Cultivating Growth Mindset with Adolescents (PDF)

California State University, Monterey Bay California State University, Monterey Bay Digital Commons @ CSUMB Digital Commons @ CSUMB Capstone Projects and Master's Theses Capstone Projects and Master's Theses 12-2020 Cultivating Growth Mindset with Adolescents Cultivating Growth Mindset with Adolescents Daisy D. Yang California State University, Monterey Bay Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes_all Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Online and Distance Education Commons, Other Education Commons, and the Personality and Social Contexts Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Yang, Daisy D., "Cultivating Growth Mindset with Adolescents" (2020). Capstone Projects and Master's Theses. 913. https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes_all/913 This Capstone Project (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Capstone Projects and Master's Theses at Digital Commons @ CSUMB. It has been accepted for inclusion in Capstone Projects and Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ CSUMB. For more information, please contact [email protected]  Running head: CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 1 Cultivating Growth Mindset with Adolescents Daisy Yang California State University, Monterey Bay  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 2 Some teens may believe that intelligence and other traits are fixed and unchangeable. As a result of having these fixed perspectives, adolescents may not be motivated to achieve academically and may give up in the face of challenge. Instead, teens can increase their confidence levels and motivation and adopt a growth mindset for their well-being. In order to address this issue, I created a two-day lesson for highschoolers at Rio Linda High School in Sacramento, California. Needs Statement Some adolescents may believe that intelligence and other traits are fixed and unchangeable. As a result of having these fixed mindsets, adolescents may not be motivated to achieve and may give up in the face of challenge. Mindsets are perceptions that an individual holds for their abilities and for themselves. Fixed mindset is the belief that one’s qualities such as intelligence and their abilities are simply fixed traits. People with this mindset believe that building these qualities is simply not possible. When it comes to failure, adolescent students are more likely to feel helpless and give up if they have a fixed mindset. However, growth mindsets is the belief that one’s abilities and talents can be developed through hard work. Adolescents with a fixed mindset were significantly found to have higher rates of depression in comparison to their growth mindset counterparts (Schleilder, 2019). Most surprisingly, they are more likely to become frustrated and give up in the face of a adversary (Zeng, 2016). As a result of this, adolescents are more likely to do worse in their academics in comparison to their growth mindset counterpart.  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 3 Adolescents who have growth mindsets are more likely to adjust and overcome their failures (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Growth mindset is developmentally beneficial as it could allow adolescents to have the motivation to achieve and succeed in their goals (Zeng, 2016). Academically, they do better in school in comparison to those with fixed mindsets (Meindl et al, 2019). Furthermore, adolescents who have qualities of growth mindset are more likely to retain school subjects better than those with fixed mindsets (Marshik et al, 2015). By instilling positive beliefs about themselves, adolescents will significantly improve their own behaviors (Yeager et al, 2016). Strong evidence suggests that mindset can change among adolescents with intervention. For example, a growth mindset study done by Hass et al. (2019) showed that by teaching and promoting growth mindset skills, people are able to significantly improve on their behavior and their own abilities. Participants in their study showed a positive increase in their problem solving skills and felt more confident in their creative skills. With intervention, it is possible to raise the motivation and improve the well-being of adolescents. In order to increase the use of a growth mindset among adolescents, I will conduct a two-day workshop to a class of highschool students at Rio Linda Junior High School in Sacramento, California. Theory/Development Developmentally, according to Erik Erikson, adolescents undergo the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage, where the sense of self begins to develop through social interactions and experiences. Identity and personality are not fixed concepts and can be changed as youth mature towards adulthood. Typically, most adolescents have not yet committed to an identity as they  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 4 continue to explore traits that they can pick and choose according to their experiences. It is also important to note that identity is expressed through self-realization through the engagement of their activities and goals in their life. As adolescents are still experimenting during this stage, I believe it may be beneficial for them to receive support to be motivated and unfearful to try new experiences which could allow them to explore their own identity. Teaching growth mindset skills may be able to help guide adolescents in promoting positive perspectives on themselves. Also, once adolescents begin to have a stable idea of their own personal identity, it can strengthen performance and abilities of their different roles and commitments in life (Ragelienė, 2016). Therefore, I am creating a set of lessons through a workshop to help adolescents have a positive self-talk to feel more confident in their own abilities as well to improve their behavior. Consideration of Diversity My project will be conducted at Rio Linda Junior High School in an English class for students ages 14 to 18yrs old. In the 2017-2018 school year, the ethnic composition of Rio Linda Junior High School was 41% Hispanic, 28% White, 15% Asian, 9% Black, 4% two or more races, 2% Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and 1% American-Indian. 79% of students are noted as economically disadvantaged (2020). I expect the current participants to reflect the data. Students who are economically disadvantaged may not have access to stable wifi or have the technology to do so. As a result, they may struggle completing the worksheet tasks or participate in discussion. The workshop will be conducted in English and participants must be proficient enough to understand the content and answer questions given to them. So, those participants who are not proficient may be excluded.  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 5 Learning Outcomes I will complete a 2-day workshop with students from Rio Linda Junior Highschool which will each take around 45 minutes per day. By the end of the project, participants will: 1. Identify growth and fixed mindset statements 2. Learn how to change fixed statements into growth statements 3. Create one personal and one academic goals for themselves using growth mindset statements Method Day 1 Due to covid, the entire workshop will be completed on zoom. I first began by introducing myself and why I am conducting a workshop in the students’ class. Next, I did a presentation where I went over the differences between growth and fixed mindset. See Appendix A. I had them complete a growth and fixed mindset assessment. See Appendix B. Afterwards, we went over the assessment quiz and I asked students how they scored on the assessment. Then, I taught students the benefits of a growth mindset and how it can help with their academic and personal achievements through the presentation. Lastly, I led the students in a Kahoot activity in which they have to identify growth and fixed mindset statements. See Appendix C. At the end of the session, I gave students homework to think about some fixed mindset statements that they tell themselves and how they could change it into a growth mindset statement.  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 6 Day 2 The next day, I reviewed what we went over in the previous session. I asked students to define what growth and fixed mindset was in a discussion setting. After 10 minutes of discussion, I did a presentation on the negatives of fixed mindset. See Appendix D. Afterwards, they were put into breakout rooms of 3-4 on zoom to discuss fixed mindset statements they tell themselves. They discussed the fixed mindset statements they tell themselves and how they would change that statement into a growth mindset statement. Students did this for 15 minutes while I entered each breakout room to see how each group is doing. After the breakout rooms, I asked the class to give one example of what they discussed in their group. At the end of the workshop, the students made academic and personal goals for themselves using growth mindset-statements through a Google form. After they filled out the form, I ended the workshop with a summary of what they learned. Results For Learning Outcome 1, participants would identify growth and sized mindset statements through a Kahoot, an online quizzing activity. Students had to identify 10 different items and determine if each one was either growth or fixed mindset. These questions are shown in Appendix C. Furthermore, I discussed with them why an item was either a fixed or growth mindset statement during the online quiz after each question was answered by the students. The majority of students answered correctly with only two or three students of every class answering incorrectly for all questions. Table 1 shows how each class did in correctly answering the questions.  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 7 In Learning Outcome 2, students were given a task to recall a time that they told a fixed mindset to themselves. They were put into breakout rooms of 3-4 and discussed how they would change their fixed statements into growth statements. I went to each breakout room to ask what each student came up with. However, due to time restraints I was not able to go to every breakout room. After breakout rooms, I asked students to share what they discussed and how they would change their statement. Due to the limited environment of Zoom, some students did not participate or kept their microphones off. I recorded the responses in Figure 1. Despite this, there were a handful of students who participated, and I believe this outcome was met. As for Learning outcome 3, students were asked to fill out a Google form in which they had to create academic and personal goals for themselves using growth statements. See Appendix E. Before this, I reviewed how to change a fixed statement into a growth statement. Students were expected to create their goals as well as a positive action to reaffirm themselves such as, “My math grade will improve because I will study harder.” or “I can always improve on playing the piano.” Figure 2 shows how they responded. It appears that some students were confused or did not use a growth statement to make their academic or personal goals for themselves. The chart in Figure 3 shows the amount of students who answered using growth statements. 33 out of the 59 students answered using growth statements, thus I believe this outcome was not met. Discussion I believe that almost all of my learning outcomes were met as most of the adolescents learned about fixed and growth mindset. Adolescents were able to identify which statements were either growth or fixed. When we discussed in groups and as a class, it was visible from the  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 8 statements that the adolescents had a good understanding on the subject. I believe that participants were able to connect the project with their own identity. As adolescents are theoretically in the stage of development of Identity vs. Role Confusion where they are developing their sense of identity, I believe that this project helped them figure out how to be the person they ideally want to be. Instead of thinking that their traits are fixed, they can use the positive self-talk skills that I taught them to help them improve on their own well-being. This finding was visible in some of the responses in Learning Outcome 3 where the participants had varying answers and did not properly use growth mindset statements to make goals for themselves. In regards to diversity, I believe that more students would have been able to participate if they were not bound to the limitations of a virtual environment. I had at least one student in every class that was not able to participate in class due to internet connection problems. Other than this aspect, I believe my project applied to all students. If I could do my project differently, I would definitely recreate the project to be applicable in a classroom setting instead of the limitations of Zoom. In my third learning outcome where adolescents had to create personal and academic goals for themselves, I would elaborate on the kind of formatting I want them to write their statements in. Some adolescents wrote one word answers or did not create an actual goal statement. If the adolescents were given a direction on how to write the growth statement, they would have been able to correctly write a statement for themselves. Overall, I believe that the participants received a general understanding of growth mindset and how it can be implemented to better their everyday lives.  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 9 References Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256–273. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.95.2.256 Hass, R. W., Katz-Buonincontro, J., & Reiter-Palmon, R. (2019). The creative self and creative thinking: An exploration of predictive effects using Bayes factor analyses. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 13(4), 375–387. doi: 10.1037/aca0000169 How Does Rio Linda High Rank Among America's Best High Schools? (2020). https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/california/districts/twin-rivers-unif ied/rio-linda-high-1691. Marshik, T. T., Kortenkamp, K. V., Cerbin, W., & Dixon, R. (2015). Students’ understanding of how beliefs and context influence motivation for learning: A lesson study approach. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1(4), 298–311. doi: 10.1037/stl0000033 Meindl, P., Yu, A., Galla, B. M., Quirk, A., Haeck, C., Goyer, J. P., … Duckworth, A. L. (2019). A brief behavioral measure of frustration tolerance predicts academic achievement immediately and two years later. Emotion, 19(6), 1081–1092. doi: 10.1037/emo0000492 Ragelienė T. (2016). Links of Adolescents Identity Development and Relationship with Peers: A Systematic Literature Review. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 10 Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent, 25(2), 97–105. Schleider, J., & Weisz, J. (2018). A single-session growth mindset intervention for adolescent anxiety and depression: 9-month outcomes of a randomized trial. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 59(2), 160–170. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12811 Yeager, D. S., Romero, C., Paunesku, D., Hulleman, C. S., Schneider, B., Hinojosa, C., Lee, H. Y., O'Brien, J., Flint, K., Roberts, A., Trott, J., Greene, D., Walton, G. M., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Using design thinking to improve psychological interventions: The case of the growth mindset during the transition to high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 374–391. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000098 Zeng, Guang. "Effect of Growth Mindset on School Engagement and Psychological Well-being of Chinese Primary and Middle School Students: The Mediating Role of Resilience." Frontiers in Psychology. 7 (2016): Frontiers in Psychology. , 2016, Vol.7. Web.  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 11 Table 1 Results for Outcome 1 Class Number of Participants Correct Percentage of All Answers as a Class Class 1 20 72% Class 2 26 86% Class 3 31 65%  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 12 Figure 1 Responses recorded for Outcome 2 from all Classes  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 13 Figure 2 Responses from all students in Outcome 2 who Answered the Form Write a growth mindset statement pertaining to one ACADEMIC goal you have for yourself.  CULTIVATING GROWTH MINDSET WITH ADOLESCENTS 14