Many large-scale, school-based interventions have attempted to improve academic performance through promoting students' growth mindset, defined as the belief that one's intellectual ability can increase with practice and time. However, most have shown weak to no effects. Thus, it is important to examine how growth mindset might affect retention and transfer of learning, as well as process-related variables such as cognitive load. In a double-blind, randomized controlled experiment based on 138 secondary school students, the effects of an experimentally induced growth mindset belief were examined during a learning phase in a classroom setting. Participants in the growth mindset condition perceived a lower intrinsic load and extraneous load and performed better on retention and transfer tests. Students with some prior knowledge also reported a higher mastery goal orientation. Supplementary mediation analysis suggested that the effect on transfer could be fully accounted for by changes in cognitive load perceptions. Future interventions may benefit from designs that promote motivational beliefs that reduce intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load perceptions. Educational Impact And Implications StatementThe experimental study is based on a sample of secondary school students who were presented a short lesson on how sound travels. The study showed that cultivating a growth mindset helped the learners adopt learning goals that focus on development of knowledge and skill. Learners also experienced less cognitive load and achieved deeper understanding of the lesson. These results imply that interventions targeting growth mindset may indeed increase learner motivation and improve learning.

Classrooms full of pupils can be very overwhelming, both for teachers and students, as well as for their joint interactions. It is thus crucial that both can distil the relevant information in this complex scenario and interpret it appropriately. This distilling and interpreting happen to a large extent via visual perception, which is the core focus of the current Special Issue. Six empirical studies present examples of how to capture visual perception in the complexity of a classroom lesson. These examples open up new avenues that go beyond studying perception in restricted and artificial laboratory scenarios: some using video recordings from authentic lessons to others studying actual classrooms. This movement towards more realistic scenarios allows to study the visual perception in classrooms from new perspectives, namely that of the teachers, the learners, and their interactions. This in turn enables to shed novel light onto well-established theoretical concepts, namely students' engagement during actual lessons, teachers' professional vision while teaching, and establishment of joint attention between teachers and students in a lesson. Additionally, one theoretical contribution provides the very first model of teachers' cognitions during teaching in relation to their visual perception, which in turn will allow future research to move beyond explorations towards hypothesis testing. However, to fully thrive, this field of research has to address two crucial challenges: (i) the heterogeneity of its methodological approaches (e.g., varying age groups, subjects taught, lesson formats) and (ii) the recording and processing of personal data of many people (often minors). Hence, these new approaches bear not only new chances for insights but also new responsibilities for the researchers.

The present experiment tested the effects of cueing (spotlights) and of verbal instructions in narrated animations on learning outcomes as well as potential moderator effects of working memory capacity (WMC). We found that the spotlight group dwelled longer on parts that were in the focus of the narration than a no-support group (control group). Despite higher levels of experienced difficulties, the no-support group had higher learning outcomes. More importantly, we found an aptitude-treatment interaction: Students with low WMC were impeded by verbal instruction, whereas students with high WMC were impeded by spotlights. Mediation analyses showed that spotlights increased attention to the focus of the narration that fostered learning outcomes but did not lead to better learning outcomes. Our findings suggest that further research on support procedures for animations should (i) take WMC into account, (ii) consider possible negative side effects, and (iii) address processes that mediate the effects.

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