Students’ Mindsets for Learning and Their Neural Underpinnings

Abstract

It has been shown that individuals with a growth mindset for learning see mistakes as opportunities to learn and improve, whereas for fixed-minded individuals mistakes indicate lack of ability. Earlier empirical research on mindsets includes both quantitative surveys and qualitative approaches with observations and stimulated recall method. During performance monitoring it is possible to probe event-related brain potentials (ERPs), enabling the investigation of the neural basis of students' different reactions to mistakes. ERP studies have shown that growth mindset is associated with an enhancement of the error positivity (Pe), an ERP reflecting awareness of and attention allocation to mistakes. More growth-minded individuals also show superior accuracy after mistakes compared to those endorsing more of a fixed mindset. Most importantly, Pe amplitude mediates the relationship between mindset and post-error accuracy. These results suggest that neural activity indexing online awareness of and attention to mistakes is intimately involved in growth-minded individuals' ability to rebound from mistakes. In this article we review and connect educational, psychological and neuroscientific points of view to investigate the role of mindsets related to learning.

Grit, Mindset, and Academic Performance: A Study of Pre-University Science Students

“…Many studies have demonstrated a relationship between a growth mindset and achievement (Aronson et al, 2002;Blackwell, 2007;Burnett et al, 2013;Cury et al, 2008;Devers, 2015;Dweck et al, 2000;2012;Good, 2003;Stipek et al, 1996;Tirri & Kujala, 2016;Yeager & Walton, 2011;Zeng et al, 2016). Growth mindset appears to have a direct positive impact on students' academic achievement throughout primary and secondary schools.…”

How Teachers’ and Students’ Mindsets in Learning Have Been Studied: Research Findings on Mindset and Academic Achievement

“…Furthermore, according to a number of studies these social-psychological interventions can produce longlasting gains in achievement. Tirri and Kujala (2016) reviewed brain research on mindset from the perspective of neuropsychological mechanisms, which indicated support for Dweck's theory: students' mindsets were adaptive and associated with their learning processes. Crucially, students could be influenced by appropriate interventions, since even "very brief intervention including knowledge on the value of effort and the potential for brains to adapt to new information has had a positive influence on students' learning" (p. 1236).…”

“…In the present study, for the sake of convenience and uniformity, the term "mindset" will be used. Previous reviews examining the relationship between students' mindsets and their performance indicate that mindset has an essential role in learning (Burnette, O'Boyle, VanEpps, Pollack, & Finkel, 2013;Dweck, 2000Dweck, , 2012Tirri & Kujala, 2016;Yeager & Walton, 2011). Dweck and Leggett's (1988) social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality specified how individuals' implicit theories oriented them to set different goals and influenced their perceived ability, their cognitive and affective mechanisms, and their behavior patterns.…”

Mindsets and Failures: Neural Differences in Reactions to Mistakes among Second-Grade Finnish Girls

“…In order to shed more light on mindsets and how they affect behavior, there has, in the recent years, been a growing interest in understanding the mechanisms behind the relations between mindsets and behavioral outcomes, including interest in the possible neural mechanisms that are involved in these processes [13][14][15][16][17]. Indeed, individuals with a growth mindset tend to recover from setbacks easier than individuals with a fixed mindset, and neural activity concerning automatic reactions to errors seems to be involved in this ability to rebound from mistakes (for review, see [18]). Although, thus far the neuroscientific research related to mindsets is still rather scarce, especially concerning studies conducted on children.…”

“…Taking into account the previous discussion and the stated importance of connecting psychological, educational, and neuroscientific research when studying mindsets [18], the purpose of our pilot study was to examine and evaluate the neural differences of attention allocation to mistakes between growth and fixed mindset girls in the Finnish elementary school context. Relying on the previous research in this field, we expected to detect differences in the error-monitoring ERPs of growth and fixed mindset participants.…”