Productive Persistence &
the Student Mindset Intervention
Kevin Li and Mira Kolodkin
FDW, Wright College
August 14, 2014
Student Retention and Success
• Underrepresented minority students and 1stgeneration college students are less likely to
attain any post-secondary degree.
• Working class/lower income students are less
likely to attain any post-secondary degree.
• Our students are not aware of the factors that
influence their performance and motivation
SAT Scores
Same SAT Scores
3.3
3.2
White
GPA
3.1
3.0
2.9
2.8
African American, Hispanic,
1st gen, Women in science
2.7
2.6
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
www.nj.gov
Cognitive Skills
?
Non-Cognitive Skills
Why?
• Home life and development
– Families from low-socioeconomic communities
are less likely to have the financial resources or
time availability to provide children with academic
support.
– Culture. Not institutionalized.
• Questions and Answers – Critical Thinking
• Structure and Time Organization
– “Unequal Childhoods” by Annette Lareau
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
Motivation?
Time?
Don’t know how?
Farrington et al., 2012
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
Grit
•
Grit is defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” [3] Building upon
biographical collections of famous leaders in history, researchers and scientists
have reached similar conclusions about high achieving individuals. Specifically,
those individuals who were deemed more successful and influential than their
contemporary counterparts typically possessed traits above and beyond that of
normal ability.[2][4][5] While ability was still critically important, these individuals
also possessed “zeal” and “persistence of motive and effort.”[3] Duckworth and
colleagues (2007) believe this dual-component of grit to be a crucial differentiator
from similar constructs. Grit is conceptualized as a stable trait that does not
require immediate positive feedback.[3] Individuals high in grit are able to maintain
their determination and motivation over long periods despite experiences with
failure and adversity. Their passion and commitment towards the long-term
objective is the overriding factor that provides the stamina required to “stay the
course” amid challenges and set-backs. Essentially, the grittier person is focused
on winning the marathon, not the sprint.
Strategies for Student Success
Non-Cognitive Skills:
Productive Persistence
= Tenacity + Good Strategies
Mindset
• Productive Struggle
 Taking the time to explore, investigating multiple methods, and
articulating a chain of reasoning behind the approaches
 Struggling and persisting through challenging problems leads to
valuable insists and aids in the learning process; students need
to understand the value of productive struggle
• Effort Model
 Struggling provides a chance to demonstrate the ability to
persevere through difficult challenges
• Ability Model
 Errors are often interpreted as indications of failure and may
imply that the potential to learn is lacking
 When students’ views fall into this model they often believe that if
they are struggling it means that they are not smart
Mindset about academic potential:
“I’m not smart at math?”
Fixed and Growth Mindsets about Intelligence
Goals
Value of effort, help,
and strategies?
Response to
challenge
Changes in grades
during times of
adversity
Fixed Mindset
Growth Mindset
Look smart (don’t look
dumb)
Learn
Lower
Higher
Tendency to give up
Work harder and
smarter
Decrease or remain low
Increase
Mindset about academic potential:
“I’m not smart at math?”
Ask students to read a 3page research study and
write a reflection piece
afterward.
Remind them that
intelligence is not fixed, but
malleable (Fixed intelligence
vs. Growth mindset).
Leads to a substantial
increase in persistence rate.
Percentage of students who earned 12+ credits in the first semester of
college as a function of growth mindset treatment among all students
(N= 7,342) and African American students (N = 356).
The figure shows effects of the web-based growth mindset
intervention delivered in the Summer before freshman year
at a large four-year university
Community College students randomly assigned to the growth
mindset treatment earned higher semester GPAs after the
intervention
Community College students’ exposure to the growth mindset
intervention reduced dropout from math courses in the sub-sample
of students taking developmental math
Summer 2014 Mindset Intervention Pilot
at Wright College
Students in developmental reading, writing, and math
courses will read the article “You Can Grow Your
Brain” which explains that struggling through
challenging work with effective strategies causes
areas of the brain to grow
• Lesson 1
 Students were given the “You Can Grow Your Brain” article to read
 As a homework assignment, students will then be asked to reflect
and work on the following exercise:
(A) Can the human brain develop?
(A) How do we know?
(B) List 3 examples.
Summer 2014 Mindset Intervention Pilot
at Wright College
• Lesson 2
 Instructor will lead a discussion in class: Why is practicing a skill so
important, and what does it do to our brains?
 Students will then be asked to complete the following homework
assignments:
(A) Think about an example from your own life of something that you weren’t
at first good at. Then you practiced it using a good strategy and became
really good at it. Write about it and explain how you improved.
(B) Imagine a friend who is struggling in school. This friend used to do pretty
well in school but now is having a hard time and is starting to feel dumb.
Write a paragraph to your friend to encourage him or her—tell them about
what you just learned about the brain and why they shouldn’t be discouraged.
(C) How does this article affect the way you think about your ability to learn
new things? Also, describe 1 specific action you will take to apply what you
have just learned about the human brain.
Level Up Growth Mindset Pilot in Summer 2014
•
“I have learned so much already and my (study habit) has changed because
of the growth mindset”.
•
“What I have learned in this program helped me by building the growth
mindset that I need with reading and writing; these were my weaknesses. I
practiced a lot with reading and writing. The more I practice the more I get
better at these two subjects”.
•
“I think that (changing from having a) fixed mindset to a growth mindset has
helped me to face the challenges in Reading, Math, English, and Writing”.
•
“I have a growth mindset now that I've completed most of the class
assignments. I will overcome many challenges because of this course”.
•
“When I came here I had a fixed mindset because I realized that I wouldn't
be able to do any of the math and I wouldn't get a good grade. After awhile,
I developed a growth mindset because I realized that by doing this program
its helping me improve my writing and mathematical skills”.
Level Up : New Focus on Noncognitive Abilities
Summer 2013
Number of students who completed
Total Levels Skipped
Average Levels Skipped
42
47
1.1
Summer 2014
Number of students who completed
Total levels Skipped
Average Levels Skipped
52
87
1.7
Mindset about the value of school work:
“What’s the point of doing this?”
Mindset about social belonging:
“Do I really belong here?”
Mindset about social belonging:
“Do I really belong here?”
Mindset about social belonging:
“Do I really belong here?”
Mindset Interventions:
Next Steps
• Assess the relationship between growth mindset
and classroom behaviors
• Pilot “Value of School” and “Social Belonging”
mindset interventions in Fall 2014
• Assess the “Growth Mindset” interventions in
Summer 2014 and track students’ GPA and
persistence rates in Fall 2014 and Spring 2015
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
• Start homework
assignments in class*
• Clear and explicit
directions*
• Planners
• Set up procedures so
students can access
missed homework*
• GradesFirst Early-Alert*
Farrington et al., 2012
?
Utility Intervention
• Class quiz – 5-10 minutes
at beginning of class the
day after an exam
• Worth 3 quiz points
• Prompt: Spend 5-10
minutes explaining how
something that you have
learned in this class is
useful to both your
personal life and your
professional life.
• Anonymous. Good?
Fixed Mindset
Warning Signs of Fixed Mindset
What it Sounds Like
Wants to prove intelligence or talent
“I’m so stupid.”
“I’m awesome at this.”
Avoids challenges for fear of failure
“I’m a ____ major because I’m good at ____.”
Gives up in the face of tough obstacles
“I just can’t do math.”
Avoids hard labor (avoids trying)
“This is too hard.”
Feels threatened by others’ success
“She’s so smart, it makes me sick.”
“It’s fine the way it is. Yours isn’t better.”
Teaching about brain plasticity (movie)
Ways to Combat Fixed Mindsets
Social-belonging Intervention:
• In-class assignment ~30 minutes
•Treatment group gets paragraphs from
previous students saying social belonging
got better.
• Treatment subjects asked to write essays
that will be turned into letters describing
examples of their own social-belonging
improving over time and are told this will
be shown to future 1st year students.
Social-Belonging Intervention
Results
Two-way RM ANOVA, posthoc Tukey
P = <0.05 for majority control and
treatment versus minority control
P = 0.021 minority treatment over
time
Read the following list of common values.
Which ones matter most to you? Which do
you most naturally use to guide your
choices? What do you appreciate about
yourself? Circle your top three. If something
comes to mind that is not on this list, write
it down.
Choose one of your top values and write
about it for 10-15 minutes. Describe why
this value is important to you, and a time in
your life when you had the opportunity to
really express this value. If you would like to
make this an exercise in self-compassion,
you can also write about a difficult
experience or decision you are facing, and
how you can use this value to support or
guide yourself.
List of 30 values
Value-Intervention
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
• Formative assessment
• Questions on assignments
like “what is this question
about” or “what steps will
you use to solve this
problem?”
• Detailed activity log for
studying
• Mental contrasting
• Implementation intentions
• Set away class time to
review goals
Five Non-Cognitive Skills
• Not a lot of data
• Student-teacher
relationships
• Cooperative learning
• Safe environments
CTL Session
November 5th 12 pm
Faculty members who teach ev ed
courses are welcome to participate in
these pilots… please contact Kevin Li
for more details.
Thank you for your support!