How can mindset affect mental health and facilitate academic success? 

After completing this subtopic, students will be able to:

Describe the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset

Describe how each mindset type impacts well-being and learning

Reflect on their own mindset towards successes and failures

Create some strategies to nurture their own growth mindset

Please read this article: https://www.mindsethealth.com/matter/growth-vs-fixed-mindset

A mindset is the main way in which people tend to think about their own intelligence and abilities, it is not stable over time and exerts a great influence over the way we view failure, what we achieve, and how we experience resiliency.

There are two main types of mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, although people often display a combination of the two perspectives.

  • Those with a fixed mindset tend to believe intelligence and talent are fixed, that is that they will not change over time regardless of effort. This leads to more negative thinking, avoidance of challenges and fear of failure, feeling threatened by others success, and viewing feedback as criticism. People with a fixed mindset may give up on tasks easily because they believe intelligence is something innate rather than something malleable.
  • Those with growth mindsets tend to view intelligence and talent as characteristics that can be developed over time through effort, feedback, and setbacks. Someone with a growth mindset may see failure as temporary and necessary in learning, they may put more effort into learning, embrace challenges and view feedback as an opportunity to learn. Growth mindsets are extremely important in developing resiliency, learning, and motivation.

Please read the first 3 pages of this article (introduction, growth mindset and learning and the mediating roles of Covid-19 event strength and perceived stress sections) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.621094/full

Developing a growth mindset has shown to increase students’ motivation, effort, and engagement in learning and is a strong predictor of academic success in the face of challenges. This article specifically highlights the already stressful COVID-19 pandemic in relation to increasing stress in school, theorizing that the development of a growth mindset may prove to have a positive effect on academic engagement and levels of perceived stress during the pandemic (Zhao et al., 2021). Perceived stress is the subjective feelings of tension, stress, and threat faced by the individual, particularly seen in students’ feelings of academic pressure. Stress stems from the brain’s hormone regulatory systems and often has a negative impact on academic success, internal motivation, and emotional states. Currently, we exist in a highly stressful global environment, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and combined with added stressful transitions, like high school to post-secondary, it is important to examine some factors that can help to decrease levels of stress for students. Having a growth mindset has been shown to affect those same self-regulatory processes and decrease the negative emotions associated with stress, allowing for students to experience less burnout and academic stress (Zhao et al., 2021).

What do you think your mindset is? Reflect and annotate (interactive activity)

  • Reflect on how you view failure vs success in school
  • Think about how you navigate challenges and setbacks in learning
  • Do you view intelligence and talent as a fixed trait or as something capable of change?

Optional: take this short quiz to find which mindset you may have www.mindsethealth.com/self-tests/mindset-quiz, the results will be emailed to you shortly after completing.

Please watch this video: 11 Growth Mindset Strategies: Overcome Your Fix Mindset to Grow as a Person

Reflect on this video by thinking about some strategies that you can implement in your own life that may help to nurture a growth mindset. Annotate to share what strategies you find interesting or surprising and comment some other strategies you can think of that could nurture a growth mindset.

Some examples of strategies may include:

  1. Remembering that making mistakes does not mean you are a failure
  2. Learn to receive constructive criticism
  3. Prioritizing learning over seeking approval.

References:

https://www.mindsethealth.com/matter/growth-vs-fixed-mindset

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.621094/full

www.mindsethealth.com/self-tests/mindset-quiz

11 Growth Mindset Strategies: Overcome Your Fix Mindset to Grow as a Person