Brief history/biography

1946:                Born in New York

1967:                Graduated from Barnard College

1972:                PhD in Psychology from Yale University

1972 – 81          University of Illinois

1981 – 85          Harvard – Laboratory of Human Development

1985 – 89          Professor of Psychology at Illinois

1989 – 2004      Professor of Psychology at Columbia

2004 –               Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University

Dweck’s work and theories

Carol Dweck’s career has been spent investigating the correlation between motivation and achievement. She has studied the concept of self-belief and how this can have a profound impact on learning. Much of her writing has been based on the idea that changing this self-belief can have considerable consequences for personal development.

She classifies learners into two groups: those who think that their intelligence is engrained or static and cannot be changed. These are learners who have fixed mindsets and she named this concept ‘entity theory’. The other group are learners who think that their intelligence can be developed through hard work and focus, that intelligence is not innate and development is a process. These are learners who have growth mindsets and this concept was called ‘incremental theory’.

Some of Dweck’s earlier investigations researched the concept of ‘learned helplessness’ and how this can be avoided if parents and educators encouraged persistence and positivity, rather than a reliance on them as the adults in the child’s life.  Her research showed that girls displayed learned helplessness more than boys and would actively seek help from teachers, rather than think through problems or apply knowledge.  Boys’ failures were seen by teachers as a result of behavioural or application issues, whereas girls’ success were seen to be the result of lots of effort and hard work.

Mindset, she argues, has a profound impact on the way individuals succeed or not (both in an educational setting and any environment). A fixed mindset implies that nothing that the student can do will change their success, so those who take this position are very unlikely to accept challenges, preferring to do tasks which they know they can do. They see failure as a personal lack, rather than an opportunity to learn. They also see themselves as ‘worthy’ when they are succeeding but ‘unworthy’ when they fail to succeed. This can have long lasting effects on the individual’s self-esteem. This ‘contingent self-worth’ can also mean that individuals are unable to put things right as they are so concerned with their failure.

Clearly, this paralysing effect of contingent self-worth is something which needs to be avoided. Dweck proposes that motivation from educators and adults is crucial to encouraging a growth mind-set in children and students. Praise for the effort, rather than the success can be hugely effective.  To watch her TedTalk on growth mindset click here

She also sees intelligence as not necessarily linked to success. Children succeed in all sorts of different ways and in all sorts of different worlds. We all know someone who left school with little in the form of academic successes, but who has gone on to do extremely well in their lives and careers. Motivation should be linked to mastery and students encouraged to reach learning goals, rather than achievement goals. The path to this goal should be about discovering strategies that will enable the student to reach this goal and not about the final steps. In this way, praise can be given for effort, perseverance and focus and a failure to reach the goal can be seen as a failure so far to find the right strategy.

In the last twenty to thirty years, schools have implemented ‘gifted and talented’ strategies which were designed to highlight those children whose innate intelligence was seen as meriting special attention.

As you can imagine Dweck’s philosophy runs counter to this. She does not see intelligence as being innate, nor does she see the label of ‘gift’ of having any substance in this situation. She feels intelligence is not a ‘gift’, it is not ‘given’. The danger of children being given this label is manifold. It can encourage and solidify a fixed-mindset. It can create a sense for other children that they have no potential, encouraging lack of self-esteem.  Her writing does not suggest that these programmes are innately wrong, but that they should promote the idea that a student’s current ability is ‘just a starting point’ (Dweck, 2009a:312). In order to achieve, children should continue to work, challenge their ideas and persevere, not sit on their laurels.

As you will be able to see, the role of educator and parent is being scrutinised here and the way in which they praise can, unexpectedly, adversely affects success. All too often, praise is given for the product, the end result, rather than the process. A child who is praised and told how wonderful their drawing is, may think that they have succeeded, that they need not try much harder. A child who is praised for their effort understands that they have done well, but there may be even better things ahead.

In 2007, Carol Dweck established an online growth mind-set development programme called Mindset Works. This has been a very successful business which led to the creation of Brainworks, a blended learning curriculum which encourages school students to develop growth mindsets.

Application to tutoring

Dweck would focus on praising her students’ efforts, rather than themselves. Thus, the student does not think that their success stems from some sort of innate ability, but from their effort and engagement.  This can sometimes be called ‘process orientated praise’ e.g. ‘That was a good way to do it because…’. Dweck might also give task-centred praise e.g. ‘ You’ve got 8 answers correct. The method you used for those sums was just right’. Dweck would also give small meaningful praises for specific processes, rather than a sweeping generalised (meaningless) praise at the end.

Like all the theorists you will have read about, Dewck advocates knowing her students’ strengths, weaknesses and challenges is essential. Dweck would think carefully about what motivates her students and wouldn’t assume that they will all be the same.

Dweck would encourage her students to recognise that if they get something wrong, they have not failed, but the task needs a different approach which they can discover. Dweck would model and reinforce how important it is to say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t understand’ and use this as an opportunity for joint discovery, ‘Let’s all look this up together.’

Additionally, Dweck would educate her students on how their brain works and the changes that their young or teenage brains were undergoing. This is not only fascinating but provides an opportunity for them to see themselves as dynamic, changing entities. In the same way, Dweck would also tell students stories of people who have overcome challenges (e.g., Dyslexia) and who have become successful.

Dweck talks about the power of ‘not yet’ as a phrase for feedback which encourages a growth mindset. These two words can be applied to all levels and very clearly sets out the message that improvement can be made, that there is no ceiling.

To watch Dweck’s very popular TedTalk on the power of ‘yet’ click here

Critical Challenges to Dweck

There is some criticism of the over-simplicity of Dweck’s philosophy and also that motivation can cause mental health concerns in some young or overly ambitious students (or those with overly ambitious parents!).  You should consider whether you think Dweck’s concept that everyone has the potential to move from a fixed to a growth mind-set is appropriate or possible.

In addition, Dweck places very little consideration on the educators’ methods and learning material. Tutoring would predominantly focus on praise and validation when students are actively learning and engaging. This is similar to the behaviourist approach in building learning associations.

Researchers such as Alexander – Passe (2015) repeatedly shows in his book ‘ Dyslexia and Mental Health’ that telling children with dyslexia stories from celebrities who have overcome their dyslexia, without providing dyslexia focused interventions at the same time, can cause these children to have mental health problems and feelings of helplessness.

Some criticism has also been levelled against the link between commercialism and pedagogical theories, but there is no doubt that Dweck’s legacy remains hugely significant in education and wider life.

Glossary

Mind-set: a belief, based on past experiences, that will determine future action.

Gifted and Talented: A term coined by the DfE in the early 2000s. It is used to describe students who were attaining a consistently high standard at school and who’s attainments put them in the top 10% of their year group.

Contingent self-worth: feeling of positivity about ourselves is dependent on the approval or approbation of others

Learned helplessness: a situation in which having faced continual failure or harm, a person is conditioned to believe that this will never change

Entity theory: the belief that intelligence is fixed and cannot be altered by education or hard work. People who ascribe to this would be seen as having a fixed mind-set

Incremental theory: the belief that with hard work and perseverance, we can improve our skills and our knowledge. People who ascribe to this would be seen as having a growth mind-set