TY - JOUR
T1 - Intelligence can grow in all dimensions
T2 - findings from an experiment in Latin America
AU - Claro, Susana
AU - Santana, Macarena
AU - Ossandon, Tomás
AU - Cea, Sebastián
AU - de Amesti, José
AU - Santander, Daniela
AU - Huerta, Mauricio
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida 2023.
PY - 2024/6
Y1 - 2024/6
N2 - Computer-based interventions that aim to help students endorse a growth mindset have been designed and tested in high-income countries for a number of years. However, there is no evidence of their effectiveness in middle-income nations. In those studies, students’ growth mindset has traditionally been measured using surveys where students report the extent to which they believe intelligence is fixed or malleable, without linking intelligence with a more specific dimension, such as math or language. In addition, these measurements have been undertaken without distinctions being made between personal ability (“my” intelligence) and more general abilities (everyone’s intelligence). Therefore, by means of a randomized experiment, this study assesses the impact of a single-session online growth-mindset intervention in Chile on distinct measurements of the growth mindset of students (general, personal, and subject-specific), as well as their propensity to seek out challenges. Accordingly, a sample of 248 students was recruited from 9 and 11th grades in three secondary schools, all of whom were randomly assigned to either a treatment or control group. The intervention was found to increase their propensity to seek out challenges and to experience an increase in growth mindset scores in all tested dimensions. No evidence of the heterogeneity of results by gender or prior growth mindset was identified.
AB - Computer-based interventions that aim to help students endorse a growth mindset have been designed and tested in high-income countries for a number of years. However, there is no evidence of their effectiveness in middle-income nations. In those studies, students’ growth mindset has traditionally been measured using surveys where students report the extent to which they believe intelligence is fixed or malleable, without linking intelligence with a more specific dimension, such as math or language. In addition, these measurements have been undertaken without distinctions being made between personal ability (“my” intelligence) and more general abilities (everyone’s intelligence). Therefore, by means of a randomized experiment, this study assesses the impact of a single-session online growth-mindset intervention in Chile on distinct measurements of the growth mindset of students (general, personal, and subject-specific), as well as their propensity to seek out challenges. Accordingly, a sample of 248 students was recruited from 9 and 11th grades in three secondary schools, all of whom were randomly assigned to either a treatment or control group. The intervention was found to increase their propensity to seek out challenges and to experience an increase in growth mindset scores in all tested dimensions. No evidence of the heterogeneity of results by gender or prior growth mindset was identified.
KW - Chilean secondary students
KW - Field experiment
KW - General and self-theory scales
KW - Growth mindset
KW - Implicit theories
KW - Intelligence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85162886764&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10212-023-00713-5
DO - 10.1007/s10212-023-00713-5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85162886764
SN - 0256-2928
VL - 39
SP - 861
EP - 883
JO - European Journal of Psychology of Education
JF - European Journal of Psychology of Education
IS - 2
ER -