Students’ Mindsets for Learning and Their Neural Underpinnings

Kirsi Tirri,Teija Kujala

doi:10.4236/psych.2016.79125

Abstract

It has been shown that individuals with a growth mindset for learning see mistakes as opportunities to learn and improve, whereas for fixed-minded individuals mistakes indicate lack of ability. Earlier empirical research on mindsets includes both quantitative surveys and qualitative approaches with observations and stimulated recall method. During performance monitoring it is possible to probe event-related brain potentials (ERPs), enabling the investigation of the neural basis of students’ different reactions to mistakes. ERP studies have shown that growth mindset is associated with an enhancement of the error positivity (Pe), an ERP reflecting awareness of and attention allocation to mistakes. More growth-minded individuals also show superior accuracy after mistakes compared to those endorsing more of a fixed mindset. Most importantly, Pe amplitude mediates the relationship between mindset and post-error accuracy. These results suggest that neural activity indexing online awareness of and attention to mistakes is intimately involved in growth-minded individuals’ ability to rebound from mistakes. In this article we review and connect educational, psychological and neuroscientific points of view to investigate the role of mindsets related to learning.

Highlights

Students’ implicit beliefs about the nature of their intelligence (“mindsets”) are an important factor in predicting school motivation and performance in all school subjects
People with a growth mindset believe that intelligence, personality, and abilities can be developed, whereas people with fixed mindsets believe that basic qualities, such as intelligence, are static and unalterable
A significant interaction of school level and priming condition was found, there being stronger priming effects for the lower school level. These results suggest that a fixed mindset obstructs students from learning from mistakes and feedback, adding important knowledge on mindset by showing that school level, trait mindset, and induced mindset all contribute to dealing with making mistakes

Summary

Introduction

Students’ implicit beliefs about the nature of their intelligence (“mindsets”) are an important factor in predicting school motivation and performance in all school subjects. Female students that hold entity theories of their intelligence are more likely to be affected by these stereotypical beliefs and this subsequently leads to declines in female performance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related subjects and skills (Good, Aronson, & Harder, 2008; Tirri & Nokelainen, 2010). The aim of this paper is to provide a review on the role of mindsets in students’ learning as well as present evidence on neural processes underlying different mindsets. We will present both quantitative and qualitative studies on these themes and intervention studies that have been successful in changing mindset orientations of students. In this paper we review current research on this topic with the aim to connect educational, psychological and neuroscientific points of view to investigate the role of mindsets related to learning

Educational Interventions on Mindsets

Brain Research on Students’ Mindsets

Discussion