ebbnflow’s Post

THE CLAIM In 1998 Carole Dweck claimed that children praised for hard work choose learning goals (LG) over performance goals (PG) creating a ‘growth mindset’ which ‘has profound effects on their (student’s) motivation’. This claim led to Microsoft claiming a ‘growth mindset’ culture led to 3x increase in their value. THE EVIDENCE In 2018 a study of 43 randomized controlled trials found that 86% of interventions aimed at creating a ‘growth mindset’ had no effect on academic achievement. A recent replication of Dweck’s 1998 research concluded a non-significant effect of mindset interventions. Dweck’s robust response confirmed her hypothesis of a ‘very small (near zero) positive’ effect. Other recent research on LGs v PGs shows that performance drops if goals are set to avoid showing incompetence (APG). Goals that are set to prove performance to others (PPG) and LGs were related performance improvement. However, the effect sizes are very small & are highly dependent on whether subjective or objective measures of performance are used. VERDICT The effect of setting LG’s & creating a growth-mindset on performance is close to zero. Maybe it is time to consider other factors that are proven to have a bigger impact on performance such as interpersonal adaptability or resilience?