Identifying teaching behaviors that foster growth mindset classroom cultures

Teachers want to help their students thrive in school and in life—it’s one of the top-cited reasons for entering the teaching profession (Heinz, 2015). But creating classroom environments that inspire and sustain student motivation can be challenging. When students experience failure or encounter learning obstacles, they may come to doubt themselves and their abilities. Many students interpret such academic setbacks to mean that they’re just not “cut-out” for certain subjects (like math, language arts, economics, computer science, history, etc.). In these moments of doubt, what can teachers say or do to re-engage their students? And how might teachers go about creating growth mindset classroom cultures, wherein all their students are reassured of their capabilities and supported to thrive? My colleagues and I sought to answer these questions, and we offer some research-based teaching tips below. But first, some key background.

If you’re a teacher interested in fostering student motivation, you may already know about Carol Dweck’s mindset theory (2006). According to Dweck, students’ beliefs about the malleability (or fixedness) of intelligence can shape their motivation and behavior in the classroom. Dweck and her colleagues have shown that students who endorse growth mindset beliefs—or a system of beliefs positioning intelligence as a changeable trait that can be improved through hard work, persistence, help-seeking, and adopting good strategies—tend to be more motivated, persistent, and better performing in school than students who endorse fixed mindset beliefs—or a system of beliefs positioning intelligence as innate and largely unchangeable.

As an example of mindset theory in action, imagine a student who’s struggling with a complicated math problem. If the student holds fixed-mindset beliefs, they may interpret their math struggle to mean that they’re just not a “math person.” And, because they believe that they cannot much improve their math ability, persistence with the complicated math problem seems pointless and the student may prematurely withdraw effort. If, instead, the student holds growth mindset beliefs, their math struggle serves as a signal to seek help from their teacher or to adopt a new problem-solving technique. For the growth-minded student, the math problem is seen as a tough but surmountable challenge. This is because the growth-minded interpretation promotes proactive learning strategies (e.g., thinking through the problem, asking for help, trying a new approach) and allows the student time and opportunity to experience a learning breakthrough.

Building on Dweck’s laboratory insights, educational and social psychologists eagerly applied her work to actual classroom settings. These researchers developed and implemented rigorous, direct-to-student mindset interventions, with the goal of encouraging students to adopt growth mindset beliefs (e.g., Blackwell et al., 2007; Paunesku et al., 2015). In many cases, these interventions demonstrated that educating students about the malleability of intelligence increased their motivation to persevere through academic challenges and, ultimately, improved their school performance.

But there is an important caveat to this general finding. Students’ growth mindset beliefs appear to be more strongly related to motivation and achievement when the classroom environment supports and aligns with students’ growth mindset beliefs (e.g., Walton & Yeager, 2020; Yeager et al., 2019, 2022). Put simply, the classroom context matters.

For example, in a large-scale, nationally representative study of ninth-graders, researchers found that a direct-to-student growth mindset intervention only improved students’ end-of-year math performance when students who received the intervention were taught by math teachers who personally endorsed growth (vs. fixed) mindset beliefs (Yeager et al., 2022). The research team used the analogy of planting a seed in fertile (vs. infertile) soil. A growth mindset message is better able to take root and thrive in classrooms where compatible messages and practices from teachers afford and support students’ growth mindset beliefs.

To illustrate, let’s return to our imaginary student who’s struggling with a complicated math problem. If this student generally holds a growth mindset, they may ask their teacher for help with the math problem. But if the teacher responds to the student’s request for help with frustration (“Why aren’t you getting this? I don’t know how to explain it to you in a simpler way…”) or shows resignation that the student cannot improve (“It’s okay, maybe you’re just not a math person”) the student may remain stuck and, worse, come to believe that math ability is innate and fixed. In doing so, the student may begin to see math as a subject that’s beyond their reach. This sequence of events aligns with a recent longitudinal, experience-sampling study among college students. College students who perceived their teachers to hold fixed mindset beliefs about student ability went on to experience greater psychological vulnerability in the classroom (e.g., less belonging, greater imposter feelings, more evaluative concerns) and, in turn, exhibited worse achievement outcomes, including lower class attendance, poorer grades, and greater dropout intentions compared to students who perceived their teachers to hold growth mindset beliefs (Muenks et al., 2020; see also Canning et al., 2021; LaCosse et al., 2021).

Given how influential teachers’ mindset beliefs are for students’ educational outcomes, it’s important to understand how students come to perceive their teachers as endorsing growth mindset beliefs. So, do certain teaching behaviors communicate to students that their teachers hold growth mindset beliefs? And, if so, what can teachers say and do to foster growth mindset classroom cultures?

My colleagues and I examined these questions with both qualitative and quantitative research. First, we conducted focus groups with undergraduates (Kroeper, Muenks, et al., 2022). We asked students whether they had ever encountered teachers who seemed to endorse fixed or growth mindset beliefs about ability. Every student we asked could remember at least one teacher who seemed to endorse fixed mindset beliefs and at least one who seemed to endorse growth mindset beliefs. Then we asked these students to write about why they thought their teachers endorsed these mindset beliefs.

From this rich qualitative data, we uncovered four teaching behavior themes that signal to students that their teachers endorse growth mindset beliefs:

• Messages about success: When teachers describe the characteristics required for success in class (e.g., hard work, help-seeking, and perseverance vs. innate, natural talent or brilliance) and communicate that they think students are likely (vs. unlikely) to make progress and succeed, students infer their teachers have growth mindset beliefs (e.g., “It may be challenging, but all of you can do well if you work hard, seek help, and try different learning strategies.”).
• Provision of opportunities: When teachers provide many (vs. few) opportunities for practice and more (vs. less) feedback, students infer their teachers’ growth mindsets (e.g., “Please come to my office hours, we can review your exam together.”).
• Response to struggle: When teachers respond to student struggle, confusion, or poor performance with support, strategies, and additional opportunities to improve (vs. with frustration and resignation that improvement is not possible), students infer their teachers’ growth mindsets (e.g., “Mistakes are opportunities to learn;” “Try thinking about the problem this way instead…”).
• Value placement: When teachers place value on student learning and development by showcasing improvement or commenting on students’ development (vs. placing value on effortless, flawless performance and “natural” brilliance), students infer their teachers’ growth mindsets (e.g., “The process you use to reach the answer is more important than the end result;” “You should be proud of your hard work and how much you’ve learned this year.”).

Next, we quantitatively tested whether these four teaching themes shape students’ perceptions of their teachers’ mindsets (free of retrospective biases). Two student samples—one college sample (Kroeper, Fried, & Murphy, 2022) and one middle and high school sample (Hecht, Kroeper, et al., in prep)—completed a sorting task, where teaching behaviors that corresponded to the above themes flashed on the screen and students categorized them in-the-moment as either growth-minded or fixed-minded. As expected, students were most likely to categorize a teaching behavior as growth-minded when it:

• suggested students are capable,
• involved providing feedback,
• supported struggling students, and
• valued learning.

Additionally, these findings were robust to the inclusion of covariates, like the perceived warmth (vs. coldness) of the teaching behavior and students’ own mindset beliefs.

Finally, we tested whether students’ observations of teaching behavior in their real classrooms predicted their perceptions of teacher mindset beliefs (Kroeper, Muenks, et al., 2022). We surveyed college students throughout a semester, and, yet again, we found that the presence of these four teaching behavior themes (in actual classrooms) predicted students’ perceptions that their teacher has a growth mindset.

So, taken together, by intentionally engaging in growth-signaling behaviors (and avoiding fixed-signaling behaviors), teachers can create learning environments infused with a growth mindset. By deliberately communicating that all students are capable, providing opportunities for practice and feedback, offering support to struggling students, and explicitly valuing learning and development, teachers can communicate their growth mindset beliefs and set the stage for a growth mindset classroom culture.

Kathryn Kroeper, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at The Ohio State University and will be an assistant professor at Sacred Heart University starting in Fall 2022. She earned her PhD in experimental social psychology from Indiana University Bloomington and her BA in psychology from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her research aims to eliminate social identity-based threats and inequities through social psychological intervention, with a focus on educational contexts.