Audience
researchers
Keywords
academic achievement, motivation, intervention, educational psychology, adolescent development growth mindset
Authors
Paunesku, D. et al.
Date
2015
Abstract
The efficacy of academic-mind-set interventions has been demonstrated by small-scale, proof-of-concept interventions,
generally delivered in person in one school at a time. Whether this approach could be a practical way to raise school
achievement on a large scale remains unknown. We therefore delivered brief growth-mind-set and sense-of-purpose
interventions through online modules to 1,594 students in 13 geographically diverse high schools. Both interventions
were intended to help students persist when they experienced academic difficulty; thus, both were predicted to be
most beneficial for poorly performing students. This was the case. Among students at risk of dropping out of high
school (one third of the sample), each intervention raised students’ semester grade point averages in core academic
courses and increased the rate at which students performed satisfactorily in core courses by 6.4 percentage points. We
discuss implications for the pipeline from theory to practice and for education reform.