Growth Mindset & Attribution Theory EDU 330: Educational Psychology Dr. Daniel Moos, PhD

Fixed Mindset Fixed Mindset: Intelligence is fixed Leads students to want to “look smart” and a tendency to….  Avoid challenges (could negatively affect self- image if fail)  Give up easily in the face of failure/obstacles  See effort as fruitless (you are either “dumb” or “smart”)  Interpret negative feedback as personal criticism

Growth Mindset Growth Mindset: Intelligence can be developed Leads to students to want to learn and a tendency to….  Embrace challenges  Embrace challenges (self-image not affected by failure)  See effort as something as necessary to develop  View negative feedback as constructive criticism

Strategies to Support Growth Mindset  Establish high expectations  Create a risk-tolerant learning zone.  Give feedback that focuses on process

“[my best experiences was]losing my first national chess championship because it helped me avoid many of the psychological traps” Josh Waitzkin (Chess player who turned his focus on finding success in other domains) Translation to the classroom?

Attributions: Explanations that people tend to make to explain success or failure Internal External ControllableUncontrollable LuckEffort Difficulty of Test Choice of Study Environments

Attribution Theory: Introduction (II) How do individuals typically attribute their success and/or failure? Interpret successes and failures in a manner that is most likely to maintain positive self-image Internal External ControllableUncontrollable LuckEffort Difficulty of Test Choice of Study Environments SuccessFailureSuccess/Failure

Attribution Theory: Introduction (III) AttributionLocusStabilityControllability Inherited ability internal stable uncontrollable Personalityinternalstableuncontrollable Effortinternalunstablecontrollable uncontrollableTask Difficultyexternalstable Luckexternalunstableuncontrollable

Attribution Theory: Strategies (1) “I am competent” AND “I worked hard” NOT beneficial to completely attribute to ability (2) Students most likely to persist after failing if they attribute failure to a lack of appropriate effort (3) Scaffold student’s understanding of effort (a) Students often confuse spending time doing ineffective activities with effort (b) Students often have incorrect conceptions of their understanding (metacognition) (4) Attributions reflect mindset; One point of intervention to develop Growth Mindset is to help students develop controllable attributions