Growth Mindset: Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives

• Author / Creator

  Pelletier, Gabrielle

• The popularity of mindset theory has resulted in a surge of mindset interventions in the school systems (e.g., Brainology©). Nonetheless, Carol Dweck has recently emphasized that holding a growth mindset is much more than simply “positive thinking” and instead requires much more effort than teachers might understand. Thus, the purpose of this two-part exploratory study was to better understand how pre-service teachers think about growth mindsets. We wondered what aspects of the theory pre-service teachers continue to struggle with and how they would answer about their own mindset as well as how they think about students with different disabilities. We collected data from 182 participants through a correlational design involving separate quantitative and qualitative data. To answer our research questions, we used descriptive statistics and a thematic analysis. The quantitative results of this study suggest that pre-service teachers hold personal growth mindsets and they have growth beliefs for students with various disabilities. However, despite strong quantitative endorsement of growth mindsets, in the qualitative analyses we determined three ways in which they found growth mindsets hard to accept (1) the notion of the mindset theory itself, (2) the idea that every individual can grow, (3) and the necessary actions behind having a growth mindset. The findings of this study are discussed in terms of implications for theory, researchers, and educators.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Psychology

• Graduation date

  Fall 2019

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Education

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-4wa6-x573

• License

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