Why Aren't Growth Mindsets Boosting Your Child's Grades?

Growth mindset interventions have become a hot new trend in many schools and universities. The idea is that if students are taught that their abilities can improve with effort and practice, they will be more motivated to work hard and persevere when faced with difficult challenges. This should then lead to better academic performance. But new research reveals that these popular interventions largely fail to improve students' academic achievement.

What Is Mindset Theory?

You've probably already heard about the growth mindset by now. The term refers to the belief that abilities are malleable rather than fixed. In other words, you can boost skills like intelligence through hard work and dedication. This idea resonated with many teachers and policymakers and skyrocketed in popularity after Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck published her best-seller Mindset: The New Psychology of Success in 2006.

Dweck’s theory states that a person can either have a “fixed” or a “growth” mindset. Those with a fixed mindset believe their skills, abilities, personality, values, and even IQ cannot change. On the other hand, people with a growth mindset believe they can improve their abilities through hard work and dedication. Those with a growth mindset would see failures as an opportunity to learn and grow and this helps them perform better. Dweck argues that teaching kids to have a growth mindset can have a transformative effect on their motivation and help them succeed in everything that they do.

This intuitive idea sparked a growth mindset revolution in schools and universities. Teachers began providing brief lessons explaining the science behind brain plasticity. Students learned they could strengthen their intelligence, just like a muscle, through diligent and deliberate practice. Policymakers started funding growth mindset trainings at all levels from primary school right through to university. The goal was to motivate youth to embrace challenges, persist through struggles, and ultimately reach new academic heights. And, on the surface, a little extra encouragement sounds harmless enough. But does filling children's heads with catchy platitudes actually translate into higher grades and test scores? Extensive new research indicates it does not.

What Do Recent Studies Show About Growth Mindset Lessons?

Burnette and colleagues (2023) and Macnamara and Burgoyne (2023) recently pooled together all studies examining the impact of growth mindset interventions on students' academic performance. This meta-analysis allowed the researchers to see overall patterns as to the effectiveness of these interventions from hundreds of thousands of students across the globe. The results were resoundingly meh!

When examining grades and test scores, students who received growth mindset trainings only scored a tiny bit better than those who did not. The researchers deemed this tiny boost statistically insignificant. That means it was so minor it could have occurred by chance alone.

But here is the kicker: When only focusing on properly designed studies, where the lessons clearly changed how kids thought about their abilities (i.e., creating a growth mindset), the very tiny performance benefits completely disappeared. Students with a growth mindset performed exactly the same as their peers. In other words, even when the interventions successfully altered students' attitudes, this newfound motivation did not translate into achievement gains.

Why Aren't Growth Mindsets Boosting Grades?

Despite these results, advocates of mindset theory argue that even small changes in motivation would make growth mindset lessons worthwhile. But the problem runs deeper than just these small effects. When we look at the actual designs of the studies, we find that many experiments and research studies have significant problems (like not having proper control groups). This makes it impossible to determine if any differences in grades or test scores are really the result of having a fixed vs. growth mindset.

Similarly, growth mindset interventions also rarely focus exclusively on beliefs about one’s abilities. They frequently blended in other useful tips and tricks, like setting goals, trying something new, or approaching problems differently. So, when grades actually do go up, we cannot pinpoint whether this was because of the growth mindsets or if these other skills provided the boost.

Equally concerning is that there is also evidence of publication bias. This means that only studies where “positive” results were found are available in the literature, whereas studies showing no changes or even negative effects remain unpublished. But this is also a major trend in all psychological domains.

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Of course, well-run experiments have found some benefits for specific groups like students at risk of failing. But advantages remain limited. And the jury is still out on whether these small gains warrant schools investing precious time and money in growth mindset training.

The big takeaway? A growth mindset on its own does not appear to improve motivation and achievement for most students. And this hyperfocus on mindsets actually distracts policymakers from implementing reforms that could dramatically help improve education, like hiring more teachers or offering free tutoring services.

Where Do We Go From Here?

We have to remember that a growth mindset is not some magic fix that will resolve achievement gaps or deficiencies in our education system. Developing a growth mindset alone cannot compensate for systemic inequities like poverty, prejudice, and underfunded educational institutions.

Moving forward, parents and teachers should view a growth mindset as one potential ingredient in nurturing students’ potential, but this is only a small part of what is needed for academic success. Students need specific support and resources that are tailored to their unique needs and circumstances—things like intensive tutoring, childcare assistance for working parents, updated textbooks, safe transportation, computer access, mental health services, career mentoring, and nutrition programs.

Ultimately, students will only thrive when given the psychological resources and concrete tools required to succeed. Growth mindset interventions can only take students so far if their circumstances remain unchanged.