Growth mindset is not associated with scholastic aptitude in a large sample of university applicants

Abstract

Implicit theories of intelligence have been proposed to predict a large number of different outcomes in education. The belief that intelligence is malleable (growth mindset) is supposed to lead to better academic achievement and students' mindset is therefore a potential target for interventions. The present study used a large sample of university applicants (N = 5,653) taking a scholastic aptitude test to further examine the relationship between mindset and achievement in the academic domain. We found that results in the test were slightly negatively associated with growth mindset (r = -.03). Mindset showed no relationship with the number of test administrations participants signed up for and it did not predict change in the test results. The results show that the strength of the association between academic achievement and mindset might be weaker than previously thought. Keywords mindset, scholastic aptitude, achievement, implicit theories, education, intelligence, selfregulation, performanceIntelligence predicts a large number of important life outcomes (Neisser et al., 1996). Apart from the level of intelligence itself, people may also differ in their implicit theories about the nature of intelligence and its malleability. On one end of the continuum, some people consider intelligence fixed and unchangeable. On the opposite side, some people believe that intelligence can be improved and developed. These two views are labeled as a fixed mindset and growth mindset, respectively (Dweck, 2012;Dweck & Leggett, 1988;Molden & Dweck, 2006). A recent metaanalysis showed that implicit theories about intelligence are associated with various aspects of self-regulation (Burnette, O'Boyle, VanEpps, Pollack, & Finkel, 2013). People with growth mindset tend to set learning goals rather than performance goals, they tend to adopt strategies focused on mastery rather than helpless-oriented strategies, and when monitoring their goal achievement, they tend to focus on future expectations of success rather than negative emotions. Importantly, the self-regulatory processes associated with growth mindset are positively associated with goal achievement. Growth mindset itself was therefore shown to be associated with a higher likelihood of achieving one's goals; even though, the results of the meta-analysis suggest that the association is weak (Burnette et al., 2013).While Burnette et al. (2013) showed the association between implicit theories and achievement, some research (e.g., Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007; see also Yeager et al., 2014) suggests that people with growth and fixed mindset may not differ in their baseline abilities and the difference appears only when encountering adversities or challenging situations. For example, students with growth and fixed mindset may not differ in their mathematics grades before entering junior high school, but the transition to high school poses a significant challenge to which students with growth mindset might adapt better. As a results, mathematics grades were shown to st...

Predictive Factors of Literacy Achievement in Young Gifted Children in Rural Schools

“…Although this appears to be contrary to some of the literature that advocates a growth mindset as a catalyst for academic achievement (e.g., King, 2012), it is not entirely without support from other researchers (e.g., Bahník & Vranka, 2017) and may point instead to the potential benefits to be gained from students adopting elements from both a fixed and growth mindset.…”

Does growth mindset improve children’s IQ, educational attainment or response to setbacks? Active-control interventions and data on children’s own mindsets

“…Unlike Blackwell et al (2007), these authors reported a significant but small (β = 0.06, CI95= [0.03, 0.09]) association of growth mindset with pre-study GPA (t(1561) = 3.47, p < .001). Recently in in a large sample of university applicants, Bahník and Vranka (2017) found no association of mindset with scholastic aptitude in university entrants.…”

“…This call has been widely heeded in education (Yettick, Lloyd, Harwin, Riemer, & Swanson, 2016). These claims have, however, been subject to little independent replication (Bahník & Vranka, 2017). In particular, the claim that mindset intervention in children (10-12 year olds) causes large (> 1 SD) impacts on post-challenge IQ (Mueller & Dweck, 1998) has not been replicated, and no studies have included graded outcome measures (easy and difficult ability items), or active-control conditions, against which intervention effects may be benchmarked, as well as objective measures of external benefits (school grades across time).…”

General and domain-specific grit both show a negative association with scholastic aptitude in a large sample of university applicants

“…Measures of grit in all three domains correlated negatively with the results of the GAP test (see Figure 1 and 2 These data were also used for some analyses of effects of growth mindset in Bahník and Vranka (2017). It is possible to see from Figure 1 that the negative association held for participants within the whole range of abilities and within the whole range of the grit scale.…”

“…The test has good reliability and it has been shown to correlate highly with the Scholastic aptitude test (SAT; r = .76) and Raven's advanced progressive matrices (r = .5; https://osf.io/xaeu6/). Additional information about the test can be found in Bahník and Vranka (2017) and on https://osf.io/qr8r2/. The analysis was conducted with scores normalized by McCall transformation (McCall, 1939).…”