The influence of subject disciplinary studies on students’ implicit theories of intelligence and achievement goals in one Swedish upper-secondary school

ABSTRACT

Upper-secondary schooling in Sweden is organised for pupils aged 16–19 in 17 different national study programs. Of these 3 are theoretical programs with mainly academic content. They prepare for further (higher education) studies. The present investigation looks at the influence from these programs on 845 upper-secondary students’ implicit theories of intelligence and achievement goals. These theories have been shown by international research to have significant influence on pupils learning and achievement which is important knowledge for teachers and teacher students. The hypothesis is that exposure to one of the programs, the Natural Science Program, a) increases individual’s beliefs about intelligence as fixed and inherited b) weakens the pupils tendency to choose mastery goals, and c) increase performance approach and the adoption of avoidance goals. This can have negative effects on pupils’ achievement. We have investigated this using 3 × 3 between-subject ANOVA. The investigation showed that beliefs in intelligence as fixed and inherited increased among pupils who spent two or three years at the Natural Science Program and that they also showed a stronger focus on both performance avoidance and performance approach goal orientations compared with other academic program pupils.

KEYWORDS:

• implicit theories of intelligence
• achievement goals
• upper-secondary school

Notes

1. The distribution of the brief contextualized ITI questionnaires were for social science N = 300 (Cronbach alpha were.700 for an entity theory and .874 for an incremental theory) and for math N = 538 (Cronbach alpha were .784 for an entity theory and .847 for an incremental theory). They were proportionally distributed within classroom/program/grade.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna-Carin Jonsson

Anna-Carin Jonsson is Associate Professor of Education at the Department of Education and Special Education at the University of Gothenburg. Her main interest is metacognition, implicit theories of intelligence and stereotypes with a focus on upper-secondary school and teacher education from the perspective psychology of education.

Dennis Beach

Dennis Beach is Professor of Education at the Department of Education and Special Education at the University of Gothenburg. His main research interests lie in the field of the sociology of education and teacher education and professionalism. He has published extensively in these fields. He is currently chief editor of the journal of Ethnography and Education.