MINDSET: Cultivating Intentional Learning
Chesney Reich, Director, Writing and Learning Commons (WaLC)
Laura Cruz, Director, Coulter Faculty Commons
Russ Curtis, Associate Professor, Human Services
Martha Diede, Senior Educational Developer, Coulter Faculty Commons
Alison Joseph, Business and Technology Applications Analyst, OIPE
David Onder, Director of Assessment, OIPE
Ellen Sigler, Associate Professor, Psychology
Shawn Hudson, Graduate Student, Counseling
Fascinating recent research gives credence to the age-old adage, “what the mind conceives the body
achieves.” The rapidly growing field of mindset research reveals the power of our thoughts and beliefs
to change our behavior and physiological responses (Crum, Corbin, Brownell, & Salovey, 2011; Crum,
Salovey, & Achor, 2013). In an educational setting, students’ mindsets can have a significant impact on
their ability to successfully complete difficult intellectual tasks (Yeager, Walton, & Cohen, 2013).
Fortunately, recent studies have shown that brief, low-cost, and easily-implemented strategies can
positively influence students’ beliefs about their own aptitudes, resulting in improved academic
behaviors and, ultimately, improved academic performance (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007;
Dweck, 2012).
The University’s Synthesis QEP sought to influence students’ experiences directly, and the Mindset QEP
will enhance those efforts by focusing on the beliefs that precede and inform experience. Engagement
with this plan will result in students who can employ self-directed learning strategies, demonstrate
appropriate help-seeking behaviors, use discipline-specific lenses for critical evaluation, and integrate
learning experiences with future goals. Implementation will enhance students’ mindsets at several
stages of their academic careers, from their transition into higher education through their transition to
post-college life.
Mindset has the potential to positively impact the University’s strategic goals to increase first-year
retention, six-year graduation rates, and other measures of student success. These metrics will be
combined in a “plurality of measurement approaches” (Duckworth, 2015, p. 28) that reflect the
developmental, reflective, and experimental nature of institutional assessment of non-cognitive
outcomes.
Mindset would position WCU as a leader in transformative higher education, fostering a culture that
cultivates successful people—the kind of people WCU attracts as students, faculty, staff, and
administrators; the kind of people WCU graduates; and the kind of people who can make a difference in
our region and state.