Year: 2023
Type: review
Abstract: Educational outcomes remain highly unequal within and across nations. Students' mindsets-their beliefs about whether intellectual abilities can be developed-have been identified as a potential lever for making adolescents' academic outcomes more equitable. Recent research, however, suggests that intervention programs aimed at changing students' mindsets should be supplemented by programs aimed at the changing the mindset culture, which is defined as the shared set of beliefs about learning in a school or classroom. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical origin of the mindset culture and examines its potential to reduce group-based inequalities in education. In particular, experiments have identified two broad ways the mindset culture is communicated by teachers: via informal messages about growth (e.g., that all students will be helped to learn and succeed), and formal opportunities to improve (e.g., learning-focused grading policies and opportunities to revise and earn credit). New field experiments, applying techniques from behavioral science, have also revealed effective ways to influence teachers' culture-creating behaviors. This paper describes recent breakthroughs in the U.S. educational context and discusses how lessons from these studies might be applied in future, global collaborations with researchers and practitioners.
Source: npj Science of Learning
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,490
Funders: National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, University of Texas at Austin, Jacobs Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Division of Social and Economic Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Awards: G1146029012, SBP: Can Teachers' "Psychological Affordances" Broaden Participation in Math and Science?, G1716841008, G2543061859, University of Texas at Austin - to develop a learning mindset intervention with 9th grade math teachers in Texas., G3880580809, G3937299769, G4787465988, G5239508974, G5263646216, Math Classrooms, Student Mindsets and STEM Pathways in High School, Estimating and Understanding Effects of Teaching Teens That People Can Change, G6240213618, G6498424017, G8060223273, G8192881174, Population Research Center, Training Program in Population Studies
OpenAlex ID: W4386244635