Teacher Mindset and Grit: How do They Change by Teacher Training, Gender, and Subject Taught?

Abstract

This study explored the interplay between teacher mindsets and grit levels of Turkish pre-service teachers taking their year of study into account (i.e., first-year vs the fourth year), gender, and the subject taught in a Turkish higher education setting. Student teachers from various programmes at a public university in Turkey participated in the study (N = 321). The participants completed the Teacher Mindset Scale and Grit Scale online after receiving the approval of the university’s ethics committee and signing the consent forms. The correlations between the components of teacher mindset and grit demonstrated that as growth teacher mindset scores increased, and effort scores also increased significantly. Furthermore, as fixed teacher mindset scores increased, interest scores decreased. First-year pre-service teachers had significantly higher fixed teacher mindset scores than the fourth year. In terms of grit, fourth-year pre-service teachers showed greater effort than the first year. There was no difference between female and male pre-service teachers regarding fixed teacher mindset. However, female pre-service teachers scored significantly higher on growth teacher mindset, interest, and effort scales. As for the subject taught, the Mathematics Education programme showed higher levels of fixed teacher mindset and the English Language Teaching programme showed lower levels of grit. Practical implications of our findings and limitations of the study are shared accordingly.