Woman interacting with a mobile device depicting a lit up light bulb, a rocket and gears can be seen in the background.

Lesson 5: Growth mindset

Many instructors use tests and other assessments as an opportunity to provide students with feedback on their learning. However, these formative assessments may not achieve their intended results if the students do not have a growth mindset. A growth mindset is associated with many of the qualities that instructors attribute to successful learners. A student’s mindset will impact their goal setting, success attributions, and resilience (Limeri et al., 2020). Students’ mindsets can change between growth and fixed in different situations and throughout their post-secondary studies.  

This unit describes what a growth mindset is, how it impacts students’ use of feedback, and how instructors can include testing as part of their approach to increasing student self-assessment and building a growth mindset. 

Growth mindset is key to learning

Students in a growth mindset believe their intelligence, knowledge, and skills can change and improve over time. These students are more likely to attribute success to factors they can control. They typically have increased self-efficacy and believe they can learn and grow to support their long-term success. These are learners who assess their performance, adapt their study strategies to meet new goals, and persist when faced with challenges.  

In contrast, a student in a fixed mindset believes intelligence, knowledge, and skills are fixed. These students are more likely to attribute success to innate ability or external factors out of their control, struggle to see their agency in the learning process and give up when faced with challenges. Students in a fixed mindset are less likely to engage in reflection or explore alternate study strategies. 

  • Failure as a temporary state 

  • Uses intrinsic motivation  

  • Attributes failures to factors the student can control 

  • Used feedback to adjust study strategies 

  • More likely to persist through challenges 

  • Understand learning involves both strategy and effort 

  • The value is in the process 

  • Failure as a statement of ability  

  • Uses external motivation  

  • Attributes failure to factors outside of student control 

  • Feedback is not used 

  • More likely to disengage when facing challenges 

  • Believes increased effort means lack of ability 

  • The value is in the outcome 

Students with a fixed mindset are more prone to see the test as a threat. From a fixed mindset, students want to avoid making mistakes that could reflect negatively on their abilities, leading tests to be a high-stakes activity. Students with a fixed mindset are also more likely to face reduced motivation after poor test performance. This demotivation decreases engagement with feedback from these assessments. Students with avoidance goals that engage in avoidance coping behaviours also have a higher level of stress during the test, take longer to restore motivation, and are more likely to ruminate about the test performance (Wimmer et al., 2020). 

A fixed mindset can reaffirm stereotype bias; for students who already feel they don’t fit in, feedback and failure can be internalized as societal and institutional cues that they are unable to be successful (Broda et al., 2018). Similarly, students struggling with imposter syndrome are more likely to have a fixed mindset. Students with imposter syndrome, they believe they are one mistake away from being found out they are not good enough and that their achievements are only based on luck. They subsequently see failure as an indication that they cannot be successful. 

Having a growth mindset can improve students’ motivation and academic achievement, along with reducing performance gaps for equity deserving groups (Miller & Srougi, 2021). Consider building an instructional approach to help students develop a growth mindset. 

Reflect on how the notion of growth and change is discussed within your discipline. For example, this could include connecting a growth mindset to course content on evolution and adaptation in a biology course, neuroplasticity and Brain Developments in a psychology course, or viral memes in a communications course.

Discuss what types of learning are expected for the course. Consider directing a course discussion about the difference between the various elements of Bloom’s taxonomy to guide students in the learning process: Understanding, applying and then evaluating.  Explicitly identify examples of application or evaluation during course lectures or tutorial, as this will help students understand the level of learning expected from them. 

  1. Setting learning goals

    Students often start with performance goals for the course (e.g., expected final grade). Have students set a goal related to the course that involves knowledge or skill development. Additionally, encourage students to identify how they will achieve the goal and how they will know they have achieved it (such as a SMART goal).

  2. Connecting to personal/professional interests

    Encourage students to relate the course to their goals outside the classroom. How will students use the knowledge and skill from the course in another context? 

Having students reflect on their past experiences of persistence can help them identify their growth in another context.   

  • Key prompt questions to ask the student: What happened in the previous experience? What resources/supports/skills did I draw on? How did I develop through the process? What would I do in a similar challenge in the future? What lessons did I learn in that situation that can help me now?

Female student sitting at a desk with a test in front of her, smiling, an image of a seedling growing from her brain.

Tests can support a growth mindset

Tests can be tools used by instructors to help students develop a growth mindset. Especially with the guidance from instructors, tests can be an opportunity for students to reflect on their learning, obtain performance feedback, and learn to adjust or adapt their study practices (Brame & Biel, 2015). To help frame tests as part of a growth approach to learning, instructors should consider the following: 

Students may label themselves as good or bad test takers, attributing their ability as test takers to innate ability or lack of ability. Instructors can emphasize that test-taking is a skill and one that needs to be refined and practiced.  

  • Consider integrating common test-taking strategies into the class or connecting with the Student Success Centre to present to your class. 

Tests can be incorporated into course activities for the sole purpose of providing feedback and self-assessment. In fact, using grades to encourage student engagement in formative assessments can have a negative effect, such as reducing student agency and engagement in the learning process (Sato et al., 2018).  

  • Consider how you might integrate test-taking opportunities to foster growth in skill, knowledge, and self-assessment. 

Engaging in formative testing before and after learning a concept can help with retention (Roediger & Marsh, 2005). More specifically, these activities can help students distinguish between recalling information and understanding it.  

  • Consider incorporating questions at the start and end of class to trigger retrieval of key content. Start the lecture by asking a question about the previous lecture; similarly, close the lecture with questions that challenge students to summarize what was covered today. 

Errors are part of the learning process with a growth mindset. Discuss errors as learning opportunities and incorporate them into your classroom. Students who are willing to show what they don’t know (i.e., make a mistake) are more likely to set goals focused on mastering the content (Leighton et al., 2018).

  • Use imperfect exemplars: Present students with sample questions and responses/solutions. Then challenge students to evaluate these imperfect exemplars by using a provided rubric and identify areas for improvement. Take it one step further by having students plan how they would look for these errors in their own work (Hendry et al., 2016). In addition to normalizing errors, test question exemplars also reduce student anxiety and improve confidence by fostering familiarity with the test process. 

  • Present affirmation statements: Prompt students to use affirmative statements before they complete a challenging task, such as “I expect to make mistakes today and learn from these mistakes; I know I am capable of doing well”  

  • Create trust: Students who trust their instructor are more willing to risk making mistakes and actively engage in the learning. In contrast, students who have little to no trust in their instructor are more likely to focus on avoiding mistakes rather than learning. Students report they are more likely to have trust in instructors who listen to them, are dependable, and care about the success of their students (Leighton et al., 2018). 

Help students shift from surface learning (where they focus on memorizing and repeating information) to deep learning (where they apply or evaluate information). Deep learning can be encouraged by having students organize content or processes. These activities challenge students to explain the connection between ideas and/or document the steps to solve a problem (Bramwell-Lalor & Rainford, 2014). For example, consider having students create a visual representation of what they have learned over a series of lectures. Ask them to explain why they conceptualized the information in the way they did. Encourage them to make connections between concepts from different lectures. If possible, share your own map with students.

Reflection questions:

How are you already supporting growth mindset in your classes? What techniques described above might you already be doing? What approach might you consider implementing into your future classes?

Lesson checklist

After this lesson, you will be able to: 

  • Define a growth mindset and apply it to test-taking behaviours 

  • Identify growth mindset approaches that can be integrated into classroom instruction 

References

​Brame, C. J., & Biel, R. (2015). Test-enhanced learning: The potential for testing to promote greater learning in undergraduate science courses. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 14(2), es4. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.14-11-0208 

Bramwell-Lalor, S., & Rainford, M. (2014). The effects of using concept mapping for improving advanced level biology students’ lower- and higher-order cognitive skills. International Journal of Science Education, 36(5), 839–864. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2013.829255 

Broda, M., Yun, J., Schneider, B., Yeager, D. S., Walton, G. M., & Diemer, M. (2018). Reducing inequality in academic success for incoming college students: A randomized trial of growth mindset and belonging interventions. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 11(3), 317–338. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2018.1429037 

Hendry, G. D., White, P., & Herbert, C. (2016). Providing exemplar-based ‘feedforward’ before an assessment: The role of teacher explanation. Active Learning in Higher Education, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787416637479 

Leighton, J. P., Tang, W., & Guo, Q. (2018). Undergraduate students’ attitudes towards mistakes in learning and academic achievement. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(4), 612–628. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1387230 

Limeri, L. B., Carter, N. T., Choe, J., Harper, H. G., Martin, H. R., Benton, A., & Dolan, E. L. (2020). Growing a growth mindset: characterizing how and why undergraduate students’ mindsets change. International Journal of STEM Education, 7(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-020-00227-2 

Miller, H. B., & Srougi, M. C. (2021). Growth mindset interventions improve academic performance but not mindset in biochemistry. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 49(5), 748–757. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21556 

Roediger, H. L., & Marsh, E. J. (2005). The positive and negative consequences of multiple-choice testing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31(5), 1155–1159. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.31.5.1155 

Sato, B. K., Dinh-Dang, D., Cruz-Hinojoza, E., Denaro, K., Hill, C. F. C., & Williams, A. (2018). The impact of instructor exam feedback on student understanding in a large-enrollment biology course. BioScience, 68(8), 601–611. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biy058 

Wimmer, S., Paechter, M., Lackner, H. K., & Papousek, I. (2020). Effects of self‐concept on restoring a positive motivational state after an exam‐like situation. Mind, Brain, and Education, 14(1), 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12222 

More lessons

Instructor and students reviewing course material.

Lesson 6: Working with feedback

Continue
Students sitting in a classroom, visibly frustrated

Lesson 1: Understanding test anxiety

Continue
Student sitting at a desk, frustrated, thinking of a test

Lesson 2: Identifying and responding to test anxiety

Continue

<< Go back to Test Anxiety Learning Module