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Researchers examined teacher-related variation in the effects of a classroom intervention designed to impact seventh graders' beliefs about the nature of ability in science as fixed or malleable. Analyses of quantitative data from 7 science classrooms across 2 teachers revealed significant teacher effects in the extent to which students' beliefs about mindset, students' mastery-oriented learning goals, and students' achievement were sustained several months following the intervention. Classroom observational data and teacher reports of their beliefs offered some explanation for these differences. The teacher whose students had better outcomes placed more emphasis on mastery goals, growth mindset, conceptual development, and use of learning strategies in her daily interactions with students than did the other teacher. Program developers may want to design and study ways to impact teachers' practices in order to maximize and sustain program impact.
The purpose of this study was to examine teacher-related variation in the effects of a classroom intervention designed to impact seventh graders' beliefs about the nature of ability in science as fixed or malleable. This study was the second in a series of studies testing whether the Brainology program, an intervention that promoted the belief that ability is malleable, ultimately enhanced young adolescents' motivation for science. In this study, researchers tested for teacher-related differences in the degree to which the intervention was effective as measured by several student outcomes. Researchers then examined classroom observational data and teacher reports to understand how teachers might have enhanced or detracted from the impact of the intervention.
Beliefs About the Malleability of Intelligence
Dweck and others found that significant numbers of school-age children believe that ability is fixed, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that these beliefs predict achievement (Dweck, 2006; Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010). Incremental theories of intelligence (growth mindsets) have been found to predict greater achievement and effort in school than entity theories (fixed mindsets) from early childhood through college (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007; Dweck, 2008; Yeager & Dweck, 2012). Much of the prior research has been conducted in the context of mathematics; we extended those findings to the context of science during middle school.
In multiple lab studies, researchers have shown that mindset can be changed (see Dweck, 1999). Those lab studies led to attempts...