Literature Review: Growth Mindset, Performance Avoidance, and Academic Behaviors

Jason Snipes and Loan Tran's study in Clark County School District in Nevada focuses on student and teacher responses to surveys indicating levels of student and teacher attitudes and beliefs on growth mindset, performance avoidance behaviors, and academic behaviors.  In order to study growth mindset, they argued that one also has to study academic behaviors, as changes in academic mindsets are measured by academic behaviors and avoidance behaviors (Snipes, 2017, p. 2). 

Snipes and Tran (2017) addressed the following four main research questions:

1. What levels of growth mindset, performance avoidance, and academic behaviors did students report?

2. How did students' reported levels of growth mindset, performance avoidance, and academic behaviors vary by grade level, prior academic achievement, socio-demographic characteristics, and school characteristics?

3. What levels of growth mindsets, student performance avoidance, and student academic behaviors did teachers report?

4. How did teacher's reported levels of growth mindset, student performance avoidance, and student academic behaviors vary by school characteristics? (p. 4)

           The students and teachers were given questionnaires that rated the levels of growth mindset, performance avoidance, and academic behaviors from 1-5. The students' prior academic achievement was also recorded and categorized as either emergent, approaching the standard, meeting the standard, and exceeding the standard (Snipes, 2017, p. 6)

Results:

           High school students reported having an average 4.0 on a scale from 1-5, demonstrating higher levels of growth mindset while middle school students reported an average of 3.9.   78% of the students reported that they demonstrate academic behaviors at a level 4 or 5, averaging to an overall 4.0. The average student score for performance avoidance is 2.3 (1 showing no performance avoidance, where a 5 is high level of avoidance) (Snipes, 2017, p. 7)

           Among students with low prior achievement performance, growth mindset scores were lower (3.5), performance avoidance scores were higher (2.7), and academic achievement scores were lower(3.8). These scores were based on the responses among students whose prior academic achievement was considered emergent (Snipes, 2017, p. 8). Another key finding was that students in low achievement schools were found to show even lower growth mindset beliefs (Snipes, 2017, p. 10)

           The average teacher response to having a growth mindset was higher than the students, at a 4.5 compared to the students' average report of 4.0.  Teachers also rated performance avoidance of students higher that the students did with a score of 2.7 compared to 2.3.  Teachers rated the academic behaviors of students lower, with a score of 3.3 compared to the 4.0 that the students rated themselves.  Further findings indicated that teachers who taught higher grades reported lower scores of growth mindset beliefs (Snipes, 2017, p. 12).

Discussion:  

           Snipes and Tran discuss that the different scores that emergent performing students reported may be attributed to the impact of how a lower growth mindset can promote performance avoidance behaviors and suppress academic achievement behaviors.  They continue to examine how students with negative past experience in classes are more resistant to demonstrating behaviors correlated with a growth mindset due to so much discouragement in earlier years (Snipes, 2017, p. 15).

Implications to my study:

          This research supports my hypothesis that interventions truly need to begin with providing students with a growth mindset.  This study provides an argument that academic behaviors and performance avoidance are important measurable behaviors that can correlate with a student's belief system.  Instead of focusing the interventions on academic behaviors or content, one could argue that the best intervention is providing students with a way to improve their mindset and that the behaviors should follow. 

          A question I have about this study is what are the teachers' perceptions of the students' growth mindsets?  The teachers were asked to rate their own growth mindset beliefs (Snipes, 2017, p.2), however it would be interesting to know how they would rate the students' growth mindset based on their own observations.  A question could look like "How often do you hear students say 'I'm just not a math person.'"

          I find it interesting that students at low performance schools reported having a lower growth mindset belief as other schools.  The school I work in is generally a high performing school, where I am focusing my study on students who perform low in math.  This indicates that implementing interventions based around a growth mindset may have higher results, as the academic community is already high achieving. 

References:

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 Snipes, J., Tran, L., Regional Educational Laboratory West, (., National Center for Education Evaluation and     Regional Assistance, (., WestEd, & Clark County School, D. (2017). Growth Mindset, Performance Avoidance, and Academic Behaviors in Clark County School District. REL 2017-226.

                       

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Literature Review: Expectancy Value as a Predictor of High School Performance

This review is on Jennifer Peterson and Janet Hyde's research study on the expectancy-value theory. 

 This study investigates self-perceived math ability, math utility value, and math interests from 5th grade through 10th grade.   They studied how these trends in math motivation changed over time, across gender, how they are related to one another, and if they had any correlation to high school math performance in 10th grade (Peterson, 2017, p. 442)

The research took place in Wisconsin and included 223 participants.  All participants were given 5 minutes to complete 17 math problems in the 5th grade to provide a base line for math performance.  They were also given three questionnaires to determine the level of self-perceived math ability, utility value, and math interest across 5th grade, 7th grade, and 9th grade.  When the participants entered 10th grade, they took a state standardized test in math to assess performance level.  (Peterson, 2017, p. 443) 

Results:  

Gender Differences:   The study found that self-perceived math ability in boys in 5th, 7th, and 9th grades correlated with 10th grade math performance, whereas self-perceived math ability in girls only correlated in 7th and 9th grade to 10th grade math performance. There was not a significant difference between boys and girls in overall math performance (Peterson,  2017,  p. 445).

Trends in math motivation overtime: Self-perceived math ability declined over time overall.  Participants with high self-perceived math ability in the 5th grade showed a steeper decrease in self-perceived ability than those who reported having a low self-perceived ability to begin with (Peterson, 2017, p. 447).  Although Math utility value declined over the years as well, it did not directly predict 5th grade math performance nor 10th grade math performance (Peterson, 2017, p 449) Math interest in 5th grade overall declined, however student's 10th grade math performance was correlated with math interest levels in 5th grade.  When comparing this with performance in 5th grade however, it was found that students with higher performance also showed higher interest, and therefore it may be the performance, not the interest that predicts 10th grade performance (Peterson, 2017,  p. 449)

How the trends relate to one another: All three trends in math motivation were positively associated with one another, meaning that as one declined, so did the others.  The other correlation is that those who had higher self-perceived math ability, math interest, and utility value scores in 5th grade showed a steeper decline across time.   The only trend that correlates with math performance in 10th grade is self-perceived math ability. For the students who actually showed an increase in self-perceived ability in 7th and 9th grades compared to  5th grade demonstrated greater math performance in 10th grade regardless of initial math performance in 5th grade (Peterson,  2017,  p. 451).  

Conclusion:  The researchers suggest that although all of the three trends in math correlate with one another, the most efficient predictor of future math performance is self-perceived math ability.  They argue that further studies are needed regarding interventions that target math ability could improve math performance through hard work and dedication (Peterson,  2017,  p. 452)

Implications for my study:

This study greatly reflects the interest of my current research by focusing on math motivation trends across important developmental years, as I am looking at math performance in middle school.  I did not find it surprising that there were no significant gender differences, as I have not observed many in my experience.  I understand that there are stereotypes concerning girls performance in math, and the only observation I have ever made is that girls who struggle in math tend to resist interventions more than boys.  I believe that this can definitely reflect the self-perceived math ability, however I also would argue that the concept of a growth mindset is a more precise term to focus on. 

I did find it surprising that although a high level in math interest correlated with future math performance, it cannot be considered a predictor of math performance because the students already had better performance in math (Peterson, 2017, p. 449).  That implies that increasing math interest at a Tier 2 level of intervention may not produce desired results and that it should not be the focus of my study.

The fact that the only significant predictor of future math performance regardless of initial math performance  is an increase in self-perceived math ability (Peterson , 2017,  p. 452), supports my mission to find methods to improve math performance in Tier 2 level intervention classes in the 7th and 8th grades.  This finding gives me a strategy to base my intervention on.  The students in my classes are labeled as Tier 2 level students because of low performance in math.  Increasing their self-perceived math ability could lead to improved math performance.  Based on the findings in this study, it could also increase their math interest and utility value indirectly, as there is a positive correlation between the three trends that are described in this study (Peterson 2017 p. 451)

I believe the next step for me is to research how a Growth Mindset approach towards math ability can successfully be implemented at a middle school level. 

References: 

           Petersen, J. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2017). Trajectories of self-perceived math ability, utility value and interest across middle school as predictors of high school math performance. Educational Psychology, 37(4), 438. doi:10.1080/01443410.2015.1076765