Recently, two new meta-analyses were published analyzing growth mindset interventions. Here are the impact statements from each meta-analysis:

“This systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that, despite the popularity of growth mindset interventions in schools, positive results are rare and possibly spurious due to inadequately designed interventions, reporting flaws, and bias.” - Macnamara & Burgoyne, 2022

“Growth mindset interventions are increasing in popularity in education and are being applied to improving other areas of functioning as well; however, there is debate about how well they work. Despite the large variation in effectiveness, we found positive effects on academic outcomes, mental health, and social functioning, especially when interventions are delivered to people expected to benefit the most.” - Burnette et al., 2022

It is not our goal to create a conversation about the relative merits of these studies (both of which certainly have merit), but rather to revisit the important question surrounding when and how growth mindset interventions should be undertaken. With this goal in mind, we provide the following resources to help our readers learn more.

1) Weekly Digest #61: Does Mindset Matter? by The Learning Scientists

That’s right, we’ve provided resources on this topic before! So our first resource is actually the list of resources that we provided back in May of 2017. Growth mindset hasn’t lost much steam in the 5 years since we wrote this prior digest and so much of the writing is still relevant today.

2) How growth mindset shrank by Stuart Ritchie @StuartJRitchie

This is a really nice summary of the rise and fall of growth mindset and how we (that is, the entire field of education) could go from feeling so confident in the possibilities that growth mindset promised to questioning whether or not mindset interventions are effective at all.

3) Let’s get practical: Signaling a growth mindset by Andrew Watson @AndrewWatsonTTB

In his typical fashion, Andrew Watson offers a fair and balanced approach in his analysis of this current controversy. Included is one particular intervention that appears to be fruitful and some reasonable advice for K-12 educators who are unlikely to have the time to decipher two large meta-analyses.

4) What is Meant by “Growth Mindset”? Current Theory, Measurement Practices, and Empirical Results Leave Much Open to Interpretation by Veronica Yan @EdScientists and Brendan Schuetze @BA_Schuetze

This is a preprint of a thoughtful analysis of one of the meta-analyses cited above. While this is certainly an academic piece, it is included in this list as a really useful and important resource to see how researchers are interpreting these latest meta-analyses and provides some nice steps forward for the field. Spoiler alert: Steps forward do not include “throw out all mindset interventions and research”.

5) Goodbye growth mindset, Hello efficacy and attribution theory by Mirjam Neelen and Paul Kirschner @P_A_Kirschner

This blog post was written before this latest revival of the growth mindset controversy, but provides an accessible description of why many interventions might fail in the ways that they simplistically apply mindset research. Instead, a clear and easily applied alternative is offered that should result in much the same effect as a mindset intervention.

Bottom Line

We are self-plagiarizing here and using the same bottom line as in the 2017 digest linked above… If you are a parent or educator, please do some careful reading before trying to implement an educational trend with students. Most interventions depend on context and do not work for all students so any changes based on limited research should be made with caution.

References:

1) Macnamara, B. N., & Burgoyne, A. P. (2022). Do growth mindset interventions impact students’ academic achievement? A systematic review and meta-analysis with recommendations for best practices. Psychological Bulletin.

2) Burnette, J. L., Billingsley, J., Banks, G. C., Knouse, L. E., Hoyt, C. L., Pollack, J. M., & Simon, S. (2022). A systematic review and meta-analysis of growth mindset interventions: For whom, how, and why might such interventions work?. Psychological Bulletin.

From time to time, we pick a theme and provide a curated list of links. If you have a theme suggestion, please don’t hesitate to contact us! Occasionally we publish a guest digest, and If you'd like to propose a guest digest click here. Our 5 most recent digests can be found here:

Digest #162: Teaching Water Safety

Digest #163: LGBTQ-Inclusive Education

Digest #164: Sustainability and Climate Change in Education

Digest #165: Inclusive Teaching

Digest #166: Perfectionism in Education