Growth Mindset Intervention and Its Impact on Productive Struggle in the Eighth-Grade Mathematics Classroom

<p>This study aims to seek means to increase student productive struggle while adhering to the strenuous performance demands by our school systems. This study examines connections between growth mindset interventions, attitude towards struggle, and productive struggle in the mathematics classroom. Growth mindset interventions have been shown to change mindsets and to help students become more willing to engage in challenging problems and deal with difficult situations and struggle. Productive struggle is the engagement with difficult problems with the understanding that breakthroughs occur from confusion and struggle and has been linked with students’ conceptual understanding in the mathematics classroom. It has been suggested that productive struggle and growth mindset share similar habits of mind and viewpoints on effort, but there is a lack of research to link these two. To address the shortcoming in the literature on the relationships between growth mindset and productive struggle, a quasi-experimental design was conducted to examine the effect of a growth mindset intervention with 52 students in two classrooms of eighth-grade mathematics in the normal classroom setting (control group, n=25; experimental group, n=27). Bivariate independent sample t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Wilcoxon Signed Ranked Tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicated a positive effect of the growth mindset intervention on students’ theory of intelligence, students’ attitudes towards struggle in mathematics. However, there was no significant effect on the level of productive struggle. The findings and implications warrant for a better understanding of how growth mindset interventions may impact productive struggle, and possibly, conceptual understanding in the mathematics classroom.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Middle Grades Education - Mathematics (Ed.D)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Year dc:date.available

2023

Author dc:creator

• Wilson, Jordy

Contributors dc:contributor

• Mei-Lin Chang
• Rachel Gains
• David Glassmeyer

• Growth Mindset
• Intervention
• Productive Struggle
• Educational Methods
• Educational Psychology
• Holistic Education
• Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching
• Science and Mathematics Education
• Secondary Education and Teaching

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/eddsmge/9

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu:eddsmge-1008