21st Century Learning and Teaching

In science, we build a firm foundation and then we keep renovating the house. We find interesting results, we are fascinated by them, we don’t always trust them, so we go back and replicate them. We also challenge them by asking, where will this not work? When does the effect go away? How can we use better methods to test our theories?

As part of this process, scientists ask each other questions. Recently, other scientists asked us some questions about three of our papers. We took this very seriously, carefully considered each inquiry, delved into the studies again (in some cases reanalyzing the data), and prepared three documents, each detailing our process and our findings (here, here, and here). In each case, we showed that the conclusions reached in the paper were sound. But, as with anything that helps make science better, we were grateful for the questions because they pointed out areas for improvement or clarity, and because we believe in open science.

It is important however to consider these questions in light of a large body of work. The growth mindset story does not rest on a handful of isolated studies. Research in this area has been ongoing for 30 years and the field has amassed a large body of work. A meta-analysis published in 2013 found 113 studies conducted by many authors and concluded that mindsets are a significant factor in people’s self-regulation toward goals.

Meta-analyses are helpful, but not the final word. Government data collected at a country level—all the 10th grade students in the country of Chile (over 160,000)—showed that holding a growth mindset predicted academic achievement at every socioeconomic level. Recently, the state of California, collecting data from over 100,000 middle schoolers, found that students’ mindsets were a good predictor of their test scores. And this doesn’t include many experimental studies that have carefully oriented children (or adults) toward different mindsets and found effects on outcomes. It is highly unlikely that mindset is a phantom phenomenon.

 

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