Growth Mindset Theories According to Students’ Nutritional Behaviors

Abstract

This study aims to explore the students’ growth mindset theories in terms of nutritional behaviors. The study sample consists of 3782 students studying at high schools in different regions of Türkiye. While 61.9% of the students in the sample are females, 38.1% are males. 79.2% of the students study at Anatolian High School, 16.4% at Vocational High School, and 4.4% at Science and Social Sciences High School. In this study, which was designed with the quantitative research method and analyzed with the SPSS 18.0 program, The Mindset Theory Scale (MTS) was used to describe the mental structures of high school students. According to the research results, while the students’ meat consumption behaviors did not make a significant difference in the growth mindset theories, the egg and milk consumption behaviors made a significant difference. Agricultural group (vegetable, fruit, and grain) nutritional behaviors made a significant difference in students’ growth and fixed mindset theories. The growth and fixed mindset theory dimension mean scores do not differ significantly according to the chocolate, sugar, and salty consumption behaviors of the students. According to the results of the research, the nutritional behaviors of the students affect the growth mindset theories. Therefore, actions can be developed for students’ awareness of healthy eating behaviors. Similar studies can be carried out by collecting students’ food consumption on the same subject with the data obtained with ratio scales.