Audience
researchers
Keywords
Growth Mindset Intervention, Student Achievement
Authors
Yeager, D.S.,*, Hanselman, P., *, Walton, G.M., Murray, J.S., Crosnoe, R., & Muller, C.
Date
2019
Abstract
A global priority for the behavioural sciences is to develop cost-effective, scalable interventions that could improve
the academic outcomes of adolescents at a population level, but no such interventions have so far been evaluated in a
population-generalizable sample. Here we show that a short (less than one hour), online growth mindset intervention—
which teaches that intellectual abilities can be developed—improved grades among lower-achieving students and
increased overall enrolment to advanced mathematics courses in a nationally representative sample of students in
secondary education in the United States. Notably, the study identified school contexts that sustained the effects of
the growth mindset intervention: the intervention changed grades when peer norms aligned with the messages of the
intervention. Confidence in the conclusions of this study comes from independent data collection and processing, preregistration of analyses, and corroboration of results by a blinded Bayesian analysis.