The Effects of Two Mindset Interventions on Low-Income Students’ Academic and Psychological Outcomes

Abstract

This study examined two widely available light-touch, writing-based mindset interventions: one that targeted students’ purpose for learning and one that aimed to increase students’ growth mindset. In order to examine the potential mechanisms underlying previously reported effects of mindset interventions, we analyzed these interventions’ effects on low-income, ethnic minority adolescents’ academic outcomes, task persistence, task-relevant anxiety, critical motivation, and sense of belonging. Results indicated that the purpose for learning intervention had a small negative impact on students’ self-reported grades the following year, and null results for the other outcomes. The growth mindset intervention was administered one year following the purpose for learning intervention and we found no evidence of treatment impacts on any outcomes. Analyses of treatment impact moderation suggested that certain student characteristics, such as student gender and race could play a role, but most of these tests also presented null results. The primarily null results of both interventions suggest that further study is needed to determine the effectiveness of one-time, self-administered mindset interventions across a variety of contexts and student populations.

Keywords:

• Mindset interventions
• growth mindset
• purpose for learning
• academic interventions

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to David Yeager, Alejandro Ganimian, Chen Li, Javanna Obregon, and Alaa Khader for their helpful contributions to this project. We would also like to thank Chicago Public Schools and the dedicated center directors, teachers, families, and students who made the Chicago School Readiness Project possible.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Data. The data are openly accessible at https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/115941/version/V1/view/.

Notes

1 At the time of publication, the two online modules at http://www.perts.net were specific to the Growth Mindset intervention described in this article.

2 Minor modifications were made to update the language and to cater it to the population of study, while retaining the language and themes that made the interventions effective in prior trials. See the Supplementary appendix for a detailed description of the changes made to the original Yeager et al. (2014) and Yeager, Lee, et al. (2016) interventions.

3 Another 8% of the sample completed the tasks on their own computers at home with continuous guidance from an assessor over the phone. A remaining 1% (4 participants) completed the tasks in a location such as a restaurant/café or a parent’s workplace. This flexibility in administration setting allowed us to retain as large a sample size as possible.

4 The 29% of students who were still in middle school during administration were verbally instructed by assessors to focus on the differences between elementary school and middle school.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, under award number R305A160176 ($3,210,436). This project was 100% financed with federal money. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Institute of Education Sciences.