Category: Growth Mindset

Mindsets and Success: Effort, Strategies, and Grit

There are two mindsets of thinking about intelligence: growth mindset and fixed mindset. Those with a growth mindset, developed by Carol Dweck, believe that knowledge can be developed or fluid by one’s effort. According to scientific evidence, neurons strengthen their connections when people solve complex situations. Those with fixed mindsets think that intelligence is stable. In Alfie Kohn’s article, “The Perils of Growth Mindset Education,” the matter of students’ underperformance is a requirement, not a mindset. It’s a matter of curricula rather than mindsets. Discovered by scientists, there are a lot of discussions and brain functions that are not complete, so it’s hard to say that only one specific theory is right.

Carol Dweck didn’t demand to praise effort itself but to praise student strategies and processes and tie those into the outcomes. She recommended phrases like “You tried different strategies, and you figured out how to solve the problem.” However, Carol Dweck’s words are more accurate since research is based on scientific teaching. Another psychologist, Angela Lee Duckworth, from the University of Pennsylvania. In her Ted Talk, she said that the matter of success is not intelligence but it is about “grit,” which is striving to do something with perseverance. An example is when she taught math to 7th graders, and the outperformers were students who had more motivation to be better at math.

Achievements, Challenges, and Cultural Pressures

It goes to show that mindsets matter in our school performances. In my case, I didn’t have awesome talents in English, and every English teacher I had knew it wasn’t my favorite. However, in order to graduate, I had no choice but to learn and pass English. My results were better than I had thought; I took a C-point grade average up to an A-point grade average. I am still proud of myself when I look back at those moments. Now, I believe in myself and try to have “grit.” Angela Duckworth said, “Life is not a sprint but a marathon” in a TED Talk. Every small moment that people live is composed of the future. It forces people to become motivational and excited when they think about their futures changing because of their hard work. It is necessary to hold a mindset that lives out one’s present beliefs of oneself.

Angela Duckworth says, “We need to take our best ideas, our strongest intuitions, and we need to test them.” “We need to measure whether we’ve been successful, and we have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned.” Many people agree with the reasonable words of Angela Duckworth and Carol Dweck. However, adjustment of Carol Dweck and Alfie Kohn is needed. The Korean Society is famous for high academic achievement and goals compared to many other students in other countries. Dweck and Duckworth insisted that teachers in Korea are very motivational and they encourage their students a lot. Although many people think just because the achievement is high, all the problems will be solved when it is not. Korean students have more depression and higher suicidal rates than students from other countries.

According to statistics, Korean students have a 29 percent suicide rate, which is the top of many other countries. Still, people have to know that Korean students have to be distressed by the social structure that stresses studying a lot. Therefore, people who have high knowledge have always been respected and successful. Even in modern society, jobs like high officials that require a lot of studies are mostly honored compared to police and soldiers. There are a lot of students committing suicide even though they were successful in school; Korean society and parents stress their children to study more and not helping them find their children’s dreams. A person with a fixed mindset believes that they are born with talent, while a person with a growth mindset believes that ability can be further developed.

References:

1. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
2. Kohn, A. (2015). The perils of “Growth Mindset” education: Why we’re trying to fix our kids when we should be fixing the system. Salon.
3. Duckworth, A. L. (2013). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. TED Talk.

Mindset, Grit, and Adverse Experiences: Insights from Correlation Analysis

Although there are many researches that note the benefits of mindsets toward outcomes, achievement, and success, less work has focused on measuring the relationship between those constructs and adverse experiences. This study examined the relationship among mindset, grit, anxiety, and depression. Data were collected via survey from 103 participants, mainly undergraduate students from a public college consisting of approximately two-thirds Hispanic/Latino women.

Through a Pearson’s correlation analysis, we found that growth mindset was negatively related (p < .01) with general distress and depression (i.e., felt withdrawn from other people, felt tense, hopeless, and worthless) and positively related with grit (i.e., setbacks do not discourage me I do not give up easily). Furthermore, grit was positively related (p < .01) with not-depression (i.e., I felt really happy and felt like I had a lot of interesting things to do) but not significantly related to anxiety, distress, or depression. The study suggests that a growth mindset is a better suppressor of adverse feelings than grit.

Grit and Mindsets Influencing Mood and Anxiety to Predict Outcomes

Everyday life demands us to make decisions constantly. Those decisions are highly influenced by one’s own mindset and make us move forward or not. Dweck (2008) defined mindset as a mental frame or lens that selectively organizes and analyzes information to then influence individuals to orient their tendencies and reactions towards a particular way of understanding an experience or situation and guiding one toward corresponding actions and responses.

Dweck (2000) argued that there are two different ways in which intelligence may be classified: growth or fixed. Individuals with a fixed or entity mindset view intelligence as unchanging or stationary, whereas those with a growth or incremental mindset view intelligence as something that can develop or expand over time. Dweck and her colleagues indicated that mindsets about intelligence can predict objectives, beliefs about abilities and effort, and how individuals react to setbacks and then consequently predict outcomes. (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007)

People often infer something about fixed or growth mindset or about grit, even if they do not realize it. Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly (2007) incorporated the construct of grit and defined it as the inclination to maintain both effort and interest toward very long-term goals, showed that grit has two main traits, passion and perseverance, that may predict achievement in challenging decisions even over and beyond talent, that individuals high in grit do not swerve from their goals, even in the absence of positive feedback. A gritty person is a grittier person who has setbacks and does not give up easily.

Nevertheless, everyone, from time to time, has experienced the feeling of being discouraged or disappointed, even when they realize that they are doing their best or if they know they have a growth mindset and the grit needed to face difficult challenges or even simple setbacks. People often lose interest, motivation, and focus in ongoing task projects and divert such interest toward new ones without being able to avoid unwanted experiences or feelings of anxiety, distress, and depression.

Depressive symptoms presented with anxious distress, from mild to severe, are classified as unspecified depressive disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [A.P.A.], 2013) that can lead to significant distress or deterioration in social, occupational, or other major areas of predominant functioning. A couple of such anxiety symptoms are feeling keyed up or tense and usually feeling restless and worried. The present study evaluated whether mindset and grit relate to specific anxiety and depression experiences. The range of those experiences and behaviors, from relatively more positive to relatively more negative, could lead people to work toward their goals as well as to experience anxiety and distress, even depression. Therefore, we hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 1: Individuals with a growth mindset experienced lower anxiety and distress than individuals with a fixed mindset.
Hypothesis 2: People with higher levels of grit will feel less anxious and have depressive symptoms than people with no grit.

Participants

The study used 103 participants who responded to an online survey. The study recorded the responses of 69 females and 34 males with an average age of 25.75 years. Seventy-three participants identified themselves as Hispanic/Latino, 13 as Asians/Pacific Islanders, five as White, and 12 as Mixed, Middle Eastern, Black/African American, or Native American. The household income of 28 participants was less than $19,999; for 27 participants was between $20,000 – $44,999; for 21 participants was between $45,000 – $69,999; and for 27 participants was $70,000 or more. Thirteen students had a G.P.A. in between of 1.6 – 2.5, 47 students in between of 2.6 – 3.5, 29 students in between of 3.6 – 4.0, and 14 participants reported no having a G.P.A. All responses were taken with full confidentiality and anonymously.

Procedure

The study was conducted during the Spring Semester of 2020 in an online-only form, mainly for undergraduate students from Cerritos College. Most of the students majoring in psychology were invited and asked to participate willingly by their professors. Students were encouraged to take the survey voluntarily and offered extra credit points as an incentive. No other compensation was offered. In addition, invitations to participate in the study were sent online to non-student adults in and out of campus as well. Some of these individuals voluntarily took the survey. Every participant was able to take the survey once only.

Materials

Mindset Scale (Dweck, 2006). An 8-item questionnaire where participants show how much they agree to the scale statements by using a Likert-type 5-point scale (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree). The mindset scale includes statements such as, “I can learn new things, but I cannot really change my basic intelligence” and “I believe intelligence is something I cannot change very much.” Mindset Scale has two subscales, Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset. In this study, Cronbach’s alpha for Growth Mindset was α = .676, whereas for Fixed Mindset, it was α = .739.

Grit Scale (Duckworth, 2007). A 10-item questionnaire aimed to predict achievement by using two traits: grit and self-control. Statements like, “I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest” and “New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones” are included in the Grit Scale questionnaire. Responses help to find out how passionate and persevering people see themselves to be. Participants had to indicate how much those statements apply to themselves using a Likert-type 5-point scale (1=very much like me to 5=Not like me at all). In this study, the Grit Scale had an internal reliability coefficient of α = .693.

Mini Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (Mini-MASQ) (Casillas et al., L. A. (2000, May). This 26-item questionnaire includes a list of feelings, sensations, problems, and experiences that people sometimes have, focused on measuring anxiety, depression, and distress. Through a Likert-type 5-point scale (1=not at all to 5=Extremely), participants share their answers that best describe how much they have felt or experienced said things during the past week, including the day that they took the questionnaire. A lower score means lower symptom experience. This scale includes experiences like “Felt withdrawn from other people,” “Felt like I had a lot of interesting things to do,” and “Felt hopeless.” In this study, the Mini-MASQ subscales are anxiety, which had an internal reliability coefficient of α= .933, distress had an α= .95, depression had an α= .777, and not-depression had an α= .9.

Results

The goal of the study was to determine the type of relationship between the mindset and grit that a person has toward his or her mood and anxiety. A Pearson’s r correlation analysis was conducted to assess the relationships among growth mindset, grit, anxiety, fixed mindset, distress, depression, and not-depression for N = 103 participants. The age average for participants was 25.75 years, and more than two-thirds of the participants were women.

We found some important statistically significant relationships among the variables of the subscales. The complete correlation between pairs of variables is reported in Table 2, where significant correlations are noted in the table. Overall, there was a strong positive correlation between growth mindset and not-depression. That indicates that our hypotheses are supported by the results of the study and showed that growth mindset and gritty persons experience less depression and anxiety than fixed-minded and not gritty people. A significant negative correlation was found between a growth mindset and distress (r = -.309, p)

Reference:

1. Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement Across an Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an Intervention. Child Development, 78(1), 246-263.
2. Casillas, A., Clark, L. A., Goldsmith, H. H., Hulle, C. A. V., & Martinez, J. I. (2000). The Mini Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (Mini-MASQ). Unpublished manuscript, University of Notre Dame.
3. Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101.
4. Dweck, C. S. (2000). Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Psychology Press.
5. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House.
6. Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindsets and Math/Science Achievement. Carnegie Corporation of New York.
7. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5).

Unraveling Intelligence: Nature, Nurture, and Developmental Pathways

The debate on whether people are born intelligent or unintelligent indicates that some scholars believe this trait is inborn and unchangeable. Intelligence is the measure of a person’s ability to grasp class content and apply inherent skills. However, some people think that as long as they understand why certain elements work together, they are intelligent. The disciplines that expound on this topic include sociology, criminology, psychology, early childhood development, and biological sciences. Academicians in these areas seek to understand the structure and function of the human brain and its relation to society, emotional health, growth, and illnesses.

For example, sociologists study brain functions and the way they divide human beings into social classes in which shrewd leaders use their intelligence to manipulate their followers and create private communities such as cults. On the other hand, criminologists study brain functions to determine the thought patterns of criminals. The other disciplines tackle brain function, structure, and immunology to assess the heritability of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

This research seeks to answer whether human intelligence is indeed an inborn trait and what factors influence its presence and development. Through an analysis of the activities that people perform, this paper proves that intelligence develops over time since human beings are born with similar brain structures. In response to this, those with a growth mindset can develop their intelligence, as opposed to people with a fixed mindset.

Genetics, Environment, and Cognitive Development: Unraveling the Interplay

Although citizens are not born intelligent, their inherent genetics can contribute to developing certain levels of brilliance. For infants, since they cannot speak or react to situations that can be used to measure their acumen, doctors often examine their brain size and structure to see if they are normal or abnormal (Von Rhein et al. 1259). Nonetheless, children whose parents are intelligent inherit ‘smart’ genes, which increase their smartness and ability to grasp the content. Different growth phases are also characterized by certain brain functions or cognitive abilities.

Therefore, physicians can use these stages to determine a child’s cognitive and mental capacity. Yeo et al. studied schizophrenia, intelligence, and genetics and found out that the disease, which affects cognitive function, is inheritable (240). Therefore, the scholars concluded that since children inherit cognitive disabilities, they could also genetically acquire high intelligence levels from their parents. However, they have to use their cognitive abilities to develop the trait. People are not born intelligent, but their environment can trigger the quality or diminish its development. The environment entails one’s physical surroundings, emotional support, and neighborhood.

This is explored in Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth by Fischer et al. as a response to the Bell curve argument, which states that people’s racial features dictate their social classes and intelligence levels (20). The Bell theory assumes that people of certain races encounter immense socioeconomic challenges that make them unable to cater to their children’s tuition fees, making the young ones lack the chance to learn and become intelligent. Bell believed that people from certain races live in slums, where their children obtain quality education due to the ill-equipped nature of the available public schools. Therefore, he concluded that since race determines one’s socioeconomic status, it also influences a person’s

Nurturing Intelligence: Environmental Influences and Parental Guidance

Level of intelligence (Fischer et al. 20). However, the scholars state that the ideology is a myth and a manifestation of stereotypes since the theorist assumes that people from certain ethnicities are predisposed to experience the same socioeconomic challenges. Furthermore, the Bell curve model focuses on American society while ignoring the rest of the world. Its proponents also forget that the intelligence gene develops with a person’s cognitive functions (Ma and Schapira12). Therefore, the connection between race, social class, and intelligence is farfetched.

Nevertheless, if children are surrounded by violent gangs, poverty, uneducated adults, and drug users, they are unlikely to develop an interest in their acumen. In such cases, their ability to develop astuteness depends on their environment. Still, some individuals are born ambitious, which makes them think beyond their environmental influences. Therefore, such youngsters can focus on their studies and achieve high levels of intelligence within their lifetimes. On the other hand, some children can develop their aptitude levels or lose interest in the same because of parental influences.

Intellectual parents and guardians motivate their children to study and develop cognitive skills from an early age. Those who were born into low-income families also insist that their children perform exemplarily in academics and attend institutions of higher education so that they can improve their brain power and be able to succeed in life. Dweck examines the development of intelligence and states that it can be acquired through constant exposure to reading materials and games that challenge cognitive functions (3).

The writer asserts that for intelligence to grow, it must be triggered by constant practice and reading. Notably, parents who treasure intelligence and intellectual phenomena tend to invest in their children’s cognitive development. For instance, they pay for extra classes such as language and music lessons (Boyd et al. 17). Hence, children raised by such parents become intelligent.

Fostering Intelligence Through Self-Worth and Learning Opportunities

Because of the skills they acquire from a young age, in brief, parental backgrounds increase their children’s inclination towards activities that boost their intelligence levels. People develop intelligence due to their self-worth, which refers to the way they perceive themselves. Synonyms of the word include self-value and self-esteem. If an individual values him or herself, he or she will most likely invest in his or her intelligence. Such people develop their acumen out of love for themselves or as a form of investment in themselves. Such persons are also motivated and competitive since they are confident in their abilities.

A confident person is unafraid of criticism and acknowledges personal strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, he/she is always ready to learn and unlearn. In the same way, people with high self-esteem are inclined to improve their present situations by constantly researching new self-improvement techniques. As they participate in holistic growth and development, such individuals exercise their minds by engaging in challenging tasks and reading books that expand their knowledge. Hence, people can increase their knowledge and intellectual abilities by acquiring knowledge on how to increase their self-worth.

Educational institutions also provide opportunities for youngsters and adults to develop their brain power. Although human beings are born with similar brain capacities, they have the opportunity to increase their intelligence as they mature by taking advantage of the available resources to do so. In this veritable position, Dweck categorized humans into two groups, namely, growth- and fixed-minded people (3). The former accept intelligence training, while the latter remain fixated on their capacities. To this end, people who fail to use scholarly resources to develop their psychological abilities cannot grow their acumen. Dweck states that students can use training opportunities and workshops in higher learning institutions to acquire new skills and Knowledge (6).

The Power of a Growth Mindset and Supportive Environments

They can also increase their intellect by reading books on various subjects. Individuals who possess a growth mindset tend to augment their intelligence levels over time. Dweck asserts that people with a fixed and growth mindset react to negative information and circumstances differently (3). When a growth-oriented person fails a test, he/she increases the time spent studying and the level of concentration in class. The author adds that such learners are open to criticism and practice self-improvement. Growth-oriented people also accept corrections, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and seek to develop their knowledge and behavior.

On the other hand, those with a fixed mindset shun corrections and interpret them as evidence that they should quit whatever they are doing because they will not succeed. Such people are also rigid and pessimistic about their situations. For instance, if a student with a fixed mindset fails an examination, he/she could opt out of the class and regard him/herself as unintelligent. Consequently, the ability to view challenges as opportunities to grow one’s aptitude indicates that the growth mindset, rather than the fixed mindset, can increase a person’s intelligence.

People who believe that qualities can be developed also enhance their acumen, whereas those who think that human traits are unchangeable see their situations as permanent and fail to seek lasting solutions. Most teachers and parents also judge poor-performing students as untalented and label them as weak. Instead of dismissing and giving up on such learners, teachers and parents should investigate the root issues of the student’s poor performance and help them succeed.

In some cases, a youngster may perform poorly at school due to stress at home, which makes him/her fail to concentrate in class. In other instances, a learner may be uninterested in academics because of living in poor neighborhoods, which discourages children from studying by preaching their future as drug addicts or unemployed. In such cases, tutors should devise ways to help their students obtain hope and gain interest in academics by informing them of the advantages therein.

Embracing Failure: Catalyst for Learning and Intelligence Growth

Instructors should also utilize multiple learning techniques so that pupils with different learning styles can all benefit from the syllabus content. In brief, some professionals wrongly assume that qualities such as intelligence cannot be learned or developed. People’s attitudes towards failure also increase or decrease their intelligence levels. Growth-oriented individuals understand that learning is a process rather than a one-time experience.

Therefore, they view failure as an opportunity to expand their skills and intelligence. Conversely, people with fixed mindsets believe that failure is a demonstration of weakness and unchangeable inherent traits. For instance, if such a person opens a business and fails multiple times, he/she could quit the venture. Similarly, some people take tests or try learning new languages and skills but surrender when they encounter challenges. On the other hand, for intelligent individuals, a failed business serves as an opportunity to study factors that deter enterprises from prosperity.

Similarly, if they fail a school examination, they examine the aspects that caused the low grades so that they can obtain better scores in forthcoming evaluations. In other words, the perception of failure affects one’s acumen and success in life. Hence, the perception of mistakes as opportunities to expand knowledge is a quality of intelligent, growth-oriented people. Intelligence is also acquired through continuous improvement techniques.

Therefore, humans have to evaluate their personal characteristics in social or professional aspects so that, later, they can determine the traits that will help them to become competent professionals in a given field. For example, a lawyer should be compassionate, rational, logical, and emotionally intelligent. Hence, if a person aspires to excel in the field, he/she could list his/her weaknesses and strengths to determine the deterrents of competence and work on them accordingly.

Enhancing Intelligence Through Engaging Activities

After that, he/she applies the learned concepts to his/her daily activities. In this regard, people should aim to improve their habits and professional traits continually through reading the available literature on their weaknesses and careers. In addition to self-improvement, constant use of cognitive functions increases one’s intellectual levels. This includes critical thinking, analysis, memory, and concentration skills. Activities that exercise these attributes require a high level of concentration and range from reading to playing games.

Such activities utilize the brain’s cognitive abilities and increase a person’s critical thinking capacity. Similarly, practices that prompt people to use their memory and analysis skills increase their intelligence and can include interacting with intellectuals in academics. Furthermore, people can use online platforms to network with them virtually to learn new self-improvement and goal-accomplishment techniques. Alternatively, they can attend conferences on debatable issues so they can increase their brain power by gaining expansive knowledge as well as argumentation and critical thinking skills.

Hence, humans can improve their intelligence by participating in brain-stimulating activities that improve their cognitive functions. Dweck’s argument proves that people’s cognitive perceptions can increase their intelligence levels. There is a scholarly consensus that individuals should use their physiological functions to advance intellectually.

Similar to the way a person exercises body muscles to increase his/her strength and endurance, people who engage their brains in complex tasks can augment their intelligence levels. At the same time, people who negatively use their cognitive functions can diminish their capacity to grow their brain power. Therefore, Dweck suggests that people perceive negative situations positively so they can develop a growth mindset (4).

Transforming Intelligence Through Practice and Mindset

The psychology expert further advises citizens to increase their mental capacity through constant practice to adopt such a mindset. Dweck asserts that people can improve their cognitive functions, such as memory, problem-solving, and concentration (4). In essence, although all
human beings possess these traits, they manifest in different capacities, meaning that people who exercise their brain functions will increase their proficiency in various skills. The rationale behind this theory is that constant use of the mental cognitive function will increase its capacity.

Hence, individuals should utilize their talents and abilities to prevent them from withering. Overall, increased cognitive function heightens the growth mindset and optimism; therefore, people should increase the use of their cognitive functions to increase intelligence. Opponents of the claim would argue that intelligence levels cannot be altered. Such claims purport that human beings are either born intelligent or dumb and that intelligence cannot be nurtured because brain development and functions materialize only on motor abilities and physical
features.

Other arguments add that intellectual development is not a fundamental type of growth or a life skill; rather, people ought to prioritize their sources of income so that they can make money and lead happy lives (Boyd et al. 23). In other words, they view intellectual development as a useless waste of time and resources. However, from a broader point of view, such arguments fail to realize that intelligence is applicable in all fronts of life, including financial success.

Humans develop intelligence because of their positive mindsets. Moreover, factors such as genetics, environment, parental care, self-worth, and institutional training can increase people’s acumens. It is for this reason that individuals who make an effort to obtain new information or learn new skills are perceived to be smart. Similarly, those who use their cognitive functions to tackle challenges, such as puzzles and crosswords, also augment their astuteness.

Overcoming Challenges and Fostering Growth

Thus, in spite of the discouraging criticism, virtually everyone can improve their intelligence if they engage in activities that challenge their cognitive functions. On the other hand, pessimists and people who wallow in self-pity cannot enhance their intellectual levels. Hence, teachers and parents should use this information to challenge students to augment their brain power and ease the process of learning. According to the findings presented in the paper, people’s intelligence levels are similar at birth, and variant levels of intelligence exist because some individuals practice cognitive skills and maximize their brain functions. On the other hand, other people believe that their brain capabilities are unchangeable; as a result, they refrain from cognitive activities and remain unintelligent.

References:

1. Von Rhein, D., Csernansky, J. G., & Wang, L. (2011). Structural brain imaging in schizophrenia. International Review of Psychiatry, 23(3), 247-256.
2. Yeo, R. A., Gangestad, S. W., & Liu, J. (1999). Callosal thickness in schizophrenia: An index of motor dysfunction. Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, 24(2), 110-116.
3. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
4. Dweck, C. S. (2008). Can personality be changed? The role of beliefs in personality and change. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(6), 391-394.
5. Fischer, C. S., Hout, M., Jankowski, M. S., Lucas, S. R., Swidler, A., & Voss, K. (1996). Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. Princeton University Press.
6. Ma, D. S., & Schapira, M. M. (2015). The effect of individual racial identity on job performance and work attitudes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 129, 31-44.
7. Boyd, D. M., Ellison, N. B., & Heer, J. (2010). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230.

Fostering Growth: Unveiling the Power of Mindsets

What can the field of positive psychology tell us about how to help HopeLine callers and texters? That question made me curious, so I began to read up on positive psychology. Positive psychology was started in 1999 by psychologist Martin Seligman. Seligman was interested in how helping professionals could go beyond reducing distress to increasing people’s well-being through the development of traits like character strengths. Hmmm…does that sound familiar? (For more on positive psychology: https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/our-mission and https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/positive-psychology-theory/.)

There couldn’t be a better fit between positive psychology and our HopeLine mission! HopeLine has been focused on supporting the personal development of our callers/texters by recognizing strengths since its very beginning. Today, let’s look at Stanford professor Carol Dweck’s Mindset. This popular book is backed by 30 years of Dweck’s research on students from elementary school to college. Her work has been applied to parenting, teaching, psychotherapy, personal growth, sports psychology, business and leadership, and relationships.

Mindset explores the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Someone with a fixed mindset believes that human attributes like intelligence, personality, and character are fixed aptitudes (natural abilities) that cannot be developed or changed.

Dweck explains that people with a fixed mindset:

• Evaluate themselves and others constantly, and “keep score” as to who’s best
• See one success = they are smart/talented/a winner
• View one failure/rejection = they are stupid/a loser
• Believe talent is everything and success should come naturally without effort
• Have thinking patterns that could lead to depression and “stewing” about problems or not being good enough

Someone with a growth mindset sees human qualities as potential and believes talents, interests, and personality can be developed through effort, training, and experience—we can stretch ourselves. Although it’s not true that anyone can do anything, there are few predetermined limits on what a person can achieve.

Dweck’s research shows a growth mindset can be taught in schools, leading to increased motivation and school achievement. As Dweck puts it, “Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it better) with training.”

People with a growth mindset have greater success in life because they:

• Focus on self-improvement rather than evaluating themselves and others
• Believe attributes can be developed through effort, strategies, and help from others
• Love a challenge and throw themselves into learning and growing
• Remain persistent, enthusiastic, and resilient in the face of challenges and obstacles
• See, failure is a temporary setback. They can learn from mistakes and move on

Mindset isn’t all-or-nothing. You can have a fixed mindset regarding your intelligence, for example, and a growth mindset regarding your personality or other personal qualities.

Dweck says, “You can change your mindset…we are all a mixture of the two mindsets.” She says to work toward a growth mindset, you can:

1. Accept that you (and everyone else) have a fixed mindset at times
2. Learn what your fixed mindset triggers are (e.g., obstacles when someone outperforms you or when criticized). Don’t judge yourself—just observe.
3. Discover your fixed mindset thoughts, emotions, and actions. How do they impact others?
4. Anticipate your fixed mindset’s appearance when it is triggered.
5. Learn from the setback and move forward. Don’t let the experience derail you. Changing your mindset is an ongoing process that takes time!

Tips for teachers:

• See the potential of all children, set high standards, but don’t say, “You can do anything.”
• Praise effort toward their goals, their actual achievement, their development of resources and effective learning strategies, and their thinking for themselves
• Don’t praise intelligence or talents because that interferes with motivation/performance
• Avoid judging who’s smart and who’s not
• Normalize failure as happening to everyone and an opportunity for learning

Tips for parents:

• Teach your children to enjoy challenges
• Help children see mistakes as areas for further learning
• Avoid protecting children from failure, but empathize when they feel let down
• Be honest when they fail, and don’t lie to them about it. Use constructive criticism
• Don’t withhold love from children when they fail

Tips for relationships:

• All relationships have issues. Expect differences to arise and plan to overcome them
• Focus on developing each other and the relationship to reach full potential
• Avoid competing with your partner about who is smarter, nicer, or more talented
• Don’t blame yourself or your partner when problems arise—find ways to fix them
• Focus on lessons learned after a breakup, let go and move forward

Tips for use with HopeLine callers/texters (in addition to the above tips):

• Avoid the use of jargon: “You have a fixed mindset about….”
• Allow the caller/texter to explore their emotional pain first
• Validate their feelings of failure/hopelessness as understandable but not the end of things. Move them toward lessons learned, strengths, and new strategies
• Lead the caller/texter to examine how they can learn from any setback/obstacle/failure
• Weave in concepts from a growth mindset when you point out their strengths. Don’t say, “You’re smart,” but emphasize their effort, strategies, and thinking for themselves
• Ask, “How can things be different in the future?”

References:

1. Seligman, M. E. P. (1999). Positive psychology: A new approach to mental health. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5
2. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
3. Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania. Our Mission. Positive Psychology Center. https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/our-mission
4. Positive Psychology Program. Positive Psychology Theory: An Introduction. Positive Psychology Program. https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/positive-psychology-theory/

Growth mindset

Growth mindsets, also known as implicit theories, are defined as core assumptions about the malleability of personal qualities. Students hold different implicit theories, from a more fixed mindset or entity theory of intelligence to of a more growth mindset or incremental theory. The concept of a fixed vs. growth mindset was developed by Carol Dweck.3 She observed that when students were given problems too difficult to solve, some gave up easily and some persisted. Those who gave up easily had a fixed mindset. Fixed mindset students “see intellectual ability as something of which people have a fixed, unchangeable amount,” while growth mindset students “see intellectual ability as something that can be grown or developed over time” (Yeager and Dweck, 2012). The mindsets of students make them perceive their academic world differently. Students with a fixed mindset tend to conceive everything as a measurement of their ability and intellect, such as academic performance, challenges, troubles, etc. They believed intelligence was a given quantity and their inability to solve the problems indicated they were not smart enough. Those who persisted in the face of difficulty had a growth mindset. They believed intelligence could be developed with effort and so persisted in the face of difficulty. A student with a fixed mindset believes intelligence is immutable; a person with a growth mindset believes that with effort intelligence can be increased. However, students with a growth mindset tend to think of their academic lives in terms of learning, growing, and developing. Growth mindset students interpret setbacks, challenges, and effort as selective approaches to improving their ability, intelligence, and experience.

In the literature, research shows that growth mindset can lead to school achievement. There are many intervention experiments that demonstrate that changing students’ theories of intelligence from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset exerts impact on their academic behaviors in the long run (Blackwell et al., 2007). In a clear demonstration, students who were encouraged to view intelligence as malleable reported greater enjoyment of the academic process, greater academic engagement, and obtained higher grade point averages (GPA) than their counter parts in two control groups.

Example: It also has been found in class activity that increasing the growth mindset of students low achieving students helps to raise their academic achievement more than high-achieving students with fixed mindset. For example, once 9th grade students were divided into two groups. Higher achiever of the class and the lower achiever in physics. Higher achiever student group were taught that their intelligence is fixed and they have a particular level of intelligence they cannot enhance their abilities to learn. While growth mindset is endorsed in lower achiever students group. Afterwards, different exams were given and the results were compared. It has been found that students who learnt growth mindset achieved high score in physics comparatively. Hence, it is clear from the above example that students who believe that their strengths, intelligence and intellectual abilities are not fixed they can do more and more and achieves higher academic score compared to those who think their abilities and strengths are fixed. Henceforth, students must be endorsed with growth mindset statements in every class room to build growth mindset in them.

Learned helplessness

There are two theories that explain the difference between high achievers and at-risk students even more than does the difference in their intellectual abilities. The theories are Growth Mindset and Learned Helplessness. Growth Mindset and Learned Helplessness predict who will be resilient and who will give up. Understanding and applying these two theories allows us to foster growth mindset and to prevent learned helplessness. Every teacher can increase student growth and achievement by becoming well versed in these two theories and how to apply them. Research based on these two theories demonstrates students’ beliefs about intelligence and student experiences with failure have a profound impact on how hard students try in school and ultimately how well they perform. Whether a student has a growth or a fixed mindset depends on their belief about the nature of intelligence. Whether a student develops learned helplessness depends on their reinforcement history. Because learned helplessness is cognitive and a function of reinforcement and history in contrast to a fixed mindset which depends on belief about the nature of intelligence and it is based on behavioral theory.

In school, learned helplessness relates to poor grades and underachievement, and to behavior difficulties. Students who experience repeated school failure are particularly prone to develop a learned helpless response style. Because of repeated academic failure, these students begin to doubt their own abilities, leading them to doubt that they can do anything to overcome their school difficulties. For example, 5th grade students who have good previous record, were given a logical problem of mathematics, few of the students solved the problem while many of them were unable to solve it. Next day, after practicing similar problems, students were again given the problem. Now, some of the students who failed to solve the question were able to solve it but few of them again failed to solve the question. After sometime, when these students were given a problem they said they can never do it so they are going to skip these problems from the course. They are feeling helpless and loss all the abilities to solve them. It is clear some the above example that they felt helpless after some failure in solving problem. By advocating students the importance of a growth mindset, increases their motivation and achievement. Students with fixed mind set cannot achieve good grades. In the entry test of grade 6th, marks in mathematics were observed. Afterward some students were endorsed with growth mindset statements like ‘You can always greatly change how intelligent you are”. While some students were endorsed with fixed mindset statement that you have certain level of intelligence you cannot do much to change. Their marks were tracked for two years. Students with a growth mindset steadily improved over the next two years whereas those with a fixed mindset declined in mathematics achievement.

To minimize the negative impact of learned helplessness in students, we need to train them to focus on strategies and processes to reach their academic goals, reinforcing the belief that, through effort, they are in control of their own behavior, and that they are in charge of developing their own academic skills.

Resilience

Brooks and Goldstein (2001) defined resilience as the capacity to cope effectively with past and present adversity. Ryffet al. (1998) also proposed that resilience is the capacity to maintain and recover their high well-being in the face of life adversity. It acts as a protective factor in facing negative consequences and therefore aids individuals in maintaining their physical and psychological well-being. Yeager and Dweck (2012) contend that the underlying mechanism of growth mindset that leads to academic achievement seems to rely on the goals of students, their beliefs about effort and their attributions about their setbacks, and learning strategies in the face of academic difficulties, which are effective ways to promote resilience. Studies suggest that growth mindset can increase the resilience level of students in such a way students understand academic challenges in a way that promotes learning and resilience. Fixed mindset students perceive academic challenges as signs of lack of intelligence, which diminishes the resilience of students in academic areas, even for high-achieving students (Dweck, 2006). Notably, even when students were taught skills to be resilient in school, they may not apply these skills adequately because of their fixed mindset (Blackwell et al., 2007). The growth mindset students, meanwhile, interpret the academic challenges as a chance to improve their ability and sharpen their learning skill, which contributes to their resilience in academic areas, no matter for high or low achieving students (Dweck, 2008). Additionally, growth mindset students were more resilient and Frontiers in earned higher grades when they confronted challenging school transitions (Blackwell et al., 2007). Therefore, it seems that resilience is a potential factor that plays an important role in the psychological mechanisms relating growth mindset to academic achievement. Taken together, based on the cited research, growth mind set can be seen as a precursor of resilience.

PERMA and Positive Education

In 2009, Reivich, Gilham, Seligman, Linkins and Ernst defined positive education as ‘traditional education with the study of happiness and well-being. Positive education teaches the skills of well-being through direct practice and the curriculum, aiming to equip students with skills to build their resilience, optimism, character strengths, formation of positive relationships, and other significant factors that contribute to a flourishing (Waters, 2014). The goal of positive education is to help reveal and develop the child’s ability to effectively engage their combination of character strengths (Linkinset al., 2015). Further, the positive education promotes the psychological characteristics and character strengths which are associated with students’ higher academic performance, lower risk behaviors, and long-term benefits for their physical health.

Positive education is about merging flourishing positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment with traditional education. While many schools focus primarily on academic performance, positive education is about developing your child’s sense of well-being and social responsibility.

Seligman (2011) suggests five components of well-being, and developed a new model of well-being which he called PERMA. PERMA posits that well-being consists of the nurturing of one or more of the five following elements that contribute to overall well-being, are important areas that people pursue for their own sake, and can be defined and measured independently of one another. These elements are:

Positive emotions include feelings of joy and laughter. One easy way to do this is classrooms is to use humor. I once taught with a teacher who showed a funny youtube video. The videos did not connect to the content she taught, but they gave the students something to look forward to, and helped them begin to associate her class with positive emotions.

Engagement refers to psychological connection to activities or organizations. It relates very closely to flow experiences. It is the experience of being totally immersed in activities that meet a unique balance between our interests and curiosity. It also involves allowing students to choose topics and activities of interest to them, and creating a space for students to explore their own curiosity.

Relationships, the third element in the PERMA well-being model, deals with whether a person is able to build and maintain positive relationships with others (Seligman, 2011). In school settings, positive relationships with peers and teachers help students to experience support and acceptance, and feel connected to school. Relationships can also motivate students to achieve and behave according to a school’s pro-social culture, contributing to a positive school culture.

Relationships deal with whether a person is able to build and maintain positive relationships with others. In school settings, positive relationships with peers and teachers help students to experience support and acceptance, and feel connected to school. Relationships can also motivate students to achieve and behave according to a school’s pro-social culture, contributing to a positive school culture.

Meaning can be implemented classrooms in a variety of ways. Designing learning experiences within a real-world context can give students a meaningful way to practice skills and apply content knowledge.

Accomplishment refers to the application of a personal skills and effort as a person moves towards a desired goal. This requires both motivation and persistence in an attempt to overcome possible challenges whilst having enough insight to remain flexible along the path to achievement. Recognizing accomplishment is an important factor in motivating students and creating a productive learning environment.

PERMA model was developed as a conceptual model to guide individuals to find paths for flourishing. In this model psychological well-being is defined. Seligman believes that strength in each of PERMA’s areas can help individuals find lives of happiness, fulfillment, and meaning.

Conclusion

Growth mindset can serve as a protective factor against psychological problems, such as depression, behaviors problems, school disengagement, burn out, and other negative outcome variables. Resilience might be the key factor in reaching the objective of positive education, not only to enhance the well-being of students but also their academic achievement. Voluminous research indicates that wellbeing could be taught in schools. Teachers can serve as role models to develop the ‘whole student’ to have wellbeing in social, moral, emotional and intellectual developments.

The Mindsets

The author begins by describing an experiment that she conducted with children to measure their responses to challenging puzzles. She observed two different responses, with some being distressed by the difficulty, and others excited. Her interest became in what caused these two very different responses. She reminds us of the creator of the IQ test, whose intention with his test was to help determine ways to help children improve learning, not make a statement on their inherent intellect. Modern understanding of intelligence says that it is neither entirely innate nor entirely learned, but rather a combination of the two. A fixed mindset is the view that qualities are unchanging, and therefore you must “prove yourself over and over,” without a drive to improve. The growth mindset encourages taking chances and working through problems, as well as seeing bad situations as chances to improve. The two mindsets also result in differing abilities to asses one’s skill level, with those having a growth mindset being much better at the honest assessment than those with fixed mindsets, who were prone to seeing a lower rating as a failure.

Inside the Mindsets

The idea of learners and non-learners is introduced here to describe an important feature of mindsets. Individuals with fixed mindsets don’t seek out challenges that will help them learn and improve, whereas those with growth mindsets do. This is demonstrated in multiple studies, including a study involving young children and puzzles where the growth mindset children chose to complete more difficult puzzles and the fixed mindset children repeated puzzles they were already good at, as well as a study at the University of Hong Kong where students were offered remedial English classes, and those with growth mindsets took them where fixed mindsets did not. These ideas are supported by an analysis of brain activity. The author provides many examples of individuals who are held back by their fixed mindset, such as the CEOs of Chrysler and Sunbeam and the tennis player John McEnroe, as well as examples of individuals who flourish with a growth mindset, such as Michael Jordan, the CEO of IBM and Jim Marshall. The author reemphasizes the importance of effort, where accepting that effort improves you rather than seeing it as something that those without talent need can lead to greater success. She also provides an example of how the mindsets play out with emotions, speaking on how depression is handled differently by both groups and how choosing a growth mindset, which allows for flourishing through difficulties, can help people stay on track when experiencing depression. Another small but important detail mentioned is that external factors such as wealth and connections still play a role in how effective the effort is.

The Truth About Ability and Accomplishments

The first section focuses on success and achievement in the classroom. The first study was with young adolescents, and it showed that regardless of their grades in elementary school, those with growth mindsets outperformed their fixed mindset peers. She claims it is due largely to the “Low effort syndrome,” where students with fixed mindsets view effort negatively, as either useless or as a sign of weakness. Similar effects were found in college students. However, teachers such as Marva Collins and Jamie Escalante demonstrated that children who are labeled as less intelligent are no less capable of learning and can excel in an environment that emphasizes hard work as the key to success, rather than talent. The next sections focus on the impact that positive and negative labels have on student performance. Positive labels can have either a growth or fixed perspective. In an experiment, students were administered difficult problems and were praised for their performance after. Those who were complimented on their talent, a fixed mindset approach, later scored worse, were less likely to take on more challenging questions, and were more likely to lie about their performance than those who were complimented based on how hard they had worked. Negative labels impact those with different mindsets differently. Stereotypes and expectations, especially those based on race and gender, have an impact on all, but a greater impact on those with fixed mindsets since they are more likely to internalize these ideas that others have about them.

Sports: The Mindset of a Champion

This chapter seeks to break the myth that sports come down to inborn talent. This idea is prevalent in the language we use to talk about sports stars. Examples of sports stars with fixed mindsets are given to demonstrate how their overemphasis on their natural ability and tendency to blame others for failure got in their way. Billy Beane and John McEnroe are examples of this. Also given are the stories of people who became sports stars through lots of practice and determination to improve, such as Michael Jordan and Maury Wills. This chapter talks about the idea of character, saying that it comes from mindset, and that good character can be a more important predictor of sports success than performance. Those who lacked the character of a champion, who believed they lacked faults and could not lose and therefore did not seek to improve, such as Pedro Martinez, weren’t able to last forever, and their inability to play as part of a team brought the whole group down. There is an emphasis on using failure to motivate improvement and to adapt and overcome new challenges. Also, having a growth mindset will allow you to learn from those better than you, rather than being jealous of their success.

Business: Mindset and Leadership

This chapter focuses on the importance of running a business with a growth mindset. The “talent mindset,” a corporate-speak term for fixed mindset, is to be avoided since it stunts company growth. Much of this chapter is based on the work of Jim Collins in his book Good to Great, which compares companies that were successful with those that were not to find the key to success. Companies that were brought down by fixed mindsets such as Chrysler, Scott Paper, and Enron suffered from similar problems. Their CEOs focused on their glory rather than the long-term health of the company, they were resistant to change, showed off wealth, and created a corporate environment that focused on the talent of the CEO rather than the work of the group. In contrast, GE, IBM, and Xerox all flourished when growth-minded CEOs took their position. They were focused on working to improve the company as a whole, open to criticism, and emphasized the importance of group effort over individual achievement. In each case, the once-struggling company saw success. This brings up another important idea, groupthink, where members of a group do not challenge a leader’s idea because they believe in the leader. A growth mindset encourages challenging ideas, whereas a fixed mindset discourages them, sometimes even with the threat of penalties.

Relationships: Mindsets in Love (or Not)

Here, relationships of all kinds are shown to be improved with the growth mindset. In a rejection study, individuals with fixed mindsets felt defined as failures in relationships and were less likely to have moved on from the breakup. Mindsets are also very important during relationships, with the author defining two main issues with fixed mindsets here: they believe that requiring effort means that a relationship is not good enough and that issues are “character flaws,” unchangeable. The issue with the first statement is that all relationships need effort to help grow together and be successful, with open communication being key. The same is true for the second idea, where talking about issues with one another as they arise prevents partners from demonizing the other when they become upset and allows both partners to be sensitive to one another’s needs. In friendships, the same is true, and having friends with a growth mindset allows you all to become better people, whereas if one or more have a fixed mindset, there will always be a need for hierarchy and unnecessary competition and putting down. Concerning shyness, an experiment by Jennifer Beer found that, among shy people, those with fixed mindsets felt more judgment and therefore were less likely to have successful interactions with strangers. Bullying also exists due to fixed mindsets, since bullies feel better when they put others down. Victims with fixed mindsets also suffer more, since they take insults personally, and are more likely to react aggressively to the bullying. Schools should aim to develop an atmosphere that promotes a growth mindset to reduce incidences of bullying.

Parents, Teachers, and Coaches: Where do Mindsets Come From?

This chapter highlights how various adults can help develop growth mindsets in children. Regarding parents, the author begins by describing different types of compliments, showing that it is important to use them to motivate a growth perspective for children by highlighting their efforts instead of their talent or intelligence. It is important to teach children how to deal with failure productively since they will face it in their lives. In criticism, it is also important to keep growth in mind, turning misbehavior into a time to learn to do better. Also not having a fixed mindset as a parent can help you be more compassionate and less judgmental of your child. Parents must remember that their child’s lives, needs, and desires may be different from their own. Teachers also interact with children for much of their developing years and should aim to create a classroom environment that encourages achievement through growth, rather than innate ability. Teachers who accomplished this include Marva Collins, Rafe Esquith, and Dorothy DeLay, who all teach different age levels but apply the same mindset to help their students flourish. Coaches should also help students achieve success in their sport by allowing students to try difficult things and to fail without judgment, as long as the effort was made to improve.

Changing Mindsets: A Workshop

The final chapter focuses on learning the growth mindset, how to do it ourselves, and how to teach it to others. There is a qualifier about changing from a fixed to a growth mindset, that it does not happen completely or without effort, and that the fixed mindset thoughts will still be there, but they must be looked past to find a solution to issues. Learning the growth mindset is shown helpful through examples from students and athletes Dweck has taught. She also describes an experiment that she conducted where some students took part in a mindset workshop, and others took part in a study skills workshop. Teachers were not informed who had done which but reported the most positive changes in the students who had been in the mindset workshop, and at the end of the year, those students showed an improvement in math scores where the others did not. She developed a learning software, Brainology, to teach the growth mindset to children, and received positive feedback from teachers and students alike. To learn the growth mindset yourself, there are various example scenarios provided for practice, where the “fixed mindset reaction” is given, followed by the “growth mindset step.” These cover issues in school, sports, career, and family relationships. There is a reminder that the idea of willpower is flawed since it reinforces the fixed mindset idea that some people have it and others do not and that it dictates what can be achieved. This means that a growth mindset is needed for things like weight loss and anger management. Finally, the last reminder is that this change requires constant upkeep and effort to see benefits.

In today’s society if we want to be successful in the classroom the student has to show the teacher that we’re ready to learn from them and that we’re going to treat them with the respect they deserve when we’re in the classroom. When you think of a student, you think of someone who attends school, when you think of a student you should think of someone who possesses certain characteristics that make them a student. The characteristics that would best describe a student are respect, reliability, motivation, and that they have a growth mindset these are the types of characteristics that will distinguish you from other students in the classroom. I will be using Adrienne Rich’s “Claiming an Education,” which was cited from a magazine in it she talks about what students need to do to be in control of their education. Another one of my sources is Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education,” which was cited from a book in which he talks about how banking and education are similar. I will also be using Susan A. Stearns’ “Motivating Students to Offer Their Best: Evidence-Based Effective Course Design” as my source which is an article about how having motivation in your life will be beneficial to you. The last source I used was Mengyuan Wu’s “A Growth Mindset” which is an article about how having a growth mindset can change your perspective on life. When it comes to your education to be successful as a student you’re going to have to develop characteristics that will be beneficial to you when you’re in the classroom.

Even though teachers can be intimidating, students should try to cultivate respectful relationships with their teachers, so the teacher would see the student is putting effort into having a professional relationship with them. For a student to be successful in the classroom, they need to have the teacher showing them the way. They need to have a relationship where if the student has a question they know it will be answered by the teacher. In Adrienne Rich’s “Claiming an Education”, she elaborates on how students should be seen as equals with the teacher when she says “I have said that the contract on the student’s part involves that you demand to be taken seriously so that you can also go on taking your-self seriously”(87). In other words, students expect teachers to respect them and not insult them when they’re in the classroom. This is important to a student’s self-esteem if they feel that the teacher doesn’t care about them then they’re not going to try in the classroom. When I was in high school, I was new to this one class, so I would always ask the teacher for help, I lost respect for the teacher when after two weeks of being in his class which was computer animation he stopped answering my questions and started ignoring me, this lead to me ditching his class. When a student is in the classroom they expect they will be treated with the same respect that the teacher treats everyone else, they don’t anticipate the teacher to give up on them, students expect teachers to be reliable, and they shouldn’t have to worry about if the teacher will answer the question or not.

Additionally, When in the classroom teachers tend to look for reliable students, they choose them knowing they’ll have the answer to the question. In the classroom students should aim to be someone the teacher can always rely on in case they do groups and the teacher needs someone to be the leader. In Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education”, he goes into detail on what role the teacher has with the student “The teacher’s task is to organize a process which already occurs spontaneously, to fill the students by making deposits of information which he of she considers to constitute true knowledge”(32). In other words, he is talking about how in a banking concept students rely on teachers to fill them with the knowledge they need to be successful in life. It is important to note that reliable people are setting the standard on what people should be demonstrating when they’re in the classroom. In my experience being reliable is not only beneficial in the classroom but outside as well because people know that they can count on you when they need help. This is a characteristic that we should be able to demonstrate that we possess as students that we’re reliable and that we’re also productive when we’re in the classroom.

Furthermore, as a student, I know that when a teacher sees a student they want to see someone that is motivated to be successful in the classroom. It shows that we’re here to learn and that we’re interested in what she is teaching us. It’s the people who are motivated that the teacher recommends other students try to imitate when they’re in the classroom. In school, you’re expected to be productive in the classroom, teachers want to see that you’re motivated because it shows that their teaching has an impact on you in the classroom. In Susan A. Stearns’ “Motivating Students to Offer Their Best: Evidence-Based Effective Course Design”, she details how her research on students being motivated impacts their grades in the classroom “In both instances, this design offers me the opportunity to further assist these students from early in the term while also offering motivation, via a higher score which greatly impacts their final grade and a reward for those exhibiting excellence”(128).In other words, she is talking about how if students feel they are going to be rewarded for doing something then they’re going to give more effort into that assignment. This is important because If you’re in school and you’re not motivated to get an education, then the only person’s time you’re wasting is yours. In my own experiences, I didn’t become motivated to work hard in school until I found out in the summer what I truly wanted to do in life, that’s when I became motivated to go to school and work hard towards getting my education. If students want to claim their education they have to have the motivation to do it, you can say you’re going to do something but if there’s no motivation behind it, then you won’t do everything in your power to accomplish it.

Moreover, the most important characteristic that students should have is a growth mindset, instead of saying you can’t do it you should say I can’t do it yet. When you have a growth mindset it will be easier for you to adapt to new environments and try new things, you’ll look forward to learning and improving. If you can have a growth mindset it will help gain the potential you have in you and the reason why you’re continuing your education. In Mengyuan Wu’s “A Growth Mindset” she talks about how coming from a traditional Chinese culture influenced her to have a fixed mindset and how when she went abroad is when her mindset changed and this is the phrase that changed her mindset “What matters is what you learn and get out of it, not how high your score is”(5). In other words, she is saying how the experiences you will get from trying new stuff or learning something new will overshadow the grade you might get. This is important because the point she is making is that just because you get a bad grade don’t let it define the experience you had taking the class. In my experience having a growth mindset has been beneficial, I was failing my biology class and Instead of dropping the class, I decided to go to tutoring and now my grade is starting to improve in the class. In the classroom having a growth mindset is what will propel you to be successful in the classroom, it will give you the motivation you need to achieve your goals.

Part A:

A growth mindset is the ability to look for strengths even after the biggest failures. For example, a subject perhaps maths at school is known to be a challenging aspect for students to cope up with. Growth mindset is the capacity of not giving up even after one is criticising and/or facing tough challenges yet continually learning from that. However, there is no such thing as one growth mindset, kids and adults can have a different growth mindset (Dweck, 2013). It is the mindset where one believes not everyone can be a scientist but at least could improve their intelligence. These are the people who get engaged in learning new things. The three concepts that will be discussed in this essay are Perma (positive education), character strength and mindsets & resilience. In addition, according to Seligman, students developing Perma in their eternal life will strengthen the idea of a growth mindset. Perma allows oneself to gradually develop themselves which enable them to think beyond. Moreover, it can help cultivate and sustain these five key building terms.

People who have a growth mindset tend to have more perseverance and willpower confirming the fact they are referred to as ‘growth mindset’. In relation to Perma, these students seek out the importance and the significance meaning behind that certain task. In compliance with someone who has a fixed mindset about certainty. Froh (2010) and Hunter & Csikszentmihalyi (2003) remarks that engaged students are not just enhancing their mind, but this also associates with their wellbeing and accomplishment of meaningful goals. They become more curious and enthusiastic about useful pursuance’s. This leads to positive achievement within the child which is interpreted as the growth of personal potential by aiming for and achieving meaningful outcomes and requires the ability to work towards valued purposes. The motivation to continue notwithstanding difficulties and difficulties, and the achievement of provision and success in important aspects of life. As a teacher, I would make students perform a speech in front of the class which will overcome their fear and build courage. This will establish and develop their strength furthermore adapt as human beings. Positive Education is the idea of emphasising on the promotion of positive mental health in school and how it is so important. It is represented as classical education centred on academic skill development that fosters good mental health. In the article of Kern (2013), ‘she has mentioned how by directly measuring subjective perspectives of well-being across multiple domains, there is potential to more successfully promote student well-being’. This is adequately examined by the most helpful practice teaching to encourage students to flourish. This will impact on student’s positive emotion and feeling of happiness and satisfaction (Norrish, Williams, O’Connor & Robinson, 2013).

The power of a growth mindset in relation to character strength, a child from a very young age is in the stage of curiosity and the purpose of his/her life. As this child grows, he then forms a perspective about the life he sets for himself. As a fixed mindset, he will encounter obstacles where he would question about his stability of overcoming that obstacle but as a growth mindset, he will not only question but gives it a try until he is happy with the outcome achieved. According to Oppenheimer, Fialkov, Ecker &Portnoy (2014), in developing strategies to resist the difference in achievement, teachers should closely review past and present ways of reconciling with youths in the school setting. Strength-based strategies developed upon the positive impact of personal resources, advising that those in need are the origin of the solution, rather than the cause of the problem. Strength-based practices build upon old strengths while also developing new ones, broadening the student’s capacity for positive emotional states and strengths such as creativity, hope, gratitude, and spirituality. In turn, strength-based approaches can cultivate adolescents who are healthy, happy, and capable of leading meaningful and fulfilling lives (Lerner & Benson, 2003, Park & Peterson, 2008). In relation to developing youth’s character strengths, schools might be able to form happier, the more engaged students will result in possible increases in academic achievement and changes in behaviours. For example, the Penn Resiliency Program was produced and performed to improve students’ ability to maintain regular stressors and difficulties by promoting confidence, flexibility, assertiveness, creativity, decision-making, and other coping and problem-solving abilities to students (Seligman et al, 2009). The common depression among youth, the short rise in life satisfaction, and the collaboration between learning and positive emotion all demonstrate that the ability for happiness should be developed in school. There is strong evidence from well-established studies that skills that increase resilience, positive emotion, engagement and meaning can be prepared to youth (Ernst, R, Gillham, J, Reivich, K and Linkins M, 2009). To sum up, a link between the foundation of character strengths and elevated well-being were observed from the studies shown above, providing further evidence for the utilisation of positive psychology teaching applications with diverse, youth populations.

A fixed mindset can often lead to fixed intelligence that can be interpreted as a lack of knowledge. This way of reasoning compromises resilience in an educational setting even amongst high-performing students. Thus, making it clear this can reduce resilience (Yeager and Dweck, 2012). A person’s mindsets can be developed and that doing so can promote resilience. It is essential to see that the implicit theory of intelligence and personality are discrete, it is likely for a child to conclude that intelligence can be improved but that personality cannot. Blackwell et al (2007) affirm that these are the variables that define why students with higher incremental theory were more resilient and scored more powerful grades when they faced a challenging school change. However, a recent study claimed to reduce HSC pressure in support of a growth mindset. ‘Efforts could be made to reduce the ATAR’s reliance on the final years of schooling and to allow appropriate flexibility around deeper learning areas,’ the Education Department recommended. It is recommended to consider ways the curriculum could be changed to more suitably prepare learners for a rapidly evolving society and put importance on the achievement of students’ non-cognitive skills, such as a growth mindset. If students can be led towards understanding intellectual strength as something that can be acquired over time with effort and strong strategies, then they are more resilient when they are confronted with the uncompromising learning possibilities offered to them. Numerous institutional improvement efforts have focused on improving precision in the curriculum, although if they do not also discuss resilience in the face of these more challenging examples, then making such improvements may be less efficient than expected. Primary responsibility for parents and teachers is to prepare learners to react resiliently when certain challenges occur. A study from Yeager and Dweck’s (2012) article have discovered that what students require the most is not self-esteem encouraging or quality labelling, preferably, they require mindsets that outline challenges as something that the student can take on and master over time with effort, new approaches, learning, help from others, and patience.

In conclusion, it can be seen intelligence and skills can be developed through effort. It is important to consider why a growth mindset is important, that is because it can improve the probability of success. However, an individual would have to operate both a growth and a fixed mindset in a certain stage of life. Quite a large number of researches suggest that people with the growth mindset are more successful than the fixed mindset. People with the growth mindset are much more resilient which allows them to overcome challenges. A growth mindset can be developed by understanding that it exists and allowing the brain to change. Numerous institutional improvement efforts have focused on improving precision in the curriculum, although if they do not also discuss resilience in the face of these more challenging examples, then making such improvements may be less efficient than expected.

Part B:

For example, in the classroom or at home having students solve a jigsaw puzzle does intensify their mind, this engages them to seek new challenges and continuously work on them till they are proven accurate. Such exercises extend student’s intellectual and emotional boundaries and resistance, as well as maintain concentration and effort. The next time seeing a child entirely engaged with their assemblage, think twice before interrupting them. This level of engagement is salubrious and productive to sustaining happiness.

An activity to do it with the class is asking them to raise their right hand as high as they can, then asking them to take their same hand but this time taking it a little bit higher than the one they did before. It would be surprising to see how all of them had their hands raised even higher. As a teacher, I would want to know as to why they had not raised their arms as highest as it could go in the first time asked. This activity looks at the perspective of one character and its strength and changing mindset and overcoming obstacles in the first time instead of delaying.

An exercise to do particularly with the students would be creating the Resilience Kit which is a collection of worksheets, posters, activities, and colouring pages designed to help children develop grit and perseverance. They will also discover that resilience can be learned like any other skill. It just takes practice and patience. This collection of printable helps children develops their inner grittiness, putting them on the path to happiness and success. Other information will include why failure is important in a learning environment- it is to make you strong and resilient.

Reference

1. Dweck, C. (2013, October 20). ‘Mindset – the new psychology of success’ at Happiness & Its Causes [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=82&v=QGvR_0mNpWM
2. Kern, M, Waters, L, Adler, A & White, M. (2015). A multidimensional approach to measuring well-being in students: Application of the PERMA framework, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(3), 262-271, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2014.936962
3. Koziol, M. (2018). Reduce HSC pressure in favour of a ‘growth mindset’, NSW tells David Gonski. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/reduce-hsc-pressure-in-favour-of-a-growth-mindset-nsw-tells-david-gonski-20180215-p4z0fo.html
4. Norrish, J. M., Williams, P., O’Connor, M., & Robinson, J. (2013). An applied framework for positive education. International Journal of Wellbeing, 3(2), 147-161, Doi:10.5502/ijw.v3i2.2
5. Oppenheimer, M, Fialkov, C, Ecker, B and Portnoy, S. (2014). Teaching To Strengths: Character Education for Urban Middle School Students, Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, 10(2), 91-105. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/1699516382?accountid=36155&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo
6. Seligman, M, Ernst, R, Gillham, J, Reivich, K & Linkins, M. (2009). Positive education: Positive psychology and classroom interventions, Oxford Review of Education, 35(3), 293-311, DOI: 10.1080/03054980902934563
7. Yeager, D & Dweck, C. (2012). Mindsets That Promote Resilience: When Students Believe That Personal Characteristics Can Be Developed, Educational Psychologist, 302-314, DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2012.722805
8. Koziol, M. (2018). Reduce HSC pressure in favour of a ‘growth mindset’, NSW tells David Gonski. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/reduce-hsc-pressure-in-favour-of-a-growth-mindset-nsw-tells-david-gonski-20180215-p4z0fo.html

Introduction

Developing a growth mindset can help students set high expectations for themselves, focus on learning and understanding, and lead to a positive classroom environment that is encouraging and motivating. Developing a growth versus fixed mindset is one of the five beliefs that Ritchhart (2015) proposed to encourage setting high expectations for students. Ritchhart explained the research from Dweck that has found learners who believe talent, ability and intelligence are fixed are much more likely to give up when face with challenge or failure, while those with a growth mindset believe efforts can lead to improvement and hence are willing to set higher expectations. Focusing on efforts which is controllable by students instead of talents also creates a positive environment that suggests everyone can succeed.

Supporting Evidence

There are a lot of supporting evidence on the merit of growth mindset, including psychology theory, empirical research and neuroscience evidence. Dweck (2008) explained that beliefs about our brains create different psychology for learning: ‘one in which students are afraid of challenges and devastated by setbacks, and one in which students relish challenges and are resilient in the face of setbacks’. Students who believe intelligence is fixed are less motivated to learn, are afraid of effort, and give up easily after a setback. Fixed mindset students who had success in primary school might stop putting in the effort and struggle when they are challenged later, as they are afraid to make mistake and look stupid.

Many studies have shown that growth mindset has a positive impact on student’sachievement across all ages and especially in science and mathematics (Ng, 2018). For instance, Ng (2018) described Dweck’s research finding that students with growth mindset outperform the controlled group of students. Growth mindset teaches students that intelligence can grow through working hard on challenging problems. Hence, students are willing to set high expectations for themselves.

In addition, Neuroscience research has provided insights into the relationship between growth mindset and intrinsic motivation. Learner’s brain activity can be monitored and the neural responses can be measured and relate to internal motivation. For example, individuals with growth mindset are shown to be more receptive to corrective feedback and hence able to persevere and progress towards set goals and expectations (Ng 2018).

Teacher Actions To Promote Growth Mindset

Action 1: Praise effort

Teachers can promote growth-mindset by praising efforts versus talent. For example, when a student finished a difficult obstacle race, instead of saying ‘Well done, you are such a natural athlete!’, say ‘Well done, your training and hard work pays off!’. This way, students learn that they succeed because of their effort which they can controlled, instead of natural talent that they are born with and cannot alter. They are then more likely to set higher expectation as there is a way to achieve it. Dweck explained that the praise of effort should also be tied to the outcome or learning progress (Gross-Loh, 2016). The educational merit of this strategy is identifying which efforts has led to student’s progress, hence providing a positive and supportive environment for learning.

Action 2: Constructive reaction to failure

Students will inevitably make mistakes or fail at a task. Teacher should react constructively and treat failure as an opportunity to enhance learning. Attempts to comfort the students such as saying ‘it is okay, you have tried very hard already’ conveys a negative message to students that they have put in effort but unable to achieve the goal and led to them setting a lower expectation for themselves. Instead, the focus should be on what can be learned from the setback and what can be changed to make it better (Gross-Loh, 2016). By doing so, teachers help students develop resilience and strategies to reflect and improve. This in turn encourages students to seek higher challenge for themselves as they see it as a learning experience.

Action 3: Teach students about neuroplasticity

It is useful to explain the brain science behind growth mindset to students so they believe it will work. Some students have a fixed mindset built upon past experience or influenced by their parents or other teachers. To convince students of the benefit of developing a growth mindset, it is worth spending time on explaining how the brain works, using methods or analogy suitable for the age. For example, Dweck has developed online workshops for students and shown that these growth mindset workshops helped many of them to regain their motivation to learn.

Practical Applications

The above three strategies can be applied in different ways depending on the age of the students. Teaching students about neuroplasticity can be done as a standalone workshop for older students, or as a fun exercise for younger kids. Cullins (2018) provided an extensive list of activities that can be used in classroom, such as using analogy of learning as riding a bike, sharing amazing facts about the brain, or building a brain model. These engaging and interesting activities can convince students of the merits of growth mindset.

The intervention of making failure a learning opportunity can be applied when students do not do so well in a test or miss a project target. To turn such setback into a positive experience, teachers should discuss with students soon after the grade is given or the failure has happened. Self-reflection with action plan for next step is another way to keep students motivated. Lastly, teacher should always remember to praise efforts that lead to progress, even when passing minor comments such as praising their artwork or the tidiness of their desk. These growth mindset strategies should be used consistently and constantly and be truly adopted as the mindset of teachers as well as parents.

References

1. Cullins, A. (2018, August). How to Explain Growth Mindset to Kids: Neuroplasticity Activities. From https://biglifejournal.com/blogs/blog/teach-kids-growth-mindsetneuroplasticity-activities
2. Dweck, C. (2008). Brainology: Transforming Students’ Motivation to Learn https://www.mccd.edu/academics/englishliberalstudies/downloads/Brainology_85E.pdf
3. Ng B. (2018). The Neuroscience of Growth Mindset and Intrinsic Motivation. Brain sciences, 8(2), 20. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8020020
4. Gross-Loh, C. (2016). How Praise Became a Consolation Prize: Helping children confront challenges requires a more nuanced understanding of the “growth mindset.” The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/how-praise-became-aconsolation-prize/510845/
5. Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating cultures of thinking: The 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Introduction

This chapter contains the background of the study, statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, research objectives and research questions, significance of the study as well as the conceptual framework

Background of the study

An entrepreneurial mindset indicates a way of thinking about business and its opportunities that capture the benefits of uncertainty (Dhliwayo and Vuuren, 2007). According to Sedges (2007), it portrays the innovative search for opportunities and facilitates actions aimed at exploiting such opportunities.

Establishing an entrepreneurial mindset is important to sustain the competitiveness of economic organizations and the socioeconomic lifestyle of the population through value and job creation. This importance is portrayed in the sense that it enables supporters of new ideas to establish organizations with new valuable ideas, which are resourced and developed in an encouraging and enabling culture (Thompson, 2004). Ireland et al. (2003), focused on the need for future generation to be more entrepreneurial; that is, creative or innovative, with the ability to act on opportunities. This perspective tallies with their stipulation that “the successful future strategists will exploit an entrepreneurial mindset.

Many studies evidence that entrepreneurship is critically important for the economic prosperity of students (Bowen & Clercq, 2008; Katz, 2007; Kogut et al., 2010). Moreover, self-employment has significant positive economic impact not only on wage and salary scales but also on per capita income growth and poverty reduction (Goetz et al., 2012).

According to Beeka & Rimmington (2011), entrepreneurship is one of the career options students may consider shortly before or immediately after graduation.

For all these reasons, investigating the motives that drive graduating students to entrepreneurship is highly relevant (Zellweger et al. 2011).It is crucial to understand the factors that can impact upon such mindsets to start-up a business in the future. Individual factors that motivate a person’s decision to become an entrepreneur are numerous. In general, these factors can be problem solving, economic motivations curiosity and entrepreneurial training (Ashley-et al., 2009). To study antecedents of entrepreneurial mindset can help teachers, consultants, advisors and policy makers to know how new venture founders’ beliefs, perceptions, experiences, and motives impact the intent to start a business (Wang et al. 2011)

The objective of this study is to further investigate how entrepreneurial training, curiosity, economic motivations and problem solving influences the growth of entrepreneurial mindset of ANU students. Understanding entrepreneurial mindset will enable the students to investigate the dynamics of entrepreneurial venture.

According to Veciana et al. (2005), there is a consensus that the attitude towards entrepreneurial activity and its social function are the determinant factors for university students to decide an entrepreneurial career.

The rationale of this study is to emphasis on entrepreneurial processes that are aiming at promoting entrepreneurial behaviors of undergraduates of ANU. The outcomes of this research could be useful to policy makers to understand not only the pattern of relationships entrepreneurial mindset and the influencing factors, but also its implications for interventions and growth of entrepreneurial mindset among the students of Africa Nazarene University.

Statement of the problem

Bell, (2015) observed that much is known about the growth of entrepreneurship among the students, too little is known about the factors leading to the growth of entrepreneurial mindset among the university students. This little known about entrepreneurship made me to carry out this research proposal in order to address this problem and also try to explore remedies to this problems.

One of the most problem that triggered me to do this research was the increased unemployment among the fresh graduates and I felt if that if I do this research, i can help solve this problem among the graduates and also the undergraduate students by presenting factors that can attract them to start their own ventures.

Lack of entrepreneurship studies and clubs at Africa Nazarene University mostly triggered me to write this research proposal so as to address this issue to the university. Through introduction of entrepreneurship classes and clubs, will help the students have entrepreneurial mindset and apply the knowledge learned in class to begin their ventures.

Increased both unemployment and retrenchment among many fresh graduates also made me do this research proposal so as to create awareness to the undergraduates on what’s happening in the job market. Through creating this awareness, students will be able to acquire skills and knowledge in schools so as to be self-employed after school. Through creating their own ventures they will solve this issue of unemployment among graduates

The final and the most important problem that made me chose this topic of research is that there are very many market gaps within Nazarene university and through addressing the issue of these market gaps, students will be able to invest in them and earn returns and this will be a way of creating employment among the residents around Nazarene university.

If these problems are not addressed, many students may not be able to identify viable ideas or market gaps in future and if they they try to come up with any idea without knowing whether they are viable, they may end up starting the wrong businesses that has no consumers for the services of goods offered hence leading to the closure of the business.

This proposed research aspires to explore different factors that will help to curb these problems among the university students and also to encourage the university to work more on training the student so as to improve the student’s entrepreneurial mindset and also be able to come up with the ideas that are profitable in return.

Significance of the study

This research seeks to benefit scholars, government, entrepreneurs, and managers University students-These are individuals who have already committed their funds in higher learning institutions so as to get knowledge of entrepreneurship and become successful entrepreneurs in future. They will learn about the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and be able to come up with viable ideas in future.

The scholars: This study is helpful to scholars as it will contribute into the debate of how to boost the field of entrepreneurship in order to tap into the need that the economy has and also to provide a solution to the problem of unemployment. Much of the literature is focusing on the entrepreneurial intentions of university students in developed countries and this research can shed some light on the Entrepreneurial mindset of University students in developing countries like Kenya

Government: They include either central or county government and they will be able to come up appreciate policies to solve the problem of entrepreneurship within the country and also the government will be able to support the students with entrepreneurial mindset with either finances or marketing their goods and services. Though this, the government will have created more jobs for the youths in the country and through these jobs the government will be able to raise revenue through payment of taxes by the entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs: the information will also benefit them by improving their entrepreneurial mindsets so as to create more entrepreneurial opportunities in the country. They will also acquire knowledge on the factors that can lead to the growth of their entrepreneurial ideas.

Limitations of the study

This study will be limited only to Africa Nazarene University students. The sample size of this research will be based to ANU since it is the case study.

Inadequate time and finances resources needed carry out the study will be a limitation of this study. Because of the time and financial constraints, the study may not focus on other Universities students in Kenya.

The study also anticipates slow response from the targeted students due to their time constraints and some of them may be reluctant to provide the required information since they may not have enough knowledge of entrepreneurship and the little they know they may keep it as a secret so as to invest in those ideas in future.

Hypothesis

1. Entrepreneurial training significantly influences growth of entrepreneurship mindsets among students at Africa Nazarene University
2. There is a significant relationship between economic motivation and growth of entrepreneurship mindset among Africa Nazarene students.
3. Curiosity significantly affects growth of entrepreneurship mindset among Africa Nazarene university students.
4. Problem solving significantly affects the growth of entrepreneurship mindset of students at Africa Nazarene University

REFERENCES

1. Ashley-Cotleur, C, King, S, Solomon, G (2009). Parental and gender influences on entrepreneurial intentions, motivations and attitudes. George Washington University..
2. Beeka, BH, & Rimmington, M. (2011). Entrepreneurship as a career option for African youths. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 16(01), 145–164
3. Bell, R. 2015. “Developing the next Generation of Entrepreneurs: Giving Students the Opportunity to Gain Experience and Thrive.” The International Journal of Management Education 13 (1): 37–47.
4. Bowen, HP, & De Clercq, D. (2008). Institutional context and the allocation of entrepreneurial effort. Journal of International Business Studies, 39(4), 747–767
5. Dhliwayo S, Van Vuuren JJ (2007). ‘The strategic entrepreneurial thinking imperative.’ Acts Com., 7: 123-134.
6. Goetz, SJ, Fleming, DA, Rupasingha, A. (2012). The economic impacts of self-employment. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 44(03), 315–321.
7. Ireland RD, Hitt MA, Sirmon DG (2003). A model of strategic entrepreneurship: the construct and its dimensions. J. Manage., 29: 963–990.
8. Katz, JA (2007). Education and training in entrepreneurship. In JR Baum, M Frese, RA Baron (Eds.), The psychology of entrepreneurship, (pp. 209–235). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publisher
9. Kogut, CA, Short, LE, Wall, JL. (2010). Entrepreneurship: The basis for central European economic development. International Journal of Entrepreneurship, 14, 13–23.
10. Senges M (2007). Knowledge entrepreneurship in universities: practice and strategy of Internet based innovation appropriation. [WWW document]. URL http://knowledgeentrepreneur.com 29 May, 2010
11. Thompson JL (2004). The facets of the entrepreneur: Identifying entrepreneurial potential. Manage. Decis. 42(2): 243-258.
12. Veciana, J. M., Aponte, M., & Urbano, D. (2005). University students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship: A two countries comparison. The International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 1(2), 165-182.
13. Wang, W, Lu, W, Millington, JK. (2011). Determinants of entrepreneurial intention among college students in China and USA. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 1(1), 35–44.
14. Wilson, F., D. Marlino, & Kickul, J. (2004). Our entrepreneurial future: Examining the diverse attitudes and motivations of teens across gender and ethnic identity. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 9 (3): 177-197.
15. Zellweger, T, Sieger, P, Halter, F. (2011). Should I stay or should I go? Career choice intentions of students with family business background. Journal of Business Venturing, 26(5), 521–536.