Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale [Experiment 2]
Yeager, D. S., Walton, G. M., Brady, S. T., Akcinar, E. N., Paunesku, D., Keane, L., Kamentz, D., Ritter, G., Duckworth, A. L., Urstein, R., Gomez, E. M., Markus, H. R., Cohen, G. L., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(24), E3341-E3348.
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examining3,837Students, gradePS
Growth Mindset Intervention Report - Supporting Postsecondary Success
Review Details
Reviewed: October 2021
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Growth Mindset.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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College Enrollment Full Time - Fall Semester |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2);
|
90.00 |
89.00 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
College Enrollment Full Time - Fall Semester |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Disadvantaged students;
|
88.00 |
85.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Continuous full-time enrollment, first year |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Year |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Disadvantaged students;
|
76.00 |
72.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Continuous full-time enrollment, first year |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Year |
Growth mindset vs. Control (Experiment 2) ;
|
80.00 |
78.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Continuous full-time enrollment, first year |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Year |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Advantaged students;
|
82.00 |
81.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
College Enrollment Full Time - Fall Semester |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Advantaged students;
|
91.00 |
92.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
College credits earned: Semester 1 |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2);
|
88.00 |
87.00 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
College credits earned: Semester 1 |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Disadvantaged students;
|
86.00 |
82.00 |
Yes |
|
||
|
College credits earned in first college year |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Year |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Disadvantaged students;
|
74.00 |
69.00 |
Yes |
|
||
|
College credits earned in first college year |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Year |
Growth mindset vs control (Experiment 2);
|
77.00 |
75.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
College credits earned: Semester 1 |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Advantaged students;
|
90.00 |
90.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
College credits earned in first college year |
Growth Mindset vs. Business as usual |
1 Year |
Growth mindset vs. control (Experiment 2): Advantaged students;
|
79.00 |
79.00 |
No |
-- | ||
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Texas
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Race Asian 18% Black 5% Other or unknown 31% White 46% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 24% Not Hispanic or Latino 76%
Study Details
Setting
The study took place at a public university in Texas. Incoming students reviewed pre-orientation materials online—including text that served as the intervention—one week before arriving on campus for the full orientation.
Study sample
Across the 7,343 students in the analytic sample that included all four study conditions, 46% were White, 18% were Asian, 5% were Black, and race was not specified for 31% of the sample. Twenty-four percent were Hispanic. Approximately 17% were first-generation college students and 83% were continuing-generation.
Intervention Group
In an online session lasting approximately 30 minutes, students in the Growth Mindset intervention group read an article summarizing research showing that the brain is malleable and that intelligence can grow if students exert effort when facing a challenge. Next, students read stories from upper-class students that described how they had overcome early struggles in college. These stories conveyed messages that initial struggles in college, such as receiving low grades, getting critical feedback from a professor, or having difficulty with the college bureaucracy do not imply that a student is “dumb” or unprepared for college; rather, these challenges suggest that students may learn more effective study strategies by asking for help and that the “knowing how” part of their brain was still developing. Finally, students wrote an essay, to be shared with other first-year students facing struggles, that described how these messages applied to their own experience adjusting to college.
Comparison Group
In an online session lasting approximately 30 minutes, students in the comparison group read stories from upper-class students that described how they had adapted to the physical environment on campus and in the surrounding city. Next, students wrote an essay, an essay, to be shared with other first-year students facing struggles, about how students adjust to college.
Support for implementation
The university embedded the study materials within a set of online, pre-orientation tasks required of incoming students, such as reviewing the university honor code, health care requirements, and course registration procedures. To help ensure that students read the materials carefully, each web page had a timer that prevented students from advancing to the next page until a minimum amount of time had elapsed. The study materials were framed as information about the “university mindset,” and an opportunity to learn from older students’ experience with the transition to college. Study materials informed students that their essays could be shared, anonymously, to help future students cope with the transition to college.
Social Belonging Intervention Report - Supporting Postsecondary Success
Review Details
Reviewed: October 2021
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Social Belonging.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Attempted 12+ credits |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Socially disadvantaged;
|
88.00 |
85.00 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
Attempted 12+ credits per semester |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Socially disadvantaged;
|
75.00 |
72.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Attempted 12+ credits |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Full sample;
|
90.00 |
89.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Attempted 12+ credits per semester |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Socially advantaged;
|
83.00 |
81.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Attempted 12+ credits per semester |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Full sample;
|
80.00 |
78.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Attempted 12+ credits |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Socially advantaged;
|
92.00 |
92.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Earned 12+ credits |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Socially disadvantaged;
|
85.00 |
82.00 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
Earned 12+ credits per semester |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Socially disadvantaged;
|
72.00 |
69.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Earned 12+ credits per semester |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Full sample;
|
77.00 |
75.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Earned 12+ credits |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Full sample;
|
88.00 |
87.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Earned 12+ credits per semester |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Socially advantaged;
|
80.00 |
79.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Earned 12+ credits |
Social Belonging vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Socially advantaged;
|
89.00 |
90.00 |
No |
-- | ||
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
-
Race Asian 18% Black 5% Other or unknown 31% White 46% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 24% Not Hispanic or Latino 76%
Study Details
Setting
The intervention was completed individually by students online between May and July 2012 prior to their freshman year. All students were freshmen at a four-year public university.
Study sample
Among the total sample assigned to the four groups in Experiment 2, 46% were White, 18% were Asian, 5% were Black, and race was not specified for 31% of the sample. Twenty-four percent of students were Hispanic. Approximately 83% of students were continuing-generation students and 17% were first-generation students. The socially disadvantaged students that were the subject of this review included Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, and first-generation students. The breakdown by group was not available for this sample.
Intervention Group
The Social Belonging intervention was designed to overcome the myth that only disadvantaged students experience difficulty and question their belonging in college. The intervention shared stories showing that everyone worries early on, and that all students can overcome these challenges over time. The intervention was conducted online in each student’s home the summer before their freshman year in college. Students reviewed survey results from older students that indicated that initially most college students worry about whether they belong, and this is true regardless of race, gender, or other background characteristics—and that these worries decrease over time when students develop social relationships with other students in their school. After reviewing the survey results, students reviewed stories from upper-year students describing these same ideas. After reading these stories, students were asked to write two brief essays about: (1) why students often initially feel uncertain about whether they belong in college based on their own experiences, and (2) how these concerns about belonging are likely to decrease over time as students adjust to college life. Students were told that their essays might be shared with other future students. The entire intervention was expected to take approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Comparison Group
Students in the comparison group participated in a similar reading and writing exercise, but the materials focused on students’ adjustment to the physical rather than social environment in college, such as the weather and the campus.
Support for implementation
The university included the intervention materials in a set of online pre-orientation tasks required of all incoming first year students (such as reviewing how to register for courses, the university honor code, and health care resources on campus). One week prior to attending an on-campus orientation, the university emailed a link to this list of online tasks to all incoming first year students. The intervention materials appeared immediately after students read about the university's required vaccinations and were described as information about the "university mindset."
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
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Study findings for this report.
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as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).