Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement

Abstract

Two largely separate bodies of empirical research have shown that academic achievement is influenced by structural factors, such as socioeconomic background, and psychological factors, such as students' beliefs about their abilities. In this research, we use a nationwide sample of high school students from Chile to investigate how these factors interact on a systemic level. Confirming prior research, we find that family income is a strong predictor of achievement. Extending prior research, we find that a growth mindset (the belief that intelligence is not fixed and can be developed) is a comparably strong predictor of achievement and that it exhibits a positive relationship with achievement across all of the socioeconomic strata in the country. Furthermore, we find that students from lower-income families were less likely to hold a growth mindset than their wealthier peers, but those who did hold a growth mindset were appreciably buffered against the deleterious effects of poverty on achievement: students in the lowest 10th percentile of family income who exhibited a growth mindset showed academic performance as high as that of fixed mindset students from the 80th income percentile. These results suggest that students' mindsets may temper or exacerbate the effects of economic disadvantage on a systemic level.mindset | academic achievement | income | inequality | education equality

Grit, Mindset, and Academic Performance: A Study of Pre-University Science Students

“…Socioeconomic status has been shown to have an impact on academic achievement (Coleman et al, 1996;Duncan et al, 2011). Claro et al (2016) studied 10th grade public school students in Chile through a nationwide standardized test on mathematics and language skills (N = 168,203, and N = 168,553 for mathematic and language respectively) and reported that there was a strong correlation between mindset and academic performance with mindset accounting for 11.8% of the variance (r = 0.343) in mathematics and language scores. The authors found that students from low income families are more likely to adopt a fixed mindset than those coming from top-income families.…”

“…However, students who come from 10th percentile of family income with a growth mindset exhibited academic performance as high as those in the 80th percentile of family income. Thus, Claro et al (2016) concluded that growth mindset might dampen the deleterious effects of poverty on academic achievement.…”

“…The idea of mindset, "beliefs people have about the nature of human characteristics" (Murphy & Dweck, 2016, p. 127), was popularized by Dweck (2006), who posited that mindsets can affect one's motivation, and in turn, can have an impact on academic resilience and performance. Both grit (e.g., Duckworth et al, 2007;Strayhorn, 2013) and mindset (Claro, Paunesku, & Dweck, 2016;McCutchen, Jones, Carbonneau, & Mueller, 2016) have been linked to academic achievement. However, the recent literature on the link between these motivational constructs and academic performance has reported mixed findings (Bazelais, Lemay, & Doleck, 2016;West et al, 2016).…”

How Teachers’ and Students’ Mindsets in Learning Have Been Studied: Research Findings on Mindset and Academic Achievement

“…In addition to the causal role, Claro et al (2016) highlighted that mindset could play the role of mediator and link the relationship between socioeconomic strata and achievement. Specifically, students from lower-income families who had a growth mindset exhibited higher academic performance because a growth mindset "appreciably buffered against the deleterious effects of poverty on achievement" (p. 8664).…”

Does growth mindset improve children’s IQ, educational attainment or response to setbacks? Active-control interventions and data on children’s own mindsets

“…The children are thus in both relative and absolute poverty. This is predicted to significantly amplify effects of mindset on performance (Claro, Paunesku, & Dweck, 2016), increasing the power of our studies. Compensation for participation consisted of a reward of sweets at the end of the study.…”