Motivating our youngest learners: Teachers’ influence on early elementary students’ motivation and belief in their ability to learn

Growth mindset is the belief that individuals hold about their abilities to grow and learn. It can lead to motivation, resilience, and persistence, all qualities that help students to be successful. In mathematics, a fixed mindset, or the idea that one’s intelligence is innate and therefore one should stick with what they are good at and stay away from challenging subjects, often leads students to see themselves as “not a math person.” This can cut off promising and lucrative career options for many students. These self-concepts start early, affecting our youngest learners. Creating a classroom culture that is growth mindset-supportive is one way that early elementary teachers of mathematics can help students because even those who have a growth mindset need a growth mindset-supportive environment for it to be activated. Recent research has shed light on teaching strategies that promote a growth mindset supportive culture in classrooms. But, we know little about the specific growth and fixed mindset ideas that early elementary mathematics teachers harbor. In this mixed-methods study, I analyzed teacher responses that were written after watching videos of classroom interactions to find out what growth and fixed mindset ideas are expressed naturally when teachers are not prompted to think about mindset. Findings indicated that teachers expressed an abundance of growth mindset messages, but the majority of teachers wrote both growth and fixed mindset ideas. The nature of mathematics being taught, how students worked independently or in groups, and how they dealt with mistakes were the topic of the majority of both growth and fixed mindset ideas. This look into how mindset is entrenched in teachers’ beliefs and practices can help teachers, teacher educators and researchers to identify the growth mindset ideas and practices that have been adopted and the fixed mindset ideas that linger in early elementary teachers of math.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Curry, Katy Sarah

Contributors dc:contributor

• Perry, Michelle
• Mercier, Emma
• Napolitano, Chris
• Bates, Meg

• Growth Mindset-supportive Teaching
• Fixed Mindset
• Elementary School
• Teachers
• Practices
• Mathematics

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Katy Curry

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130108

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F130108