Growth mindset predicts teachers’ life satisfaction when they are challenged to innovate their teaching

Abstract

Teaching innovations can improve the quality of education and facilitate adaptation to environmental shifts caused by global shocks such as the COVID pandemic. However, the pressure to innovate and change may also cause erosion of teachers’ life satisfaction, especially when job resources are insufficient and support for the changes is inadequate, or when teachers lack confidence in mastering new teaching technology. In the present research, we showed that compared to those who did not, teachers who presented a growth mindset—the belief that one's abilities can grow by mobilizing effective effort—had a greater tendency to accept a new initiative in teaching and had higher life satisfaction, particularly when they perceived resources and support for the change were insufficient (Study 1). In addition, when schools needed to switch to online teaching because of school closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers who presented a growth mindset, compared to those who did not, felt more self-efficacious in mastering online teaching and had higher life satisfaction (Study 2). We discuss these findings in terms of their implications on the management of teacher well-being and teachers’ professional development during significant environmental shifts.

Literature review on teachers’ mindsets, growth-oriented practices and why they matter

“…To conclude, based on this review, it seems that both in-service and pre-service teachers mostly hold a growth mindset when measured with self-reports (e.g., Jones et al, 2012;Gutshall, 2013;Patterson et al, 2016;Makkonen et al, 2019;Snyder et al, 2021;Meierdirk and Fleischer, 2022;Graham et al, 2023;Lee et al, 2023). Furthermore, most studies on the manifestation of teachers' mindsets and the connection between teachers' mindsets and growth-oriented practices, on the one hand, and students' mindsets and learning, on the other, reported at least some connection between the former and the latter.…”

“…By contrast, teachers with a fixed mindset avoided helpseeking because of a fear of failure or from the desire to cope independently (Inbar-Furst and Gumpel, 2015). Similarly, Lee et al (2023) found that teachers' growth mindsets were positively associated with perceptions of a new "positive education program" (study 1) and with teachers' self-efficacy regarding online teaching (study 2). Teachers' growth mindsets have also been linked to a more receptive attitude toward curriculum reform (Huang, 2023).…”

“…Studies that have examined teachers' implicit beliefs, i.e., mindsets about intelligence, have found that pre-service (Jones et al, 2012;Patterson et al, 2016;Snyder et al, 2021;Meierdirk and Fleischer, 2022) and in-service teachers (Jones et al, 2012;Gutshall, 2013;Patterson et al, 2016;Makkonen et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2020;Mesler et al, 2021;Willingham et al, 2021;Graham et al, 2023;Lee et al, 2023) tend to endorse a growth mindset toward intelligence. Moreover, studies indicate that teachers' mindsets are domain specific.…”

Personal qualities are malleable and fixed: Ambivalent mindset, capability ranking reinforcement, and parent–child relationship among Hong Kong Chinese parents

“…Related to this question is the consistently small negative correlation between the growth mindset and fixed mindset in Chinese samples (e.g., Lee et al, 2023). This is an anomaly because this empirical dissociation of the growth mindset from the fixed mindset may seem logically impossible.…”

“…Thus, we should expect a sizeable negative correlation between endorsement of the two mindsets. However, in research conducted in Hong Kong, the negative correlations of the two mindsets were typically small (see Lee et al, 2023). For example, between 2017 and 2019, we collected mindset data from 594 teachers (67.1% female; mean age = 31.91 years, SD = 17.76 years) from 5 primary schools and 3 secondary schools in Hong Kong.…”