Answer

Abstract

The school grades and cognitive ability of children are highly dependent on their mindset. , in this case, refers to the belief that either their basic ability is fixed or subject to changes and development. According to the theory, the mindsets of children is not related to their school grades or their IQ. In this study, the mindsets of a sample of 245 children between 5 years and 15 years are evaluated. The study does not clearly indicate whether there was a significant relationship between the mindset of children and the age. This is because according to the first study, the older participants showed a growth mindset but avoided hard tasks in the second study which translated into a fixed mindset. The younger participants showed a fixed mindset in the first study but were willing to try the difficult tasks in the second study which shows a growth mindset.

A Study to Evaluate whether Children’s Mindsets Change with Age

            The premise that intelligent people are born smart is a common belief (Yettick et al., 2016). Thus, whether intelligence is a malleable quality of fixed entity is subject to study. Similarly, it is difficult to state with confidence whether the mindsets of children change as they age or they maintain their same mindset through to adulthood (Ritchhart, 2015). When faced with difficulties or failure, having a growth mindset creates resilience by generating positive messages about the child’s need to create a strategy and put an effort into whatever situation they encounter. A growth mindset is therefore associated with trying harder and different styles and contents of learning (Brown et al, 2014). When children with fixed mindsets are compared to those with growth mindsets, the former when faced with difficult situations, it tends to damage their self-esteem and causes them to shun similar tasks in the future (Hassed & Chambers, 2014). For individuals with fixed mindsets, the perception that it is impossible to overcome the obstacle facing them evokes feelings of helplessness and keep off. Those with a growth mindset on the other hand use failures as a motivating factor and have the resilience to learning and life challenges.

            A fixed mindset stipulates that basic ability cannot be subjected to significant change. A growth mindset, on the other hand, believes that there can be a substantial change in the basic abilities. These perceptions pose a divergent path of learning and the differences in the cognitive behavior adopted by children. Mindset training is expected to nurture a growth mindset to enable children to believe in their ability to handle even the perceived difficult tasks (Nottingham, 2013). The training is considered important because they enable learners to expand their knowledge and research base as they seek solutions to challenges posed. However, according to Paunesku et al. (2015), these mindset interventions do not have any significant impact when it comes to raising student’s grades unless when they are merged with non-specific interventions.

            Growth and fixed mindset oriented learners seek different motivation plans (Blackburn, 2016). For instance, learners with fixed mindsets go after performance goals where they desire to outdo others or to meet a given target. The learners with a growth mindset seek out challenges and mastery of subject content goals as their motivating factor (Dweck & Halvorson, 2014). Due to the mindset variation, they respond differently to failure or tasks with fixed minded students attributing their failure to external factors such as poor teaching or bad luck while the growth-minded ones welcome the challenges and errors as learning opportunities. Growth-oriented learners associate failure with lack of effort but not inability to grasp the content of the study. They perceive a learning challenge as an avenue to detect their weak areas and work towards strengthening them. Thus, for growth-oriented students, hard work is the only contributing factor to success and this mindset enables them to work even on the perceived to be hard subjects like maths and sciences (Yettick et al., 2016).

            As much as there is an understanding of what growth and fixed mindsets bring out of individuals, the relationship between the child’s mindset and their age remains a mystery. Therefore, the aim of this study is to establish whether the mindsets of children change with age. The study also seeks to establish the age at which children are likely to have a fixed mindset and the age at which they will harbor growth mindsets.

Method

Participants

            The participants included 245 children and adolescents between 5 and 15 years of age (M = 11.57, SD = 2.74), and 133 (54.3%) were female. The distribution of participants at each age is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Distribution of participants across age.

            All participating children and adolescents were personally known to student-researchers enrolled in a second-year educational psychology class in Sydney, Australia. Participants were asked to provide verbal consent to participate in the study, and parents/guardians provided written consent.

Materials

            Mindset vignette. To investigate participants’ willingness to seek or avoid a challenge, they were presented with a vignette adapted from Yeager et al. (2016). In Yeager et al.’s original vignette, students were asked to imagine that they had a choice of two maths assignments. Given the young age of participants in this study, we instead asked them to imagine that they had a choice of two maths worksheets. We then explained: “One worksheet is easy—it has maths questions you already know how to solve, and you will probably get most of the answers right without having to think very much. It takes 30 minutes. The other worksheet is a hard challenge—it has maths problems you don’t know how to solve, and you will probably get most of the problems wrong, but you might learn something new. It also takes 30 minutes”. Participants were asked to indicate which worksheet they would choose, and why.

            Mindset scale. The mindset scale (adapted from Dweck, 2006) was used to investigate whether participants’ had a fixed or growth mindset. The mindset scale contains 8 statements about the nature of intelligence and talent (e.g. “No matter who you are, you can change your intelligence level”). Participants were asked to rate each statement on a four-point scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”, and each response was then transformed into a score from 0-3. Responses consistent with a growth mindset were given higher scores, and those consistent with a fixed mindset were given lower scores. After summing all scores together, participants were categorized as follows: 0-8 = strong fixed mindset; 9-13 = fixed mindset with some growth ideas, 14-17 = growth with some fixed ideas, 18-24 = strong growth mindset.

Procedure

            Each student-researcher (or, student-researcher pair) worked with one participant, at a location chosen by the parent/guardian. Following a period of rapport building, the student-researcher administered the mindset vignette and mindset scale. The student-researcher then thanked the participant for their time and concluded the interview.   

Results

            Figure 2 shows the distribution of the Mindset scale scores. The Mindset Scale had a mean of 10.52 (SD = 2.44). Figure 2 shows that 45 participants scored between 0 and 8, indicating strong fixed mindset, and no participant has a score of 18 and higher, indicating strong growth mindset. Most participants (n = 182; 75%) in this sample showed fixed mindset with some growth ideas (scores of 9 to 13).

Figure 2. Distribution of the Mindset Scale Scores.

            To determine whether participant mindsets change across age, we calculated a correlation between participant age and their Mindset scale score. The correlation between age and Mindset score was significant, r = .27, p < .001, with scores increasing with age. Given that higher scores represented stronger growth mindsets, this means that participants were more likely to introduce growth mindset beliefs as they got older. However, there were only two participating 5-year-olds, seven participating 6-year-olds, and 11 participating 7-year-olds (see Participants) in the sample and we could not be confident that these participants would be genuinely representative of others the same age. We then excluded these participants and calculated the correlation again with only participants aged 8 to 15. The correlation between age and Mindset score was similarly significant, r = .26, p < .001, indicating a robust positive but small correlation between age and mindset beliefs.

            To confirm this finding, we conducted supplementary chi-square analysis with three mindset categories (strong fixed mindsets were excluded no participant fell into this category) and five age categories (see below). The analyses showed that the participants in different age groups were not distributed equally across the mindset categories (² (8) = 21.79, p = .005).

Table 1.

Distribution of participants across mindset categories across different age groups.

            Table (1) indicates that strong fixed mindset was more common for the younger participants than for the older, whereas the opposite was true for fixed with some growth ideas and growth with some fixed ideas categories.  Overall, however, the majority of participants fell into fixed with some growth ideas category, suggesting that the mindset scale used in this study may not be sensitive to individual differences when used with Australian children and adolescents.

            Next, we examined participants’ responses to the mindset vignette. This vignette provided a supplementary analysis of how mindset beliefs might influence students’ specific educational choices at different ages. In total, 88 (35.9%) of the participants picked the easy math worksheet and 157 (64.1%) picked the hard worksheet. Significant age differences in participants’ preferences were detected, χ² (4) = 32.27, p < .001. As shown in Table 2, older participants were more likely to choose the easy task representing a fixed mindset, whereas younger participants more likely to choose the hard task representing a growth mindset. This is somewhat unexpected given that the older participants showed more growth ideas in their mindsets.

Table 2.

Educational preferences in each age group, as measured using a mindset vignette.

            An additional chi-square analysis showed that the participants’ mindset categories were not associated with their choice of easy or hard math worksheet (χ² (2) = 0.02, p = .989). However, consistent of what we would expect if the participant has a fixed mindset, participants who chose the easy task reported that they wanted to avoid challenge or to get the problem right. Consistent with a growth mindset, participants who chose the hard task reported that they wanted to learn something new or liked to be challenged.

Discussion

            Paunesku et al. (2015) state that the children’s own mindsets do not have effects on their performance, grades or IQ. This is an incompatible finding when referring to the mindset theory. However, this study also studies established that there is no direct relationship between the changes in the mindsets of children with age. However, the children’s age affected their response to challenge with older children avoiding difficult tasks which the younger ones chose. This implies that the mindset beliefs impact in the specific educational choices taken up by children depending on their age.

            Mindset is considered a major influence in the determination of the students respond to negative feedback and the ability to learn (Zeng, Hou, & Peng, 2016). Mindsets and the student’s age affects the ability of children to take up tasks and learn new ideas. Also, the mindset scale shows that the age of learners has a significant effect on their growth mindset. On the overall, most children lay on the fixed mindset with growth ideas. Besides, the adolescents showed a higher growth mindset than the younger children. When comparing the two tests, the results or the impact of age on mindsets cannot be clearly outlined. This is because the mindset vignette shows that the adolescents had a more growth-oriented mindset while the mindset scale shows that they have a more fixed mindset than the younger children depending on their overall response. The study, therefore, does not offer a clear direction on whether the mindset of children changes with age.

Limitations

            Since the previous reports have used Chinese participants, ethnic differences may be a limiting factor (Zeng, Hou, & Peng, 2016). However, ethnicity is not considered among factors that affect the mindset of individuals (Ritchhart, 2015). The study was limited in terms of participant’s distribution. Some ages had a considerably small number of participants especially 5 and 6 years which are not a true representation of the general population. This implies that results on this particular group of participants are inadequate to give a general conclusion.

Recommendations

            The purpose of an appropriate mindset is to reduce the group attainment gaps and enhance student performance (Brown et al, 2014). Thus, it is critical to replicate mindsets that prove to generate positive results. In most instances, the growth mindset is required to succeed as a person (Dweck & Kanopy (Firm), 2014). Besides, the mindset of an individual is attributed to the sporting, business and personal relationships success (Bernecker, & Dweck, 2013). Therefore, future studies should look at various interventions that can culture a growth mindset in children depending on their age that can prepare them for their learning and real-world life experiences.