Growth Mindset and Attribution Theory

“Mindsets are beliefs—beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities. Think about your intelligence, your talents, your personality. Are these qualities simply fixed traits, carved in stone and that’s that? Or are they things you can cultivate throughout your life?”

Individuals with a fixed mindset believe that their traits are just givens. They have a certain amount of brains and talent and nothing can change that. If they have a lot, they’re all set, but if they don’t… So people in this mindset worry about their traits and how adequate they are. They have something to prove to themselves and others.

People with a growth mindset, on the other hand, see their qualities as things that can be developed through their dedication and effort. Sure they’re happy if they’re brainy or talented, but that’s just the starting point. They understand that no one has ever accomplished great things—not Mozart, Darwin, or Michael Jordan—without years of passionate practice and learning” Carol Dweck

As you think about mindset, it’s important to realize that this, like most other things, exists on a continuum. Everyone is not exclusively one or the other. People can have growth mindsets about things they are passionate about and have invested time and effort in learning – like a profession, a sport, or a hobby – and have a fixed mindset about other things. People can also have a particular blind spot where they don’t believe they have an innate ability to do this specific thing and they could never learn to do it. This is not uncommon in regards to technology, especially with people who spent a large proportion of there live where it was not ubiquitous – either through time or place.

Carol Dweck’s work on mindset is based on the social psychology concept of attribution. Attribution theory helps to explain why people do what they do in certain situations where achievement and persistence are important. It tries to answer the question “to what does the individual attribute their success or failure?” Do you know individuals who blame themselves for any failure and credit any success to luck or divine intervention? Or do you know someone who takes any credit for success but failures were “out of their control?” It’s all about how people interpret events and their causes, which then influences later thinking and behavior.

The causes that people tend to use to explain success or failure are based on three inter-related sets of characteristics:

• The cause can be either internal or external. This is the person’s locus of control – who/what do they think controls their behavior and circumstances. Ability, personality traits, and emotions are examples of internal causes, while level of competition, luck, and other situational factors are external.
• The cause can be either stable or unstable. If they attribute success or failure to a stable cause, such as innate ability, they may believe the outcome is likely to be the same on any other attempt. If they attribute it to an unstable cause, such as the amount of time they spent studying, they may believe the outcome can change given another attempt.
• The cause can be either controllable or uncontrollable. If they attribute success or failure to a controllable cause, such as effort, they will believe that they can influence the outcome. If they believe the cause is something uncontrollable, such as luck, they will be less likely to think they can influence the outcome.

As you can see, both internal and external factors can be stable or unstable, controllable or uncontrollable.

Dweck’s mindset concept proposes that individuals who have a “fixed” mindset tend to either attribute their failure to internal, stable, and uncontrollable factors or external, unstable, and uncontrollable factors. The key is that they see the cause as uncontrollable. They don’t feel that they can control the cause and that the cause will not change.

This affects students in two ways. If an instructor has a fixed mindset about student learning and achievement they are more likely to write off low performing students as not having the ability to succeed in the class. Everyone has heard stories of instructors who start the semester off by telling students about their high withdrawal and fail rates with something like pride. A fixed mindset often shows up in a “gatekeeper” role where the purpose of the course is to prevent “unworthy” students from entering the major. Instructors with a growth mindset believe that students can figure things out with effort, time, and support. Coming from a growth perspective, it is not unusual for an instructor to hold high standards for their students while, at the same time, being convinced that all students can meet those standards and is willing to help students that are having difficulty and/or help them get useful help from other resources.

The second way is when students themselves have a fixed mindset and don’t believe they can succeed no matter how much effort they put in. Online courses add another layer of complication as students can attribute failure to not only lack of ability in the subject but also lack of technical ability and the related feeling that the technology required for a task is too difficult. Our emphasis on usability and beta testing is trying to catch as many preventable stumbling blocks ahead of time as possible. As an instructor, you can encourage students to recognize that there are things they can do to improve their learning and that you support their efforts. Useful strategies include

• talking about growth mindsets at the beginning of the semester and encouraging students to complete the “Test your Mindset” quiz. Just being aware of your mindset and that there are other ways to think about it can make a difference.
• providing opportunities for mentoring – especially peer mentoring with someone who struggled in some way with the course content. If you have the ability to have a TA, prior students to whom everything didn’t come easily can provide more help then just grading assignments.
• incorporating Universal Design for Learning when developing your course. Providing options for students to provide evidence of the extent to which they have reached a learning outcome can distract from a firmly held belief about lack of a specific ability and help students focus on the content over the method of presentation.
• being aware of the support services available to students – both those at a distance and locally. This includes more than academic support services. At IUPUI Paw’s Pantry and Paw’s Closet provide food, toiletries, and clothing to students in need. Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) helps local students as well as providing limited services to distant students, including referrals to providers in their area.