Is an online mindset intervention effective in vocational education?

ABSTRACT

The effectiveness of a mindset intervention in secondary vocational education and training was investigated. Students (n = 55) enrolled in a mathematics course participated in an online mindset intervention for a period of 10 weeks. Both pretest and posttest scores on mindset and mathematics results were compared with students who did not get a mindset intervention. We expected that students in the intervention group will show a growth in mindset and therefore have better results on the mathematics test at the end of the course compared to students in the control group. This effect will be stronger for lower performing students and students with a fixed mindset. Results showed that at the end of this period, the scores on the mathematics test were higher for both groups, but that there were no significant differences between groups. Furthermore, there was no effect of the intervention on the mindset of the students and there was no significant relation between mindset and scores on mathematics. Overall, our findings are in line with an increasing body of studies that did not find a relation between mindset and academic achievement.

KEYWORDS:

• Vocational education
• mindset
• mathematics
• incremental theories of intelligence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jaap Glerum is Head of Department of Healthcare courses at Scalda, a school for Secondary and Vocational Education. He is a PhD candidate at Roosevelt Center for Excellence in Education (RCEE), University College Roosevelt (UCR), Utrecht University (UU).

Sofie M. M. Loyens is director of the Roosevelt Center for Excellence in Education (RCEE) and full Professor of Excellence in Education in the departments of Social Sciences and Academic Core at University College Roosevelt (UCR), Utrecht University (UU). Her chair of Excellence in Education is the first (and only) of its kind in the Netherlands.

Remy M. J. P. Rikers is director of the Roosevelt Center for Excellence in Education (RCEE), full Professor of Learning and Instruction in the departments of Social Sciences and Academic Core at University College Roosevelt (UCR), Utrecht University (UU), and full professor of Educational Psychology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR).