condition, visitors who interacted with the tabletop exhibits were significantly more likely to reason correctly about core evolutionary concepts, particularly common descent and shared ancestry. They were also more likely to correctly interpret phylogenetic tree diagrams. To investigate the factors influencing these learning outcomes, we used linear mixed models to analyze measures of dyads’ verbal engagement and physical interaction with the exhibit. These models indicated that, while our verbal and physical measures were related, they accounted for significant portions of the variance on their own, independent of youth age, prior knowledge, and parental background. Our results provide evidence that multi‐touch interactive exhibits that enable visitors to explore large scientific datasets can provide engaging and effective learning opportunities. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 53: 895–918, 2016
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Abstract Within museums and science centers, the visual presentation of data represents a timely, relevant, and formidable interpretive challenge. Tackling this challenge head on, however, means employing a series of principles that position educators to support learners of all skill levels in interpreting data visualizations more generally. In this article, we introduce the Simplicity‐Familiarity Matrix, a research‐driven model for situating complex data visualizations in the context of exhibition design. This model emerges from a study of data literacy that was undertaken at five informal learning institutions, along with established principles of constructionist approaches to teaching. Specifically, it highlights key affordances and challenges we associate with data visualizations along two spectra: simplicity and familiarity. We propose the Simplicity‐Familiarity Matrix, along with criteria for each quadrant, to assist museum professionals when designing interpretative materials for an exhibition space. In light of these considerations, we close with several guiding principles for supporting learners’ apprehension of data visualizations in museums: (1) including the use of well‐designed, easy‐to‐understand data visualizations, (2) providing appropriate support and guidance, (3) offering multiple modes of access, and (4) making data visualizations relevant to visitors, e.g., via personalization.
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Abstract Background Motivational factors are one active area of research that aims to increase the inclusion of women in physics. One of these factors that has only recently gained traction in physics is intelligence mindset (i.e., the belief that intelligence is either innate and unchangeable or can be developed). We studied 781 students in calculus-based Physics 1 to investigate if their mindset views were separable into more nuanced dimensions, if they varied by gender/sex and over time, and if they predicted course grade. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to divide mindset survey questions along two dimensions: myself versus others and growth versus ability aspects of mindset. Paired and unpaired
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Conclusion These results allow for a more nuanced view of intelligence mindset than has been suggested in previous interview and survey-based work. By looking at the differences in mindset factors over time, we see that learning environments affect women’s and men’s intelligence mindsets differently. The largest gender difference is in My Ability, the factor that best predicts course grade. This finding has implications for developing future mindset interventions and opens new opportunities to eliminate classroom inequities.
